Hi,
We recently published an article that you may be interested in entitled, "10 Ways to Promote Your Liberal Arts Major on the Job Market".
I thought perhaps you'd be interested in sharing this article with your readers? After having followed your blog for a while, I feel that this one article would align well with your blog's subject matter.
If interested, here's the link for your convenience: (http://www.bestuniversities.com/blog/2011/10-ways-to-promote-your-liberal-arts-major-on-the-job-market/)
Thanks for your time,
Tina SansObviously a e-mail generating program that searches blogs with certain text strings.
Regardless, you have to click on the article because it is just hilarious.
Interpersonal skills?
Highlight your diversity?
And of course, the always available;
Critical thinking skills!
Heh, enjoy the decline.
8 comments:
High-larious.
What that article fails to mention is that what employers like, is people with all those liberal artsy skills, plus an engineering degree. Or plus a hard sciences degree. Or perhaps plus an MBA or some other reasonably useful advanced degree.
Liberal arts are an essential part of an education, a way station on the road to learning a profession and becoming a well-rounded person. They aren't an end in and of themselves unless you plan on getting an Ivy or prestige foreign PhD and teaching. Good luck on that, BTW; you're not getting a job there unless you kill an aging boomer to make a space on the faculty for yourself, and I hope your Latin and French are up to speed.
Modern liberal arts = critical thinking skills?
Damn, I read that while not wearing boots. Shower time after this.
That said, most modern liberal arts classes don't even require passive thinking skills. In fact applying any thinking skills to them is asking to fail because you might disagree with the party line.
Unless your degree comes from a specific school in Annapolis, MD or Santa Fe, NM spare me the critical thinking line. Just say, "I did the four years of spending and sitting to get my credential" and I'll make sure you say "Thank you for calling your Willimantic Dominos" just like it says in the phone script.
The really sad thing is as someone who did study an analytical field that did require heavy brain work I look at traditional liberal arts as they existed even into the 20th century and feel envious of the people who got that education. Yes, I can pursue much of it on my own but it's not the same.
So really, how many good positions are available to those with arts degrees? Certainly, professors of philosophy at major universities do well for themselves; in fact professorships at a major school in just about any subject are worth having. There aren't very many of these positions, but how many?
Similarly to be a conductor with a major orchestra is rewarding financially; we know that there are probably fewer than 30 such positions in the whole world.
If you want a position as an auctioneer for Sotheby's you had best have a very good degree in fine arts, for starters, or for a major museum position.
How many such positions are there, compared to management positions in industry?
We need a chart!!!
#3 and #10 are really funny! Most liberal arts people believe in socialism of some sort. How can they have possibly have those? Avid learner? I guess that is why many never bother read any Mises or Rothbard or Hayek.
@ Anonymous 11:24
Your take makes me if there's an isomorphism to what women want in a man ... i.e., all that useless stuff (caring, open, generous, chivalrous) in an otherwise Alpha man.
I.e., is a liberal arts major trying to get a job on the strength of his degree like a Beta trying to get a date on the strength of his niceness?
It's like reading a comic without the drawings, hilarious but not enjoyable.
Apply those ten (so-called) qualities of liberal arts "study" to some recent exponents. I'm thinking the Obambi government, the Wisconsin fleebagger's and their supporters.
Interpersonal skills-not so much
Adaptability-don't think so
Critical thinking-not apparent
Teamwork-only within their own group
Communication skills-sure, but weak.
Risk takers-with other peoples money, otherwise, no
Diversity-Hahaaahaaaaaa
Avid learner-maybe, but extremely narrow focus
Problem solving-nope, problem creating, fersure
Business savvy-OMFG, give me break
Ms. Randombone or, how I learned to stop being sentient and love the Valtrex.
All right. I read it. It was better than "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover."
"You’ve also learned how to absorb and understand complex information through careful analysis and critical thinking."
Gales of riotous laughter.
"Liberal arts education is based on the premise of history, evolution and conflict resolution."
No, it's not.
"Liberal arts majors spend a great deal of their college career engaging in group discussions, giving presentations and working as a team to complete projects"
No where I've ever been. Perhaps the essayist is confusing colleges of education with colleges of humanities.
Oh, well, why go on.
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