“What’s Your Plan With An English Degree?”

Once upon a time, a humanities degree was a sign of well-rounded intelligence. These studies provide students with capabilities to not only understand hard sciences, but also, an ability to think deeply and critically, understand and analyze literature and historical text, examinations of societal problems through a sociological lens. However, the pendulum has recently swung in the opposite direction. In an increasingly technologically advanced world, the importance of a humanities education is being questioned. 

Time and time again, I’ve been asked: “What’s your plan with an English degree?” More often than not, this question has no ill intentions. A broad major – like English – provides a person with a lot of options as to how to proceed in the working world. However, in a world that increasingly values a STEM or business education over a humanities education, it’s hard not to assume that this question is laced with passive-aggressive undertones. 

Regardless of the field of study, it is now harder than ever to get a job. Students are spendings thousands of dollars on an undergraduate degree, just to have little-to-no success in finding a job in their discipline, providing the nation with an abundance of overqualified baristas at your local coffee shop and grocery-baggers at King Soopers. This rings specifically true with humanities majors. The significance we place on the humanities has been decreasing rapidly. The skills taught to humanities majors are seen as less and less useful as time goes on. After all, who needs to be able to analyze literature when we have SparkNotes?

However, as we move towards a world incentivizing education in business or STEM, I am here to play the devil’s advocate. I strongly believe a humanities education is just as important as any other scholarly pursuit. Sure, I’m biased. After all, I am pursuing bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and English. Yet I argue that the importance of the humanities should not be lost on anybody. Let’s start with the obvious jab against us humanities scholars: jobs in the humanities are far less likely to make as much money as STEM or business fields. However, that’s not to say that it’s not possible to make a living, comfortable wage in a humanities job. There are hundreds of professions that stem from humanities majors: lawyers, philosophers, sociologists, writers, teachers, professors, editors, legal-aids, politicians, amongst many others. When we take away emphasis from the humanities, is that to say these professions are unimportant? Does the importance of a profession directly correlate to how much money it makes? I think not.

Without the humanities, we lose so much. Many argue the professions of former humanities scholars will soon be replaced by artificial intelligence; however, I don’t think that’s completely true. I do not know what the future of technology will hold, but I believe we will never be able to truly emulate human thoughts, creativity and connection through artificial intelligence. 

I don’t know when it became so that skills taught in a humanities education were no longer deemed necessary, but without them, the future seems bleak. I cannot imagine a world where there is no longer beauty to be found in dissections of literature or a future in which critical thinking, social responsibility, and communication are no longer valued as important skills to have. Without the humanities, we would have no teachers. No artists or writers, no lawyers or school teachers. Who is expected to teach the next generation when fewer and fewer see the importance of the humanities? Who is going to defend you in court or write your favorite books? Who is going to inspire and create artistic expenditures? 

Maybe I’m destined to be a starving artist, living paycheck to paycheck in order to get by. Maybe my choices of majors are a sentence to a life of couch surfing in my siblings’ homes, or being a barista on the side of another job. So what? When did college education shift from creating well rounded scholars to creating grade A worker bees, ready to commit to their 9 to 5? Is there truly no longer value in pursuing education for the pure joy of learning what you love? Improving your skills in the field which brings you the most joy? So maybe I’ll get an English degree and become an ice cream scooper. Or maybe, just maybe, I’ll get an English degree and write the next great American novel. Maybe I’ll become a professor of literature or philosophy, or become a defense attorney. No matter the outcome, I am absolutely certain that I’ll find joy in knowing I spent my years of higher education nourishing my love for writing, reading and creating. 

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” 

—C.S. Lewis 

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