My impending liberal arts degree sometimes feels more like a death sentence than an honorable show of accomplishment. Incessant, clichéd jokes and troubling unemployment statistics make it difficult to be optimistic about a job market—and, by extension of my overactive brain, an entire future—that seems to be consistently and mercilessly crushing the lovers of liberal arts. As you may have surmised from my previous musings, I tend to worry a little and overanalyze a lot. My laughter at a “starving artist” joke is sharp, bitter and heavy with ironic dismay. I often experience vivid nightmares wherein I’m huddled on a cold city street (a la the Little Match Stick Girl) or—maybe even worse—spending an eternity at my current food service job. Though I’m being liberal with my hyperbole, the fears I have about financial stability are far from exaggerated. I have a propensity to dramatize my plight for the amusement of others, and I sometimes adopt a careless, blasé attitude in order to cope with my worries. This week, I’ve made a concerted effort to step back from my frequent fatalism and look at my future with more assuredness.
It’s been drilled into our brains that the only sure way to a steady job and financial stability is a degree in something “practical” like business, finance, engineering or medicine, while liberal and fine arts fields are seen as a bewildering path to unpredictability and failure. On countless occasions, I’ve heard business majors lauded for their “smart choice” while I’ve gotten snidely asked “What are you going to do with that?” It’s no small coincidence, I might add, that women are most often encouraged to pursue lib arts degrees, and tactfully steered away from STEM fields (science, technology, engineering or math), which has no small bearing on the continual devaluation of these fields. But I digress. Liberal arts degrees are so frequently degraded that students simply studying their interests are risk-takers, rolling the dice against the capricious and biased hand of fate.
Conversely, this great, unnamed “they” that decides the worthiness of certain majors assumes that all students pursuing STEM fields are bound for success. With more and more students opting out of the humanities, competition for STEM and business jobs becomes increasingly fierce and the unemployed applicant pool becomes a little more diverse. As it happens, the continual devaluation of the humanities has a lasting effect on more “practical” majors as well. Upon entering college, there are countless students who are aimlessly unsure of what subjects they’re passionate about, so in the interest of “practicality,” they choose a business or STEM field. Others would gladly study theatre, philosophy or art if not for the heavy disapproval of parents affected by this “practicality” mindset—parents who are often footing the university bill who want the most “bang for their buck.” Such a dangerous attitude corrodes and commodifies a college education, grouping majors in black and white terms that prevent any exploration or growth among students.
A university education is not job training; that’s why we apply to internships. It’s a furthering of one’s education, focused more closely on a particular student’s area of interest. No one is expected to graduate a perfect and ready employee. One explores fields, joins clubs and fights for causes whose purpose stems beyond one line on a resume, and the same applies to choosing a major. Students most often succeed when they are happy and eager to learn, so why is there such a virulent backlash against students who pursue their interests? Choosing a field of study out of expectation, pressure or fear will only find one lacking in success and happiness. As students are pushed into particular majors on the basis of post-grad success, college simply becomes another chore to be hastily rushed through. Grads are optimistic about “real life,” where they will finally be free of all that awful schoolwork, accepting jobs in fields they’re indifferent towards.
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