A Liberal Arts PR Problem
"Help a broke anthropology student go to field school!!!!" read the GoFundMe. The amount for the summer study abroad was raised, but a couple of months later another plea went up to help cover rent, bills, medicine and moving. A few days later followed posts about how much they’re enjoying the latest Grand Theft Auto, currently retailing around $60.
It was this that made me wonder something. Sites like Reddit, according to a friend, bristle when people stress STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) over the liberal arts -- a misconception of liberal arts students being less intelligent doesn't help -- but I wonder if people are being a little blind or naive in defense of the latter. People want to believe their degree is useful and their money well spent. They want to believe there's a future for them, but no matter how fascinating that degree is it might not actually be marketable. Case in point: anthropology.
According to Vicki Lynn, senior vice president of Universum, a global talent recruiting company that works with many Fortune 500 companies, bachelors degrees in anthropology and area studies are useless for finding a job.[…]
This goes back to my argument in my previous post that Anthropology has a huge PR problem. It is also reminiscent of the time Gov. Rick Scott of Florida tried to eradicate anthropology from his state because of its inherent uselessness. […] In my previous blog post, I concluded that anthropology's problem is at least two-fold: how we engage with each other and how we present ourselves to the rest of the world. Clearly we are failing at the latter. […] It is easy to dismiss assessments like this of anthropology as "ignorant"; however, we are responsible for the level of public ignorance about anthropology and its usefulness in the world. [1]
Thus a field where students are supposed to develop “analytical reading and critical thinking skills” and “how to deal with unfamiliar social situations” is failing miserably at getting across what they can do. Even in other countries it suffers an image problem. In Thailand, for example, it’s popular among upper class females but considered something of a throwaway degree, and the "smart" people get STEM degrees.
But there’s another possible problem, in my opinion. The above article quotes how anthropology is useful to many fields such as medicine, business and teaching. However, how many people decide they need an anthropologist over an economist, or over a physician? Are students not being properly prepared or, worse, deceived?
Though I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s of Science, I took many extra liberal arts classes because I enjoyed them. In fact, I believe my anthropology, literature and language classes helped develop my critical thinking and communication skills in ways the hard sciences don't. It may be my ego speaking, but looking back on some of my predictions and analysis of social situations I've been in, I think I called them pretty well and believe those classes played a role. In other words, STEM + liberal arts are a useful combination. That's why most colleges push for students to take classes in both, but it's usually the absolute bare minimum, and the liberal arts kids trudge through the STEM classes, promptly forgetting these "unnecessary" classes once the semester is over, and vice versa.
Let me stress show much I enjoyed my Anthro classes. The teacher was fun, the discussions engaging, and the idea of a career in anthropology was intriguing. But what do you think of as careers options when one says "anthropology degree"? If you're like me, what first comes to mind are teaching and museum work. Some probably even picture exciting trips to far off locations working with indigenous people or uncovering artifacts; in fact this is the image I found pushed most by the university. Rarely did I hear about work with an economist or doctor in an office or hospital setting. It wasn’t nearly as exciting sounding and doesn’t cost thousands of dollars of the student’s money to study abroad.
