In January of 1980, The UHCLidian wrote an article meant to soothe humanities majors: if they studied hard and planned ahead, jobs would await them. Student Placement Center Coordinator Carolyn Ulrickson was optimistic that humanities students might be found working in management training, writing, and research and so forth if they worked hard and applied early.
During more than four decades since then, that hope has grown more and more problematic to sustain.
The question still lingers in 2025, “What am I going to do with my degree when I get it?” but the answers are subtler. Shifts in the economy, automation, mounting student debt and cultural bias towards STEM disciplines have pushed many humanities majors to the periphery of the present job market.
Back in the early 1980s, Ulrickson suggested that students spice up their degrees with some courses in business and that communication and empathy were adequate to open doors. Current students are receiving another message: even with added ingredients, your degree might not cut it.
Humanities majors, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, experience greater levels of underemployment than their business, engineering or health sciences counterparts. Entry-level pay is lagging, and unpaid internships are the new standard and necessity to any future success after graduation. No longer can students look to corporations to train them. Instead, they’re being instructed that they must enter the job market ready to go with experience, software skills and a versatile resume.
UHCL senior, English major Valerie Tran, understands this dichotomy firsthand. “It seems like we’re doing twice as much work trying to prove to everyone that we’re hirable,” she stated.
The university still offers career help in the form of the Career Services Center, but job search strategy, personal branding and networking have increasingly become the job of students themselves. Carolyn Ulrickson’s “butterfly net” metaphor whereby she wanted to scoop up humanities majors and take them to opportunity now feels outdated in today’s gig economy and its risk-averse work ethic.
“I believe there’s still value in what we learn,” Tran said. “But value doesn’t always equal a paycheck.”
In 1980, Ulrickson demanded that companies hire people, not pieces of paper. That mind-set hasn’t changed, but the path to being that hirable “person” has become more difficult.
As schools nationwide slash programs in the humanities and focus on “career-ready” curricula, students are not only battling for their own futures, but for the legitimacy of their fields.
Today’s humanities degrees are being invited to do more with less: less institutional support, fewer opportunities for careers, and scant social legitimacy. And yet for those who survive who write, analyze, and ponder with care, the hope remains that the currents of culture will shift again.
After all, as once said by Ulrickson, “You create your own future.” That too may still hold true, but in 2025 the climb is steeper, and the future more expensively purchased.
Editor’s note
What are the Humanities?
The only legislation that concerns the humanities in the United States federal government says the following.
According to the legislation that created the National Endowment for the Humanities, “the term ‘humanities’ includes, but is not limited to, the study and interpretation of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life.” – National Endowment for the Humanities
Humanities subjects include History, Literature, Linguistics, Law, Philosophy, Archaeology, Language, and Comparative Religion.
Politicians have human behaviorists and speech writers to help them communicate with voters effectively. Companies require artists to design logos, advertisements, and brochures. The humanities are an interictal part of business and the creative process that tech gurus need to succeed. Linguists help grow customers internationally, lawyers help protect proprietary information. IP is crucial to business success in technical fields. Philosophers seek answers to humans’ most fundamental causes and effects. Why do humans do what they do and how can we use that to our advantage in negotiations, crime prevention, creating techniques and environments to teach new engineers. Until AI and the robots take over there will continue to be a need to understand the state of being human.
-JTL
Ethics
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