New Yorker article "The End of the English Major"

[Langue_doc]

The article is probably behind a paywall, but I couldn't paste the article here because it exceeded the maximum allowed length.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/the-end-of-the-english-major

[downer]

The article is probably behind a paywall, but I couldn't paste the article here because it exceeded the maximum allowed length.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/the-end-of-the-english-major

Here's why the article is so long: here is a little part of it.

Greenblatt popped open a green egg of Silly Putty and began to knead it vigorously. For a moment, he seemed lost in thought.

" 'Better Call Saul,' " he added.

Who has the time to read this self-indulgence? It's like a parody of a New Yorker article.

[marshwiggle]

Here's what seems to me like an unintentionally ironic quote:

On campus, I met many students who might have been moved by these virtues but felt pulled toward other pursuits. Luiza Monti, a senior, had come to college as a well-rounded graduate of a charter school in Phoenix. She had fallen in love with Italy during a summer exchange and fantasized about Italian language and literature, but was studying business—specifically, an interdisciplinary major called Business (Language and Culture), which incorporated Italian coursework. "It's a safeguard thing," Monti, who wore earrings from a jewelry business founded by her mother, a Brazilian immigrant, told me. "There's an emphasis on who is going to hire you."

Blinding flash of the obvious. (Important note: She managed to work in her interest in Italian with something else (business, in this case), that would help her to get employed. This is a perfectly rational strategy of how to fits one's interest into a bigger picture.)

[apl68]

Looking forward to reading this in a couple of weeks, when our library's print subscription to New Yorker eventually arrives.  Assuming this issue makes it.  Self-indulgent or not--and I definitely get what downer's talking about--their articles usually provide some useful food for thought about their subjects.

[ciao_yall]

Subscriber here - PM me and I'll send you a PDF.

[lilyb]

The essay has sent me into a depression. The quotes from students claiming that it would be irresponsible to study literature, it should be kept a "hobby," etc., were especially dispiriting.

[Larimar]

The essay has sent me into a depression. The quotes from students claiming that it would be irresponsible to study literature, it should be kept a "hobby," etc., were especially dispiriting.

Me too.

These days, it's like STEM is all that matters in the world, never mind what people's actual interests and talents are. Students have internalized "you can't get a job in that" about everything else. Yes, STEM fields matter, but they are not the only things that should matter.

[pondering]

The essay has sent me into a depression. The quotes from students claiming that it would be irresponsible to study literature, it should be kept a "hobby," etc., were especially dispiriting.

Me too.

These days, it's like STEM is all that matters in the world, never mind what people's actual interests and talents are. Students have internalized "you can't get a job in that" about everything else. Yes, STEM fields matter, but they are not the only things that should matter.

I don't think the "everything else" part is quite true. I've seen the statistics for graduations by major for my university (large public R1) and engineering and computer science, while in the top 5, are below Bachelor's degrees in psychology and business ("integrated business" and marketing). I've also seen post-graduation stats, and psychology grads (the most popular major) make less money and are more likely to be unemployed than historians, literature majors, and philosophers. The real problem is that the "brand" of humanities in particular has been trashed, and the endless "humanities are doomed" news articles compound and perpetuate the problem. Meanwhile, students are merrily acquiring an equally nebulous, not-directly-employment-related skillset in other disciplines which nevertheless thrive, because they don't have this negative aura.

[mythbuster]

It's an interesting article that covers much more about current higher-ed than just the decline in traditional humanities majors. My first thought, ironically, was that it needed serious editing to increase clarity.
  The comment by the Harvard prof that she had students who struggle with the sentence structure in The Scarlet Letter was demoralizing.

As always, none of these type of articles ever come close to touching the core question of how many humanities majors is a good number to have? I also wonder how many of the previous generations English majors are now Creative Writing, Journalism, or World Literature majors that are not being accounted for in a strict count. The proliferation of interdisciplinary programs and majors of all flavors in general certainly makes this hard to track. I don't think it's a bad thing, just not something that is fully accounted for.

[Wahoo Redux]

Here's what seems to me like an unintentionally ironic quote:

On campus, I met many students who might have been moved by these virtues but felt pulled toward other pursuits. Luiza Monti, a senior, had come to college as a well-rounded graduate of a charter school in Phoenix. She had fallen in love with Italy during a summer exchange and fantasized about Italian language and literature, but was studying business—specifically, an interdisciplinary major called Business (Language and Culture), which incorporated Italian coursework. "It's a safeguard thing," Monti, who wore earrings from a jewelry business founded by her mother, a Brazilian immigrant, told me. "There's an emphasis on who is going to hire you."

Blinding flash of the obvious. (Important note: She managed to work in her interest in Italian with something else (business, in this case), that would help her to get employed. This is a perfectly rational strategy of how to fits one's interest into a bigger picture.)

The undying myth of the people who don't look at facts.

[Wahoo Redux]

The real problem is that the "brand" of humanities in particular has been trashed, and the endless "humanities are doomed" news articles compound and perpetuate the problem. Meanwhile, students are merrily acquiring an equally nebulous, not-directly-employment-related skillset in other disciplines which nevertheless thrive, because they don't have this negative aura.

