Liberal arts majors having a hard time finding jobs
Posted by Jeffrey EllisOct 5
“Too many people think the world owes them a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.” — Mark Twain
From the Marquette Tribune comes an editorial which laments (read: whines about) the fact that liberal arts majors are being left out of career fairs. (HT to Captain Capitalism.)
About 132 companies are attending the fair, including Brady Corp., Briggs & Stratton, Ernst & Young, General Mills and Deloitte.
Wanted: financial managers, mechanical engineers, IT project managers, tax interns and team leaders.
Unwanted: editorial interns, philosophers, writers, history majors, sociology researchers and publishing interns. …
With such a huge segment of the student population excluded, what’s the point for liberal arts students to attend?
Um… there’s no point at all. And so what? Maybe a more appropriate question would be, what’s the point for students to pursue fluff degrees that won’t land them a job upon graduation?
If Career Services could set up career sessions for liberal arts majors at the Career Fair, it would give these students more impetus to attend and tools to stay afloat after graduation.
Career Services could have resume and cover letter sessions for history majors, interviewing tips for PR majors and workshops on branding oneself in the gloomy job market.
Even local companies that aren’t hiring could meet with liberal arts majors and provide them with advice on how to find jobs.
“[R]esume and cover letter sessions for history majors?” Unless you are going to apply for a position as a history teacher (and that’s fine, the world does need history teachers), what’s the point? Here’s some better advice: Pursue the type of degree that will land you a job. You know, something useful like Nursing or Engineering, rather than “Women’s and Gender Studies” or “Social Welfare & Justice” (two degree majors available at Marquette).
With such a bleak forecast, Career Services should be doing everything it can to bolster students’ confidence as they head into the communication and liberal arts fields.
Since such bolstered confidence would be unwarranted, this is tantamount to demanding that Career Services give students bad advice. What Career Services should instead be doing is counseling incoming freshmen on what degrees will actually help them achieve gainful employment upon graduating.
Says this Fox News article (yeah, I know, it’s Fox News, but at least they got it from AP Newswire):
Yet even with 15 million people hunting for work, even with the unemployment rate nearing 10 percent, some employers can’t find enough qualified people for good-paying career jobs.
Ask Steve Jones, a hospital recruiter in Indianapolis who’s struggling to find qualified nurses, pharmacists and MRI technicians. Or Ed Baker, who’s looking to hire at a U.S. Energy Department research lab in Richland, Wash., for $60,000 each.
Economists say the main problem is a mismatch between available work and people qualified to do it.
The article claims that much of the mismatch can be attributed to the fact that those who have lost their jobs in the auto industry, construction, and other sectors do not have the right experience for the new jobs in health care, engineering, and energy. But the point is that there are jobs out there. Just no jobs for fluff degree holders.
4 comments
Comment by jess on October 7, 2009 at 9:06 am
I don’t agree that there are no jobs for “fluff” degree holders, but there definitely should not be an expectation to be given a job upon graduating college with any degree, “fluff” or otherwise.
I can’t help but point out some irony between this article and your post about liberals lack of critical thinking. Education today definitely does not teach critical thinking as much as we might like. However for a degree in healthcare for example, students need to learn a specific body of information and a skillset to be able to pass a board exam and get a job.
There is little time to critically think about current knowledge nor is it recommended because the board exams are often outdated anyway. Critical thinking would benefit everyone in the working world, but those students who think critically might not pass the tests to enter.
Degrees in liberal arts may seem like fluff to some, but people can learn to think critically anywhere. And I’d be willing to bet that most liberal arts majors who have learned to think critically are able to find jobs, even in this economy.
Comment by Jeffrey Ellis on October 7, 2009 at 9:30 am
Jess, I should have been a bit more clear in my article — I hope I didn’t give the impression that I think *all* liberal arts degrees to be fluff. And even for those that are, I still think that learning is a good thing, even if it’s something that won’t necessarily help you get a job someday. I would just like to see college career counselors help students calibrate their expectations better with respect to degree choices and employment prospects.
And you point out one of the fundamental conflicts in education today, at all levels: the conflict between teaching *what* to think (body of knowledge and skillset, as you put it) and *how* to think (critical thinking). There is not enough time to teach it all to the extent we’d like to, and I’d also point out that many in academia have a warped sense of what constitutes critical thinking.
Comment by FritoLeva on October 28, 2009 at 4:00 pm
I surveyed about 30 recent HS grads and only 10% of them knew when the declaration of independance had been signed. About 7 of them knew who the first President had been. Yet you think we would be good without history teachers?
Comment by Jeffrey Ellis on October 29, 2009 at 8:40 am
FritoLeva, I already answered you in my post:
“Unless you are going to apply for a position as a history teacher (and that’s fine, the world does need history teachers), what’s the point?”
Sorry you missed this when you read my post the first time.
(And by your survey results, I would say we aren’t doing too good even *with* history teachers.)