I recently became familiar with the concept of “Oh” majors.
“What’s your major?” student one asks her friend.
“Women’s studies, with a minor in photography,” student two tells her.
“Ohhhhhhh,” student one responds vaguely. "And what assignment are you working on?" she asks.
"Oh, it's just a paper, it's on the portrayal of female newscasters in the media and how it's played a role in recent presidential elections."
"Oh," says student one, as she begrudgingly returns to her Math 212 homework.
And that’s an “Oh” major. It's not "hard science" or any pre-professional track. It's one that some students studying math, physics, statistics, economics, engineering or like disciplines might scoff at. And, to be honest, they are largely the most undervalued classes at colleges.
At schools like Duke, so many students enter on the pre-med track that it's impossible to go on Yik Yak without a slew of jokes about the phenomenon clogging the feed. Likewise, it’s often popular for students to devalue the humanities and many social science majors and classes.
Some might call them “athlete classes”, “jokes” and “fluff classes”—"easy A's" and "fillers". We joke that they’re as useful as underwater basketweaving. We call them useless because, in many cases, they don’t provide any skills or knowledge that lead directly to jobs. They’re “nice and all”, but viewed as second in value to the “hard sciences”. The value in a humanities class might be its ability to somehow cross a cross-cultural inquiry, civilizations and quantitative science off a list of graduation requirements.
As a recent Chronicle article noted, the debate over the value of a humanities education at colleges and universities was reignited when North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory publicly questioned the employability of students who take up a major in the humanities. Some government officials call a study of the humanities an “intellectual luxury” that, rather than be made available to the general public, should be reserved for students at private universities or students at more elite public universities.
The fact that high-level government officials have called the social sciences and humanities "intellectual luxuries" is exactly the reason all students—at elite and non-elite schools alike—need a quality education in the humanities. The value of a study of the humanities lies not only in the acquisition of knowledge but also in the critical thinking, ethical questioning, self-reflection and social analysis that comes during that acquisition. Making a humanities education a luxury is making these invaluable skills luxuries—commodities only available to the precious few who can afford them.
If we only allow the "intellectually elite" to study the humanities—and, in most cases, the "intellectually elite" is the small percentage of students in the top income brackets—we will consistently deprive lower-income students of immersive opportunities to look critically at the world and develop valuable analytical skills.
What's more, we will be consistently funneling the same types of students into our universities' humanities departments—that is, those who come from privileged backgrounds. For new perspectives on social problems and debates, its necessary that students of all backgrounds be able to seriously study disciplines within the humanities.
Equally to blame for the devaluing of humanities education is the bad rap they get among non-humanities majors. I remember a conversation I had with a friend studying engineering in which she absolutely slammed humanities majors and humanities classes in general. At the time, I was in a cultural anthropology seminar that made a significant difference in how I interact with others and how I view my peers, superiors and government. Knowing that there were people like my friend who immediately wrote off a class because it didn't involve numbers, physics or technical knowledge scared me. I couldn't imagine my first semester at Duke without that class.
We, as students, should change how we view our humanities classes. As a recent transfer to Pratt—with a planned minor in the humanities, I should add—I totally sympathize with other hard science majors who, every night at 2 or 3 AM, walk past the doors of sleeping students with less time-intensive schedules. But don't equate easiness with uselessness, and give some serious thought to your next ALP.
Mary Ziemba is a Pratt freshman. Her column runs every other Friday.
Correction: A previous version of this column stated that Pat McCrory was the former governor of North Carolina. He is the the current. The Chronicle regrets the error.
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