Are the Humanities Doomed?

[mamselle]

Thanks.

Maybe, too, the real question isn't about the doomed humanities as a study, but about what that dooms humanities scholars to...

Time to get those fishing poles out!!

;--}

M.

[FishProf]

Isn't it "Build a man a fire and he'll be warm al night; set a man on fire and he'll be warm the rest of his life"?

Maybe I'm paraphrasing...

[mamselle]

;--》

M.

[jimbogumbo]

The same old theme in WaPo today. "The most-regretted (and lowest-paying) college majors. Almost half of humanities and arts majors regret their choice — and enrollment in those disciplines is shrinking rapidly".

The story itself isn't all doom and gloom, but points in directions where there is growth and satisfied graduates.

On the upside, in the old vocational vs liberal-arts dimension, "A substantial majority of vocational and technical students (60 percent) wish they'd gone for more schooling".

One graph shows that humanities bachelor degrees have dropped from 9% in the 1980s to 7% today. that  is  a drop but hardly the cliff it is described as. Comater that to the burgeoning Computer Science which is up from 5% to 6 1/2%. That's right, the major that is blowing everything else out of the water has almost caught up with the humanities. (The last 10 years look worse, and there is a graph of that as well.)

I only skimmed the article and did a search/find on this material in the actual report.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2021-report-economic-well-being-us-households-202205.pdf

The commentary and graph with the information the article uses is found, I believe, on pages 75 and 76 of the report.

A quarter of the participants regret their engineering degrees----which I cannot see, knowing as many engineers as I have and knowing how much these people make----and then I notice that among everyone else between 32% and 48% wish they had studies something different. 

Geeze.  Roughly a third to a half of all fields have unhappy people (if this info is an accurate picture).

But I also notice this qualifier among the participants: "Among adults who completed at least some college who are not currently enrolled."  So we have people who have dropped out without a degree?

Nice response to this and similar articles: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/25/college-major-regret-student-debt/

[marshwiggle]

Nice response to this and similar articles: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/25/college-major-regret-student-debt/

From the article:

Delve deeper into the Federal Reserve report and one quote stands out: "Perceptions of higher education are linked to whether individuals had to borrow for their education, and whether the returns on their education were sufficient for them to repay their student loans."

It's the bad return on investment — or an ROI lower than expected — that's causing the deepest dissatisfaction.

What's not clear, and was probably not even asked, was what level of income the dissatisfied people would have considered a reasonable payoff. Obviously drowning in debt will make people regretful, but what would be good to know is what sort of lifestyle people expect to have whether they have debt or not.

[kaysixteen]

Good question.   I would also have liked to see the question: 'Did you obtain a professional position commensurate with your degree and expectations for that degeee?'

[MarathonRunner]

I guess in today's climate STEM fields don't have to worry too much about recruitment, as opposed to retention.

Actually, we have a very frustrating recruitment problem in that people who are very curious and capable often will settle on a humanities major very early in life and say nice things about science fan activities, but not then continue on the path to be, say, highly specialized engineers or engineering faculty.  Many of the people who could do very well in those areas are also very capable people in many other areas.  Even the very capable people who pick the broad category of STEM often go the medical route instead of an engineering route.

Instead, we have droves of folks who like the idea of a lot of money right out of college, but don't have either the passion to do something interesting or the diligence to plod along.  Thus, the retention problem we have at the college level isn't trying to keep people who never should have been in certain majors in the first place through graduation.  After all, even with huge attritions, we graduate many engineers every year.

The biggest retention problem discussed in areas I frequent is the women who complete an engineering BS and then go do something completely unrelated to engineering for their entire careers.  After all, if college major doesn't matter to the job, then someone who has a solid math background, some computer skills, and some work experience (not just a good GPA) is a great candidate for all kinds of jobs that rely more on personal interest, diligence, and willing to learn new things that often have liberal arts majors, but don't rely on in-depth specific knowledge.

One very readable article: https://hbr.org/2016/08/why-do-so-many-women-who-study-engineering-leave-the-field

That's me. Graduated top of my class from engineering. Hated the misogyny in the profession, so did a second bachelors in a healthcare profession, as well as a master's and now a PhD. I loved engineering (math, physics, engineering, calculus, programming) but hated the misogyny I encountered.

ABD in healthcare.

[Ruralguy]

I'm sorry you had to experience that. I witnessed a fair amount of misogyny in my subfield all the way from undergrad until past full prof., and all that time, many things actually got better, but still some men, even younger men, still can't seem to fully accept women in the field. Its very weird, and I don't get it. I can say that a lot of these men also didn't really appreciate most other men either, but their feelings toward women were worse.

[kaysixteen]

Hmmm... I hated the misandry in library school, and especially since library school over the years in library hiring circles, but I cannot do anything about it.   This sort of sad bias will likely regularly occur in any field that happens to be overwhelmingly dominated by one gender.   But I am open to suggestions.

