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> Humanities specialists argue that these majors open up higher-earning opportunities later in life because they don’t lock students into a narrow programming l

> Humanities specialists argue that these majors open up higher-earning opportunities later in life because they don’t lock students into a narrow programming language, certification or career path. The critical thinking taught in humanities courses allows students to adapt to jobs that may not have existed when they enrolled in college. I've experienced the exact opposite with that, that often those with humanities specialization are the least able to think critically and most likely to inject personal biases. They often adapt to another job not because they have some edge but more because their unable to pay bills and forcing yourself to learn something is very easy when the alternative is starvation. Further this points to the ugly truth, a college degree doesn't matter any more than your HS GPA, the important part is you have it. It serves simply as an easy way for employers to filter people out when attempting to determine who to hire. It functionally serves as an easy way to vets large swathes of people.

mmartinson 4y ago
> Humanities specialists argue that these majors open up higher-earning opportunities later in life because they don’t lock students into a narrow programming language, certification or career path. The critical thinking taught in humanities courses allows students to adapt to jobs that may not have existed when they enrolled in college. I've experienced this exactly. I have a philosophy degree. I floundered a bit career-wise post undergrad, self-studied for a practical entry vector into a programming job, and 8 years later have a super rewarding career as a software engineer. I felt my humanities undergrad, especially the critical thinking and writing skills I developed, have helped me advance much more quickly. If I were to change anything, I would have liked to do a CS minor.
- lapcat 4y ago
  I'm confused by this exchange. buscoquadnary: "often those with humanities specialization are the least able to think critically" mmartinson: "I've experienced this exactly... I felt my humanities undergrad, especially the critical thinking and writing skills I developed, have helped me advance much more quickly." My own opinion is that buscoquadnary's claim is merely anecdotal impression and doesn't hold up to empirical generalization. I'm not even claiming that humanities graduates are better at critical thinking, only that I've seen no evidence that they're worse than others. I've seen a lot of people in tech who are not particularly good at critical thinking.
  - anamexis 4y ago
    mmartinson quoted the part of the article agreeing with their statement.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      Ah, you're right, thanks. I kind of skipped over the quoted part, because I had just read the comment that it was replying to. Though I'm still confused why mmartinson's reply didn't more directly address the previous comment, if it was meant as a refutation.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - FreakLegion 4y ago
        Easier to see if you put them side by side. buscoquadnary: [quotes article]. I've experienced the exact opposite. mmartinson: [replies with quote repeated]. I've experienced this exactly.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  To be fair I'd say it depends on the major (and on the school) I'd say there are more "modern" humanities majors (not naming them - but you can say it's "underwater basket weaving") that sound pretty much just a guide for "wokism" I feel that the more traditional (and wider field) humanities, like Philosophy, Sociology, History (or even literature) etc might give a more useful knowledge base
  - crackercrews 4y ago
    This would make sense since the X-Studies majors consider lived experience to be an important source of evidence. This makes it easy to disagree with someone based on what you have experienced or felt in your life. It does not require logical thought or a nuanced understanding of what the other person is saying. You can shut down an argument by saying you have felt differently or you feel the conversation is threatening you in some way. It's no surprise that students whose training validates this way of thinking do not end up having strong reasoning skills.
- swatcoder 4y ago
  Any chance your philosophy degree was rooted in the analytic tradition most popular in english-language philosophy departments? It focuses specifically on logical analysis and argumentation and took over anglo departments so thoroughly that many students seemed to forget that other traditions even existed. It aspired to demonstrate that philosophy can have the idealized rigor of math or at least the empirical legitimacy of a science, and generally rejected the creative and interpretive analytical practices of literature and history. While still often in the "humanities" school in many places, it's usually an outlier in what it teaches.
  - nodogoto 4y ago
- pdabbadabba 4y ago
  I've had the same experience. My undergrad philosophy degree was very valuable in transforming me into both a more rigorous and more flexible thinker. But I'm not sure how well our experiences generalize. In order for this to work, I think you need to have been a serious student in a decent program. It could be that humanities programs do a lot for undergrads who take them seriously, but also offer a way to skate through without developing many skills (or, at worst, developing affirmatively bad habits) for those who do not . Philosophy may also be distinct from other humanities since western analytic philosophy tends to be weirdly technical (if that is what the program was focused on). I'd argue that this is a great fault for the field as a whole, but a boon for undergraduates who want to use these intellectual tools to do other things.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
> I've experienced the exact opposite with that, that often those with humanities specialization are the least able to think critically and most likely to inject personal biases. Agree. It appears that the modern humanities curriculum emphasizes group think over critical thinking.
stuckinhell 4y ago
I have had the EXACT same experience with humanities majors. I actively avoid hiring anyone from those on my teams even with bootcamp experience. The best employees I've had are from technically focused universities with some kind of STEM background.