I've been saying this for some time now.  Somewhere way back there we looked at the actual stats.  They are easy to find.  It's ironic that the cyber generation is so uninformed with info at their fingertips.

Occupational Handbook

Mansfield U: Facts and Figures

Employment statistics for English majors differ little from other fields. Immediately after graduation, English majors report 9.8% unemployment, compared to 8.8% in psychology and social work, 9.1% in computer science and math, 10.4% in economics, and 11.1% in political science. Over time, however, employers tend to prefer liberal arts grads ("The Best Argument for Studying English? The Employment Numbers," The Atlantic, June 2013).

Over time, English majors have about the same average earnings as Communications majors, and business majors have only slightly higher earnings (ADE-ADFL, Hamilton Project of the Brookings Group, The Economic Value of College Majors, Payscale Inc.).

And there are a number of other points that the website makes.

There are many others and they are easy to find.  Show us you can find and think about them, Marshy.

[dismalist]

I was able to get behind the paywall [last free article] and read the whole thing. I don't think it said anything generalizable. My Life in English, really.

Wahoo brings up a good point about incomes for different majors -- many ain't all that different. This is exactly what one would expect where majors do not differ much in necessary ability and people don't differ much in innate or acquired ability, and employers do not differ much in their evaluation of the usefulness of these majors. Students expect all this wage stuff, and they sort themselves into jobs which pay what they want, given other characteristics of the job.

So, broadly speaking, when all these conditions hold, quantity adjusts, and you see the same wage. Engineers earn more and so do future Noble physics laureates. These are fields that require some skills not widely available. If we were all Math geniuses, watch STEM salaries go down the tubes.

[downer]

Once AI starts doing the math, the role for the humans will be reduced. But we have a few years to wait yet.

[marshwiggle]

The real problem is that the "brand" of humanities in particular has been trashed, and the endless "humanities are doomed" news articles compound and perpetuate the problem. Meanwhile, students are merrily acquiring an equally nebulous, not-directly-employment-related skillset in other disciplines which nevertheless thrive, because they don't have this negative aura.

I've been saying this for some time now.  Somewhere way back there we looked at the actual stats.  They are easy to find.  It's ironic that the cyber generation is so uninformed with info at their fingertips.

Occupational Handbook

Mansfield U: Facts and Figures

Employment statistics for English majors differ little from other fields. Immediately after graduation, English majors report 9.8% unemployment, compared to 8.8% in psychology and social work, 9.1% in computer science and math, 10.4% in economics, and 11.1% in political science. Over time, however, employers tend to prefer liberal arts grads ("The Best Argument for Studying English? The Employment Numbers," The Atlantic, June 2013).

Over time, English majors have about the same average earnings as Communications majors, and business majors have only slightly higher earnings (ADE-ADFL, Hamilton Project of the Brookings Group, The Economic Value of College Majors, Payscale Inc.).

And there are a number of other points that the website makes.

There are many others and they are easy to find.  Show us you can find and think about them, Marshy.

My point (as I've stated on here many times) is that good students who are studying what they're passionate about will do fine. The students who are middle-of-the-road academically, and don't know what they want to do, are not likely to do very well whatever they choose if they're just going through the motions. (And of course people who don't have the skills or inclination for math aren't likely to succeed in STEM either.)

TLDR; If students have something they're really passionate about, they will probably do fine. If they don't have something like that, they should look at whatever they are least opposed to that has reasonable liklihood of employment for them.

[apl68]

My point (as I've stated on here many times) is that good students who are studying what they're passionate about will do fine. The students who are middle-of-the-road academically, and don't know what they want to do, are not likely to do very well whatever they choose if they're just going through the motions. (And of course people who don't have the skills or inclination for math aren't likely to succeed in STEM either.)

TLDR; If students have something they're really passionate about, they will probably do fine. If they don't have something like that, they should look at whatever they are least opposed to that has reasonable liklihood of employment for them.

And see, that's what makes me feel the saddest about the dramatic decline in humanities majors.  Many of those thousands of "missing" humanities majors are undoubtedly majoring instead in fields that they have little or no interest in.  In some cases they've probably walked away from studying the humanities field that interests them for something that they actually feel miserable studying, simply because they and their parents are convinced that majoring in the field they actually like would destroy forever any chance of earning a decent living.  Which we all know is a crock--studies have repeatedly shown that humanities grads generally do okay in the job market, as long as they're prepared to be open-minded about what sorts of fields they work in. 

It's something of a tragedy that students who'd probably do well as humanities majors, instead of spending four years studying something they like and perhaps being all the more engaged and developing stronger skills for it, are instead trying to force themselves into something they don't really want to do.  Over on the Teaching forum we hear regular complaints about students who are hopelessly checked out.  Maybe some of these checked out students would do better if they felt free to major in something they were actually interested in.  But very few students feel that way any longer.  It's hurting them, and it's hurting higher ed as a whole.  The loss of so many humanities programs nationwide is reducing the options that students as a whole have available to them.  It's impoverishing high ed.