Column: What makes an undergraduate degree “worthless?”

Humanities and social science degrees across U.S. universities and colleges are repeatedly pigeonholed as useless undergraduate focuses, known to require a few extra years of classes to make any significant entry into the job market. But while some data would affirm a decline in enrollment into qualitative degree fields over the past decade or so, this narrative of “uselessness” may be at fault for skewing students’ perspectives.

In an article published by The Atlantic in August of last year, assistant professor of history at Northeastern University Benjamin Schmidt speculates that students “aren’t fleeing degrees with poor job prospects” but are steering clear of the humanities because “they think they have poor job prospects.”

This repetitive and disenfranchising narrative has a lot of faces. Maybe one is a family member who doesn’t think you’ll be able to make a sustainable living with your bachelor’s in history. Or maybe one is a friend, convinced their business degree will afford them extra protection from a bloated and unforgiving job market. One of those faces might have even belonged to a high school teacher or college professor.

But fortunately for me – and maybe for you – they might be wrong.

While working as a technology reporter for Forbes from 2012 to 2016, George Anders talked to hiring managers at some of the biggest tech companies and found that administrators at Uber and Opentable were hiring psychology and English majors to deal directly with riders, drivers, and restauranteurs. When asked by BBC’s Amanda Ruggeri to nail down the most “job market-ready skills” of humanities graduates, he’s able to list three as the top qualifiers: “Creativity, curiosity, and empathy.”

Being able to critically think about the perspectives of other people, and ultimately empathize with those perspectives, whether we agree with them or not, is a valuable skill in the workplace and out in everyday life. Being easy to talk to might not be a skill you can really list on your resume, but it is something people will take note of when interacting with you. Listening and communicating well are muscles like any other, and they need to be exercised in order to stay fit. The most rigorous workouts, as Anders would posit, might be found in the humanities and liberal arts departments.

In an article written for Entrepreneur, Glassdoor’s Vice President of People Mariah DeLeon wrote that hiring managers are more likely to be looking for candidates that already possess a certain level of emotional intelligence – or EQ as she calls it. She states that “investing in EQ has brought our company more engaged, committed employees, and we’ll continue to put a premium on this effort moving forward.”

Ruggeri also points out that, over the past decade, the narrative of “worthless” liberal arts fields contributes to the farce that the liberal arts and humanities are for the elite, and often discourages lower-income students from pursuing fields that they think won’t immediately return their investment.

As a student that comes from a single-parent, low-income home, I’m not quick to advocate for pursuing higher education because I know that many of us carry our GPA on our shoulders while dragging a thirty-five-hour work week behind us. But getting a diploma often means the difference between an average of $1,173 or $774 per week, and that extra income can give many of us much more opportunity than we might otherwise have.

There’s actually plenty of data out there that proves my hesitation is purely unsubstantiated, too. A study released by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences discovered that humanities graduates are just as employed, and satisfied with their employment, as STEM majors. Turns out making that extra $400 or so a week is completely possible with a humanities or liberal arts degree.

So, while we’re shoveling money out to our institutions every year – in hopes of making that money back some years down the road – should we not take advantage of all the resources we’re subsidizing with that money?

The reality of cost, while sometimes a deterrent, should be viewed as an investment in ourselves and in our own abilities to find meaning outside of what we already know. Otherwise, why spend all that time and money? Just having a “student” title tacked onto your name can create opportunities for internships, future job opportunities, and networks of support in your field of interest. It’s all a matter of seeking them out.

Choosing a focus, however, is probably the trickiest part for some, and the idea that it’s possible to choose the wrong degree could contribute to that choice. Results provided by the National Center for Education Statistics of postsecondary students entering university in 2011-12 shows that about 33% of students changed their major at least once before 2014. For some, this might mean an extra year or two of university, which means an extra year or two of expenses.

Ultimately, any degree can be useless if it marinates in just the right cocktail of apathy and disinterest, and the humanities are not immune to those sentiments. Educating ourselves early and consistently on how we might use our degrees might be a great way to avoid unnecessary cost in the long run. It might just minimize how often students choose degrees out of anxiety and increase our ability as undergraduates to communicate the utility of our interests more fully — to combat the myth that some degrees are more valuable than others.