- lapcat 4y ago
  I was a philosophy major, and my former coworker who is now on the Swift Runtime team at Apple was an English major. I would recommend reconsidering whether this bias is just based on your anecdotal data. Also, I would recommend not bragging publicly about this bias, for legal reasons. Do your bosses know that you actively discriminate against humanities majors, and are they ok with that? Is it company policy? Do the public job postings say that humanities degrees do not meet the job requirements? Your comment does suggest that humanities majors are applying for jobs at the company.
  - stuckinhell 4y ago
    We have official human resources policies that back up our hiring practices after a series of poor hires.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      What's the policy exactly? Do the job postings have specific degree requirements?
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    I agree that it is unwise to blanket-reject any humanities major. But I'm at a loss for what legal reasons you are referring to (IAAL). Although political party/activity is a protected attribute in some states, I don't think college major is protected anywhere. I can't imagine that it could be protected, since nearly every employer filters applicants based on major for at least some jobs. The only argument I could imagine is that major is a proxy for political belief, and that using it as a pretense is illegal. This would be pretty tough to prove, especially since many people who major in STEM disciplines are politically aligned with humanities majors. What am I missing here?
Julesman 4y ago
Just because I majored in Sociology doesn't mean my web coding is Marxist. :)
- buscoquadnary 4y ago
  Q. What is a Marxists favorite programming paradigm? A. Functional Programming because it has no state.
  - kazinator 4y ago
    A: Functional Programming, because it lies about having no state.
peanutcrisis 4y ago
The description of "being locked into a narrow programming language" really doesn't help the case of the author. What does it mean for a programming language to be "narrow"? That also implies a conflation of programming methodology with programming languages, which really hurts the author's case since they don't really know their facts when they're arguing for how the humanities supposedly makes one more "versatile", relative to someone coming from STEM. It's also a poor reflection of their rigour when it comes to "critical thought".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kazinator 4y ago
  The author seems to overlook that people with majors STEM have decent backgrounds in humanities, because they still take the courses and maybe even minor in something in the humanities. You might be able to get through some vocational school without an exposure to topics not related to the intended job, but the university experience is much better rounded regardless of what people major in. Likewise, humanities majors earn their science credits. The humanities contains hard disciplines. Mathematics is categorized in the humanities. So is philosophy, and universities tend to teach logic under the umbrella of philosophy. Philosophy, math, logic: all brutal at the third and fourth year levels.
  - cercatrova 4y ago
    How is mathematics categorized in the humanities when it's literally the M in STEM?
    - kazinator 4y ago
      That's the way it is. Math is one of the Liberal Arts, going back centuries, whereas the STEM acronym is recent. That said, some schools offer degrees under science---if you major in math, you get a B.S.. Whereas in others you get a B.A. By one measure of what is a Liberal Art, people with math degrees can be just as unemployable as historians or political scientists. The question is what's the M doing in STEM, really, besides completing a pronounceable dictionary word. For instance, in the phrase "STEM jobs", only the STE are jobs; nobody works in mathematics, as such, other than academics.
twblalock 4y ago
College education does matter for a lot of careers. Good luck learning electrical engineering or structural engineering on the job, for example. That might have been possible 100 years ago but many industries are far too complex for that today. This is precisely why STEM degrees are more valuable: they are not just credentials; they are backed by a set of job skills that employers need. Is the value of a humanities or art degree mainly signaling? Yes, in most cases. But not all degrees are like that.
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  The words "a lot" and "careers" are doing an awful lot of work here. Has anyone quantified this statement beyond looking at job postings for degree requirements? I'm not convinced that actual requirements for a lot of jobs have actually increased in the past 30-40 years, at least not in a way that would be met by a typical 4 year college education. My hypothesis is that employers just started seeing resumes with degrees becoming increasingly common, and just started tossing out those without, similar to what happens with high school diplomas. I'm also not entirely convinced that the "college grad wage premium" is entirely, or even mostly due to having a college degree. I suspect that a significant number of those benefitting from said premium would probably find a way to earn more than the median high school graduate anyway. Granted I am not terribly familiar with research in this particular area, so I'd appreciate a correction if I'm on the wrong track.
bovermyer 4y ago
I would argue that an engineer responsible for designing bridges to not kill people fifty years from now better damn well have a college-level understanding of their craft. College education isn't just some kind of societal gateway, though it is also that.
silicon2401 4y ago
I think it's simpler: if you're able to get a degree, you're already intelligent to some extent. That intelligence is then trained by having education in general. The difference is if you chose a major without good career prospects, you basically just have to do additional work to get the idealism out of your system and come around to a practical field. All these philosophy, sociology, literature, etc majors didn't need the major to switch into STEM etc, they were always ready for it. They just had to accept that the humanities weren't going to give them the life they wanted.
xkcd-sucks 4y ago
It's interesting that humanities training (at least history, political science, languages) seems to be important in the military, at least for leadership and some specialist roles