[apl68]

Hmmm... I hated the misandry in library school, and especially since library school over the years in library hiring circles, but I cannot do anything about it.   This sort of sad bias will likely regularly occur in any field that happens to be overwhelmingly dominated by one gender.   But I am open to suggestions.

I wasn't going to say anything, but now that kay has brought it up...misandry is not unknown in the library profession.  I recall one occasion in particular when it was bad enough at a conference session that I and another male colleague quietly walked out.

In my experience, though, there's honestly not that much of it.  I'm sure that women in some professions have had to deal with a lot worse.  Men in the library profession can sometimes feel like the odd man out because we, you know, are men, but actual gender-based disrespect or insensitivity is rare in my experience.

[MarathonRunner]

I will add, all of my education has been in Canada. During my undergraduate degree in engineering, the only humanities courses I completed were two French courses (I had completed French immersion in high school, so these came naturally), both of which were free electives (so could have been anything outside of engineering) and a required history of science course. No gen ed. My second undergrad degree, in a health care profession, my only humanities course was a free elective, and I chose Introduction to Ancient Rome, as I had always been fascinated with the ancient Romans. Again, no gen ed, just electives and restricted electives. Yet I had profs, in both degrees, praise me for my writing, despite never have taken a comp course. I did graduate at the top of my large (>1000 graduates) high school.

My undergrad, masters, and PhD universities have all had variations of biology, chemistry, physics, calculus, statistics, anatomy, physiology,  and nutrition, depending on whether one was majoring in the subject or an adjacent subject, or whether one just needed basic knowledge. So people with kinesiology, dietetics, biomedicine majors take  the "intense" physiology, whereas biomedical engineers and gerontology majors take the "light" physiology. Engineering, physics, and some chemistry majors take the calculus-based physics. Bio and some psych/neuro take the algebra based physics. Two organic chemistry courses as well, one for the chemistry majors, the other for all the other majors that need basic org chemistry to get to biochemistry.

[MarathonRunner]

Hmmm... I hated the misandry in library school, and especially since library school over the years in library hiring circles, but I cannot do anything about it.   This sort of sad bias will likely regularly occur in any field that happens to be overwhelmingly dominated by one gender.   But I am open to suggestions.

I'm sorry you experienced that. I admire the women in engineering who could deal with the misogyny, but I chose a different route since I was a good student with scholarships available to pay my tuition. As working class, I wouldn't have been able to pursue any higher education without scholarships. I'm also first gen, so still, as a PhD candidate, have to navigate through things that others take for granted. I'm fortunate to have had my studies funded through scholarships. I'm extremely glad I found a profession that didn't automatically discount me due to my gender. I still treasure my engineering education, especially when there are, to me, rather simple calculations to make, but others struggle. (No. I'm not in nursing but another health care profession)

[kaysixteen]

For clarification, the libraryland misandry I am referring to is mostly the occasional overt, explicitly stated biases against male applicants in library hiring situations.   I have personal experience with three such job appls, where variations on the question of 'how would you deal with all the women around here', were asked.   In the most recent case, from 2019, I applied for a position as asst director of a rural pl in a town near my city.   I was interviewed... in the town manager's office, with him, the 60-something female library director,  the town HR director, and an elderly man who sat on the library board.   They had a list of questions to ask me, each having a copy and going around the table asking questions in turn.   After this, they gave me the standard opp to ask questions of my own, and then the director asked me if she could ask me a question not on the list.  I said yes, of course, and then she asked me how I would deal with having a female boss.   I started to answer (saying that I have had such bosses before and no problem, etc.), but before I finished, the town manager, who looked like he was having a stroke, told her she could not ask such a question and I was not to answer it.   I got up very early that day to go to this interview.  Ah well.

[Wahoo Redux]

IHE Opinion: Humanities Majors Should Pay Lower Tuition

...commentators have missed an essential part of the picture, namely the structure of tuition fees in most American universities. By this I don't simply mean the astronomical costs of tuition—although this is also clearly a problem—but the fact that universities don't routinely price tuition for different majors in relation to what it actually costs to educate a student in any given discipline.

[marshwiggle]

IHE Opinion: Humanities Majors Should Pay Lower Tuition

...commentators have missed an essential part of the picture, namely the structure of tuition fees in most American universities. By this I don't simply mean the astronomical costs of tuition—although this is also clearly a problem—but the fact that universities don't routinely price tuition for different majors in relation to what it actually costs to educate a student in any given discipline.

Be careful for what you wish for. Bigger class sizes then become the easy way to lower tuition. Huge classes ---> free tuition. Is that really what the writer wants?

ETA: Autograded assignments means lower costs than hand-graded. Hand-graded (especially by the prof) means higher cost. Think of which disciplines fall into each category.......