The Old Cottonwood, Denver, Colorado, 2012
I recently came across this article on the Kiplinger web site that listed the current “Ten Worst College Majors” for your career. They were: 10. English, 9. Sociology, 8. Drama and Theater Arts, 7. Liberal Arts, 6. Studio Arts, 5. Graphic Design, 4. Philosophy and Religious Studies, 3. Film and Photography, 2. Fine Arts, 1. Anthropology. We made #3!
I remember when I went to university that I had it my mind that it was important to get a broad, liberal education, so I essentially majored in what was then called “Social Science-Extended”, essentially a minor in in each of the areas of Sociology, History and Political Science. (I understood, even then, about making money so I did get my secondary education certification to make sure I could put bread on the table.) My idea was that an undergrad degree should be general and that there would be time later to specialize. Many of my friends, in contrast, went directly into Business or Marketing regardless of their passion for anything else.
I totally agree with the Kiplinger Top Ten–if all you consider is putting bread on the table and to hell with personal fulfillment….but I certainly see the bias built into the list. In our western capitalist marketplace, there is indeed no real place for careers that might explore the arts, philosophy, language, culture, etc…that is, exploring who we are as humans. There IS, however, a great place for jobs that generate products, buying and selling, and consuming. This forces many of us to look for work in something we don’t necessarily like (or we convince ourselves we like it) in order to make it financially and we never really get to follow our true passion until we get rich enough to do so or we retire (or we try to do it in our limited spare time).
In my humble opinion, it is too bad we don’t have a society with cultural values such that we COULD pay people for what I see are really the most important aspects of human existence–who we are, philosophy, language and the arts. Currently, the marketplace constantly generates new technical inventions, new medical breakthroughs, and new products, but we often don’t have the philosophical or moral background to know how to deal with them in a rational way. Sure, we do need a marketplace so folks can get fed, but I think our values are currently skewed way too much away from what is important about living a fulfilled life.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to live in a society based more on maximizing human creativity and introspection rather than the current one based heavily on consumption and production?
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