Yet his suggestion that the field is not preparing its graduates for jobs is not so far off the mark. For all that the discipline has done to defend the many jobs that anthropology graduates are prepared for, beyond the academy few of these jobs require a background in anthropology as much as they require generic skills in critical thinking, writing and social science methodologies -- skills obtained from any number of liberal arts degrees. And when it comes to advanced degrees in anthropology, a strong argument can be made that the degree is one of the most cost-ineffective degrees out there. According to the National Science Foundation, a Ph.D. in anthropology takes more time than any other degree to achieve -- with a median age at graduation of 36. Yet the number of jobs for those graduates is among the lowest[2]
As for the costs:
Patrick Buehler, 20, is a case in point [...] as a junior in anthropology, he currently holds $60,000 in debt and expects to owe $80,000 upon graduation. “I’ve wondered if going to college is still worth it. Will I be able to pay back all those loans?”[…]
PBS Newshour found Cook in Colorado washing trashcans, at $9 an hour, to support his wife and young son. Together with his wife they owe $60,000 in student loans. Two years after receiving a B.A. from Georgia State University, Cook was profiled on the December 3, 2010 broadcast. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful,” he told PBS, “I just feel like I devoted years of my life and thousands of dollars into developing specialized skills that I’m not using”[…]
John Smith is an adjunct professor at a Southern University and owes $125,000 total for his three degrees: BA, MA, and PHD in anthropology. “I’ve been able to get them on a reduced payment from the $1700 per month that I was supposed to pay to $151 a month based on my low income,” he told me. “I am being paid an adjunct wage of $3000 per class. ‘There just isn’t any money to pay you more than this.’ I am told. At four classes per semester that comes to $24,000 per year[…]
Another anthropologist, Elizabeth Beeker, is a graduate student about to defend her dissertation. “I have at least $75,000 worth of school debt from undergraduate, a post-bacc, and graduate school. I think with the undergraduate and post-bacc I had no idea what I was getting into. After, I couldn’t repay because I wasn’t making enough money. I think the amount is so much more than the base amount I borrowed because of compounding interest rates! [...] My family has no money. I’ll be the first person to get a Ph.D. But I’ve had no family help for school expenses. My undergrad was paid for by some scholarships, but mostly school loans. I didn’t think it would be a big deal or didn’t envision I would have problems paying it back." […]
“I’m personally sitting on nearly $70K in student loan debt.” Mary Guilford told me. “My undergraduate degrees are in Anthropology and Political Science, and I received a recent Master’s Degree in Social Planning. I blame myself as much as my degree choices for now being unemployed, unemployable, and desperate for anything I can get. It seems a bachelors degree in anthropology in the U.S. gets you very little, other than qualified to work with people in some capacity. Trying to explain it to potential employers is an entirely different nightmare. They recognize the human aspect but not the intricacies that an anthropology degree gives you. Nor does it seem that the U.S. truly respects the degree, as everything is so market driven economics, that the human aspect goes untouched unless it is included in some way to make more money.[…]
Christina Stewart is currently in graduate school getting her Ph.D. in archaeology. [...] “So, now that I am in graduate school, and I am still having to take out student loans just to get by in graduate school and help pay back these private student loans I took out as an undergraduate [...] my student loan debt is well over $100,000 and so is my husband’s."[3]
Maybe it's help if universities started to stress to students the usefulness of those boring non anthro classes while working with other professors to explain how these fields can compliment each other, perhaps even offering minors that compliment their undergraduate degree.
It was this that made me wonder something. Sites like Reddit, according to a friend, bristle when people stress STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) over the liberal arts -- a misconception of liberal arts students being less intelligent doesn't help -- but I wonder if people are being a little blind or naive in defense of the latter. People want to believe their degree is useful and their money well spent. They want to believe there's a future for them, but no matter how fascinating that degree is it might not actually be marketable. Case in point: anthropology.
According to Vicki Lynn, senior vice president of Universum, a global talent recruiting company that works with many Fortune 500 companies, bachelors degrees in anthropology and area studies are useless for finding a job.[…]
This goes back to my argument in my previous post that Anthropology has a huge PR problem. It is also reminiscent of the time Gov. Rick Scott of Florida tried to eradicate anthropology from his state because of its inherent uselessness. […] In my previous blog post, I concluded that anthropology's problem is at least two-fold: how we engage with each other and how we present ourselves to the rest of the world. Clearly we are failing at the latter. […] It is easy to dismiss assessments like this of anthropology as "ignorant"; however, we are responsible for the level of public ignorance about anthropology and its usefulness in the world. [1]
Thus a field where students are supposed to develop “analytical reading and critical thinking skills” and “how to deal with unfamiliar social situations” is failing miserably at getting across what they can do. Even in other countries it suffers an image problem. In Thailand, for example, it’s popular among upper class females but considered something of a throwaway degree, and the "smart" people get STEM degrees.
But there’s another possible problem, in my opinion. The above article quotes how anthropology is useful to many fields such as medicine, business and teaching. However, how many people decide they need an anthropologist over an economist, or over a physician? Are students not being properly prepared or, worse, deceived?
Though I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s of Science, I took many extra liberal arts classes because I enjoyed them. In fact, I believe my anthropology, literature and language classes helped develop my critical thinking and communication skills in ways the hard sciences don't. It may be my ego speaking, but looking back on some of my predictions and analysis of social situations I've been in, I think I called them pretty well and believe those classes played a role. In other words, STEM + liberal arts are a useful combination. That's why most colleges push for students to take classes in both, but it's usually the absolute bare minimum, and the liberal arts kids trudge through the STEM classes, promptly forgetting these "unnecessary" classes once the semester is over, and vice versa.
