OUR VIEW: Every degree can take you somewhere

Recently a certain Utah Senator professed that many majors offered at Utah institutions of higher learning are “degrees to nowhere.” We are here to fight for the Psychology, History, English and even the Philosophy majors. We hear your cries, and we have a list of reasons to explain why you all aren’t worthless.

    First, it has been said by many that liberal arts degrees are the best undergraduate degrees to have when pursuing a career as an attorney or a judge. Since pre-law does not require any specific bachelor degree, English and philosophy are two of the best majors, as they help expand the mind and broaden our viewpoints. How else can we learn how to read the classics and apply them to our lives?

    Second, most employers list communication skills as their top priority when it comes to hiring. Many graduates have great GPA’s and took all the technical classes their majors required, but they have no idea how to write an email, let alone a cover letter or memo to a boss. Liberal arts degrees may not teach you how to build an airplane, but they do teach you how to communicate effectively with those who do. 

    And third, liberal arts degrees are just awesome. These degrees don’t sit around and crunch the numbers, but they keep alive the messages of those who came before us. They apply Freud’s research to current diagnoses, they connect Mark Twain’s stories with current political events and they take the philosophies of Plato to discuss today’s ethical issues.

    We do not wish to diminish the importance of the other wonderful majors we have here at Utah State, but we want to stand up for those majors who are continuously described as “fluff majors,” for they are not worthless.

    Without the liberal arts degrees a college would be a boring collection of students memorizing body parts and analyzing building strength. These degrees bring us the art galleries, the poetry nights and the theater productions. They bring us the culture that makes Utah State the thriving college it is today. They are part of the cheering section at sports events, participants in dances and they contribute to Aggie pride just as much as anyone else.

    Those degrees may not appear, to some, to be career-oriented, but they shape students and shape a university into a circle of culture. Without them we would not be true-blooded Aggies from Utah.