Junior classical languages and literatures and history major

Along with Marc Priester’s Oct. 15 column about the legitimacy of English majors, I want to expand his theme of cooperation and understanding to all of the arts and humanities department.

I started thinking about this when I read a post on a website with user-generated content, which asked a very odd question: Are arts and humanities degrees for privileged people? Within the thread, the author explained his point using the examples of immigrant families and lower-income households. He said you don’t find those people in the humanities because they know they won’t get jobs and concluded by saying these degrees were “low utility,” unable to match the job placement of science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees.

First off, I tip my hat to this university and every other institution of higher education. They have successfully, albeit destructively, convinced the masses the majority of humanities majors are failures. They aren’t wrong, either. According to the standard set by universities, a majority of postgraduate arts and humanities majors are complete failures.

But here’s the criterion: the ability to land a job as a professor.

Everything short of the academic ivory tower is a statistical flop. This means that low-utility jobs such as museum curator, consultant, politician and CEO are unworthy of recognition. But you don’t hear that side of the story. All you hear is colleges reporting lower success rates for humanities students.

That dispels the myth of low job security, but what about the degree as a privilege?

My favorite feminist website (everydayfeminism.com) has recently been posting articles listing things privileged people take for granted. These demographics include middle-class, Christian, heterosexual and cisgender privilege — the last one being where your biological sex matches your gender identity. As I meet all four of those qualifiers, many of the examples of privilege opened my eyes: the ability to buy anything advertised on TV, expectations of time off to celebrate my holidays, congratulations on wedding announcements and the use of public restrooms without fear of arrest.

I’m not advocating a monk’s existence, escaping to solitude in order to destroy all social privilege. But these privileges exist, and being aware is an important step in coming to grips with world inequality.

But do the humanities really qualify as a privilege? They aren’t reserved for the rich. I know multiple people working night and day to support their arts and humanities degree. Nor are they reserved for any one race, gender, religion, age or any other title in anti-discrimination statements.

Where, then, is the tension? Why do North and South campus have this seemingly hostile understanding between them?

Frankly, it’s from people like the user at my column’s beginning.

STEM majors are down there past Stamp Student Union doing magic things with numbers I couldn’t dream of and would make someone with synesthesia weep with joy. Yet down on McKeldin Mall, we churn out 20-page papers every week, changing history itself one argument at a time. The common denominator is this: We all work hard.

I get very upset when I hear this stereotype of arts and humanities majors skating by on their parents’ money. Those in the humanities are the future politicians, CEOs and educators of your children, and anyone who would wish a lazy, entitled and uneducated teacher on an entire generation does not have the future’s best interests in mind.

It’s comparable to a poor engineer who designed a bridge that is on my way to work. I’ll drive on that bridge every day, and I sure won’t assume someone with a “privileged” engineering degree designed it. Our collective future is in each other’s hands, and it’s time we start believing in the other’s hard work.

Erik Shell is a sophomore classical languages and literatures and history major. He can be reached at opinionumdbk@gmail.com.