mmartinson 4y ago

> Humanities specialists argue that these majors open up higher-earning opportunities later in life because they don’t lock students into a narrow programming language, certification or career path. The critical thinking taught in humanities courses allows students to adapt to jobs that may not have existed when they enrolled in college. I've experienced this exactly. I have a philosophy degree. I floundered a bit career-wise post undergrad, self-studied for a practical entry vector into a programming job, and 8 years later have a super rewarding career as a software engineer. I felt my humanities undergrad, especially the critical thinking and writing skills I developed, have helped me advance much more quickly. If I were to change anything, I would have liked to do a CS minor.

lapcat 4y ago
I'm confused by this exchange. buscoquadnary: "often those with humanities specialization are the least able to think critically" mmartinson: "I've experienced this exactly... I felt my humanities undergrad, especially the critical thinking and writing skills I developed, have helped me advance much more quickly." My own opinion is that buscoquadnary's claim is merely anecdotal impression and doesn't hold up to empirical generalization. I'm not even claiming that humanities graduates are better at critical thinking, only that I've seen no evidence that they're worse than others. I've seen a lot of people in tech who are not particularly good at critical thinking.
- anamexis 4y ago
  mmartinson quoted the part of the article agreeing with their statement.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    Ah, you're right, thanks. I kind of skipped over the quoted part, because I had just read the comment that it was replying to. Though I'm still confused why mmartinson's reply didn't more directly address the previous comment, if it was meant as a refutation.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - FreakLegion 4y ago
      Easier to see if you put them side by side. buscoquadnary: [quotes article]. I've experienced the exact opposite. mmartinson: [replies with quote repeated]. I've experienced this exactly.
raverbashing 4y ago
To be fair I'd say it depends on the major (and on the school) I'd say there are more "modern" humanities majors (not naming them - but you can say it's "underwater basket weaving") that sound pretty much just a guide for "wokism" I feel that the more traditional (and wider field) humanities, like Philosophy, Sociology, History (or even literature) etc might give a more useful knowledge base
- crackercrews 4y ago
  This would make sense since the X-Studies majors consider lived experience to be an important source of evidence. This makes it easy to disagree with someone based on what you have experienced or felt in your life. It does not require logical thought or a nuanced understanding of what the other person is saying. You can shut down an argument by saying you have felt differently or you feel the conversation is threatening you in some way. It's no surprise that students whose training validates this way of thinking do not end up having strong reasoning skills.
swatcoder 4y ago
Any chance your philosophy degree was rooted in the analytic tradition most popular in english-language philosophy departments? It focuses specifically on logical analysis and argumentation and took over anglo departments so thoroughly that many students seemed to forget that other traditions even existed. It aspired to demonstrate that philosophy can have the idealized rigor of math or at least the empirical legitimacy of a science, and generally rejected the creative and interpretive analytical practices of literature and history. While still often in the "humanities" school in many places, it's usually an outlier in what it teaches.
- nodogoto 4y ago
pdabbadabba 4y ago
I've had the same experience. My undergrad philosophy degree was very valuable in transforming me into both a more rigorous and more flexible thinker. But I'm not sure how well our experiences generalize. In order for this to work, I think you need to have been a serious student in a decent program. It could be that humanities programs do a lot for undergrads who take them seriously, but also offer a way to skate through without developing many skills (or, at worst, developing affirmatively bad habits) for those who do not . Philosophy may also be distinct from other humanities since western analytic philosophy tends to be weirdly technical (if that is what the program was focused on). I'd argue that this is a great fault for the field as a whole, but a boon for undergraduates who want to use these intellectual tools to do other things.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago

> I've experienced the exact opposite with that, that often those with humanities specialization are the least able to think critically and most likely to inject personal biases. Agree. It appears that the modern humanities curriculum emphasizes group think over critical thinking.

stuckinhell 4y ago

I have had the EXACT same experience with humanities majors. I actively avoid hiring anyone from those on my teams even with bootcamp experience. The best employees I've had are from technically focused universities with some kind of STEM background.