Let me stress show much I enjoyed my Anthro classes. The teacher was fun, the discussions engaging, and the idea of a career in anthropology was intriguing. But what do you think of as careers options when one says "anthropology degree"? If you're like me, what first comes to mind are teaching and museum work. Some probably even picture exciting trips to far off locations working with indigenous people or uncovering artifacts; in fact this is the image I found pushed most by the university. Rarely did I hear about work with an economist or doctor in an office or hospital setting. It wasn’t nearly as exciting sounding and doesn’t cost thousands of dollars of the student’s money to study abroad.
Yet his suggestion that the field is not preparing its graduates for jobs is not so far off the mark. For all that the discipline has done to defend the many jobs that anthropology graduates are prepared for, beyond the academy few of these jobs require a background in anthropology as much as they require generic skills in critical thinking, writing and social science methodologies -- skills obtained from any number of liberal arts degrees. And when it comes to advanced degrees in anthropology, a strong argument can be made that the degree is one of the most cost-ineffective degrees out there. According to the National Science Foundation, a Ph.D. in anthropology takes more time than any other degree to achieve -- with a median age at graduation of 36. Yet the number of jobs for those graduates is among the lowest[2]
As for the costs:
Patrick Buehler, 20, is a case in point [...] as a junior in anthropology, he currently holds $60,000 in debt and expects to owe $80,000 upon graduation. “I’ve wondered if going to college is still worth it. Will I be able to pay back all those loans?”[…]
PBS Newshour found Cook in Colorado washing trashcans, at $9 an hour, to support his wife and young son. Together with his wife they owe $60,000 in student loans. Two years after receiving a B.A. from Georgia State University, Cook was profiled on the December 3, 2010 broadcast. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful,” he told PBS, “I just feel like I devoted years of my life and thousands of dollars into developing specialized skills that I’m not using”[…]
John Smith is an adjunct professor at a Southern University and owes $125,000 total for his three degrees: BA, MA, and PHD in anthropology. “I’ve been able to get them on a reduced payment from the $1700 per month that I was supposed to pay to $151 a month based on my low income,” he told me. “I am being paid an adjunct wage of $3000 per class. ‘There just isn’t any money to pay you more than this.’ I am told. At four classes per semester that comes to $24,000 per year[…]
Another anthropologist, Elizabeth Beeker, is a graduate student about to defend her dissertation. “I have at least $75,000 worth of school debt from undergraduate, a post-bacc, and graduate school. I think with the undergraduate and post-bacc I had no idea what I was getting into. After, I couldn’t repay because I wasn’t making enough money. I think the amount is so much more than the base amount I borrowed because of compounding interest rates! [...] My family has no money. I’ll be the first person to get a Ph.D. But I’ve had no family help for school expenses. My undergrad was paid for by some scholarships, but mostly school loans. I didn’t think it would be a big deal or didn’t envision I would have problems paying it back." […]
“I’m personally sitting on nearly $70K in student loan debt.” Mary Guilford told me. “My undergraduate degrees are in Anthropology and Political Science, and I received a recent Master’s Degree in Social Planning. I blame myself as much as my degree choices for now being unemployed, unemployable, and desperate for anything I can get. It seems a bachelors degree in anthropology in the U.S. gets you very little, other than qualified to work with people in some capacity. Trying to explain it to potential employers is an entirely different nightmare. They recognize the human aspect but not the intricacies that an anthropology degree gives you. Nor does it seem that the U.S. truly respects the degree, as everything is so market driven economics, that the human aspect goes untouched unless it is included in some way to make more money.[…]
Christina Stewart is currently in graduate school getting her Ph.D. in archaeology. [...] “So, now that I am in graduate school, and I am still having to take out student loans just to get by in graduate school and help pay back these private student loans I took out as an undergraduate [...] my student loan debt is well over $100,000 and so is my husband’s."[3]
Maybe it's help if universities started to stress to students the usefulness of those boring non anthro classes while working with other professors to explain how these fields can compliment each other, perhaps even offering minors that compliment their undergraduate degree.