mabinda.com Business, Education, Technology Commentary.

You’ve heard of the phrase, as an English major, aren’t you just going to become a teacher? What will a history major help you with? Isn’t it useless to study the arts and humanities? In 2014, the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said that studying the arts was useless, as it does not lead to a job post graduation. In 2021, the University of Nairobi abolished the literature department to cut on costs. How do the arts and humanities fare on from here. How do we motivate students to study the arts even as the job graduation figures continue to plummet. Of course, among elite colleges such as Harvard and Yale, the arts and humanities majors secure lucrative jobs just as STEM majors do, but this is misleading. When someone presents a degree certificate with the name Harvard or Yale on it, it’s not the degree specialisation that sets them apart, it’s the name of the college.

Which is why to know how the arts and humanities majors are faring, we need to cascade down to how arts graduates from tier two and tier three colleges fare. And the prospects are not promising. Science and engineering graduates do earn more than humanities majors, that’s a given. The marketing for arts degrees is that they develop the mind and so help you become a better human being. But really, whereas in the olden days people went to college for its own sake, to improve their minds, today it’s quite different, people go to college so they can get a great job post graduation. So, really, people go to college for the skill that will help them get a great job post graduation. And that’s where arts degree marketers must do more to explain the benefits of the degree to prospective students.

For instance, that English literature majors could end up in the media, or even in science writing. That history majors could also become CEOs because of their depth of research. That arts and humanities have transferrable skills is what will help sell the degree course to prospective students. There are many ways to ensure that arts and humanities degrees help secure you a job. Or maybe just make the whole university experience interdisciplinary. So, if you graduate with a degree in history, then you have a minor or certificate in electrical engineering, or if you graduate with a degree in electrical engineering then have a minor or certificate in electrical engineering. That’s the best way to advance the arts and humanities degree. In essence, today’s university should train both for the skill, that is what an essence of a STEM degree is all about, and also train for the mind, which is all what an arts and humanities degree is all about.