lapcat 4y ago
I was a philosophy major, and my former coworker who is now on the Swift Runtime team at Apple was an English major. I would recommend reconsidering whether this bias is just based on your anecdotal data. Also, I would recommend not bragging publicly about this bias, for legal reasons. Do your bosses know that you actively discriminate against humanities majors, and are they ok with that? Is it company policy? Do the public job postings say that humanities degrees do not meet the job requirements? Your comment does suggest that humanities majors are applying for jobs at the company.
- stuckinhell 4y ago
  We have official human resources policies that back up our hiring practices after a series of poor hires.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    What's the policy exactly? Do the job postings have specific degree requirements?
- gnicholas 4y ago
  I agree that it is unwise to blanket-reject any humanities major. But I'm at a loss for what legal reasons you are referring to (IAAL). Although political party/activity is a protected attribute in some states, I don't think college major is protected anywhere. I can't imagine that it could be protected, since nearly every employer filters applicants based on major for at least some jobs. The only argument I could imagine is that major is a proxy for political belief, and that using it as a pretense is illegal. This would be pretty tough to prove, especially since many people who major in STEM disciplines are politically aligned with humanities majors. What am I missing here?

Julesman 4y ago

Just because I majored in Sociology doesn't mean my web coding is Marxist. :)

buscoquadnary 4y ago
Q. What is a Marxists favorite programming paradigm? A. Functional Programming because it has no state.
- kazinator 4y ago
  A: Functional Programming, because it lies about having no state.

peanutcrisis 4y ago

The description of "being locked into a narrow programming language" really doesn't help the case of the author. What does it mean for a programming language to be "narrow"? That also implies a conflation of programming methodology with programming languages, which really hurts the author's case since they don't really know their facts when they're arguing for how the humanities supposedly makes one more "versatile", relative to someone coming from STEM. It's also a poor reflection of their rigour when it comes to "critical thought".

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kazinator 4y ago
The author seems to overlook that people with majors STEM have decent backgrounds in humanities, because they still take the courses and maybe even minor in something in the humanities. You might be able to get through some vocational school without an exposure to topics not related to the intended job, but the university experience is much better rounded regardless of what people major in. Likewise, humanities majors earn their science credits. The humanities contains hard disciplines. Mathematics is categorized in the humanities. So is philosophy, and universities tend to teach logic under the umbrella of philosophy. Philosophy, math, logic: all brutal at the third and fourth year levels.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  How is mathematics categorized in the humanities when it's literally the M in STEM?
  - kazinator 4y ago
    That's the way it is. Math is one of the Liberal Arts, going back centuries, whereas the STEM acronym is recent. That said, some schools offer degrees under science---if you major in math, you get a B.S.. Whereas in others you get a B.A. By one measure of what is a Liberal Art, people with math degrees can be just as unemployable as historians or political scientists. The question is what's the M doing in STEM, really, besides completing a pronounceable dictionary word. For instance, in the phrase "STEM jobs", only the STE are jobs; nobody works in mathematics, as such, other than academics.

twblalock 4y ago

College education does matter for a lot of careers. Good luck learning electrical engineering or structural engineering on the job, for example. That might have been possible 100 years ago but many industries are far too complex for that today. This is precisely why STEM degrees are more valuable: they are not just credentials; they are backed by a set of job skills that employers need. Is the value of a humanities or art degree mainly signaling? Yes, in most cases. But not all degrees are like that.

actually_a_dog 4y ago
The words "a lot" and "careers" are doing an awful lot of work here. Has anyone quantified this statement beyond looking at job postings for degree requirements? I'm not convinced that actual requirements for a lot of jobs have actually increased in the past 30-40 years, at least not in a way that would be met by a typical 4 year college education. My hypothesis is that employers just started seeing resumes with degrees becoming increasingly common, and just started tossing out those without, similar to what happens with high school diplomas. I'm also not entirely convinced that the "college grad wage premium" is entirely, or even mostly due to having a college degree. I suspect that a significant number of those benefitting from said premium would probably find a way to earn more than the median high school graduate anyway. Granted I am not terribly familiar with research in this particular area, so I'd appreciate a correction if I'm on the wrong track.

bovermyer 4y ago

I would argue that an engineer responsible for designing bridges to not kill people fifty years from now better damn well have a college-level understanding of their craft. College education isn't just some kind of societal gateway, though it is also that.

silicon2401 4y ago

I think it's simpler: if you're able to get a degree, you're already intelligent to some extent. That intelligence is then trained by having education in general. The difference is if you chose a major without good career prospects, you basically just have to do additional work to get the idealism out of your system and come around to a practical field. All these philosophy, sociology, literature, etc majors didn't need the major to switch into STEM etc, they were always ready for it. They just had to accept that the humanities weren't going to give them the life they wanted.

xkcd-sucks 4y ago

It's interesting that humanities training (at least history, political science, languages) seems to be important in the military, at least for leadership and some specialist roles