Is A Liberal Arts Degree Worth My Time?

By Annie Highfield on March 4, 2013

By the end of this summer, I felt at the top of my game. I had finally declared my major, was about to start my junior year of college with a great GPA, and really felt like an upperclassman. Before heading to College Station, I decided to have lunch with an old friend to catch up. We reminisced and I was thoroughly enjoying myself. An elderly man saw I was wearing a Texas A&M shirt and approached me. He seemed very kind and told us all about the Aggies in his family. Then came the usual small talk question, “what are you studying?” which normally follows with an answer and a reaction along the lines of “oh that’s nice” or a “ah very good,” regardless of their true opinion. Upon giving my answer I was thrown off at the response “Communication? That’s no good. Waste of time.” My immediate thought was, “Why is this old man at Lubys’ giving me life advice? He doesn’t know me.” But soon after followed the somewhat suppressed thought “…is he right?” Are liberal arts degrees so worthless that students of liberal arts deserve to be the butt of every joke?

While there is no denying the high demand for applied subjects such as geology and engineering and the many benefits students gain in obtaining these degrees, believe it or not, there are benefits in going for liberal arts.

Happiness is so last century…

The question “what do you want to do when you get out of school?” can seem like a daunting one for a political science student compared to someone majoring in chemical engineering; but there’s a kind of beauty in the world of possibilities available to liberal arts students compared to that of an engineer. In a survey done by Cornell University, former students were asked a variety of questions based on their current jobs. Approximately 63% of arts graduates reported being employed in the business, legal and health fields with many others employed in creative and educational pursuits. Along with a wide variety of career choices, 82% of these students ranked themselves as more than satisfied with the development of their careers over time. Now this is not to say that engineers are any less satisfied with their career path or choices, it’s simply to show that obtaining a liberal arts degree does allow room for growth within your major choice and beyond that, having a flexible degree such as communication, can stretch its arms into a variety of fields from marketing to technical writing to business. It’s simply what you make of it.

And then the one with the liberal arts degree says “do you want fries with that?”…

But no one really hires the lowly humanities grad, right? Not necessarily… While technical careers obviously require a degree of competence for practical uses, a recent survey of two hundred plus employers showed that employers tend to hire employees based more on their communication abilities, attitudes and how they handle others. These ethical and communicative skills may sound fool proof, but they are learned intricacies that many hopeful employees take for granted when being interviewed. This survey also pays testament to the value of liberal arts among prospective employers. While 34% of the jobs being filled were in engineering or computer science, 30% were liberal arts based and surprisingly only 18% were in business or finance positions. Survey respondents also strongly agreed that leadership roles, involvement in campus life and work experience were monumental in the employees they took a second look at. So whether you’re an accounting major with a blank resume or a psychology major struggling to fit everything on there, no one is guaranteed a job.

Coming from a school that hosts one of the best engineering programs in the country, you cannot deny the force of technical careers that dominate the job market. And yes, there can be significant monetary gain in pursuing this field. But at the end of the day, you have to look at your strengths and what you really enjoy, as cliché as that may sound. I think Forbes contributors David Skorton and Glenn Altshuler summarize it best, “We believe that the world’s thorniest problems will not be solved—nor will our nation be secure—without an understanding of ethics, cultures other than our own, and what it means to be fully human. And we have seen first-hand that students who complete liberal arts degrees have deeply satisfying—and productive—personal and professional lives.”

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