Education

Is it better to have a STEM degree than having a Humanities one? Most people today seem to think the Humanities are basically useless, and that the only thing worth doing is STEM. Do you have any opinions on this matter?

Comments

good, and timely, question. of course you're asking a bunch of humanities folks, so you might expect a not entirely unbiased answer. :-) On the other hand, it is probably the humanities folks who would be best equipped to speak to the value of a humanities degree. but just for a brief start of an answer -- 'better' is obviously a many-meaninged termed. Better with respect to what? If your only goal in life is to get a certain kind of job, then you need to figure out which degrees are best for that job. But if you don't know what kind of job you want? Or it's not actually clear which degrees would lead to that job? Moreover, you must factor in who YOU are -- what interests you, what you WANT to study -- it is probably more desirable to find something you love and throw yourself into it than to force yourself into studying something because of vague speculations about how 'useful' it might be toward some future you currently think you want .... (Keep in mind that whatever you study will also change you -- you may THINK you want a certain job now, but as you study your very interests, values, desires may change ... ) My own particular, very limited, anecdotal advice is this: your college years are a very unique time in your life. Unless you have very specific, very firm ideas about what life you are pursuing, spending those years throwing yourself into what interests you the most is a very good thing to do that you will not regret -- perhaps a few years down the line you'll develop a specific career idea, at which point THEN you can begin specific training toward that career -- but while you're young, unformed, relatively free of responsibility, then throw yourself into whatever excites you and you won't regret what happens afterward ....

for what it's worth!

hope that's helpful

Andrew Pessin

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