When you graduate from liberal arts, you can only make coffee? It is difficult for liberal arts graduates to obtain employment properly packaged and fully commercialized.

[abstract] We go on and on about the loftiness and value of the humanities and subsidize some professors to study related academic issues, but from a social point of view, we have never thought about what the humanities can do for us.

Liberal arts graduates have been complaining about the difficulty of finding a job. They studied hard in the cold window for several years, studying history, art, philosophy, poetry and drama, but when they really faced the job market, they found that their talents were useless. Only if they were lucky enough to apply what they had learned, they were more likely to engage in jobs that did not match their majors or were underpaid.

These graduates ended up flocking to coffee shops-dealing with milk and coffee beans every day-and Foucault (French philosopher and social thinker) and Herodotus (ancient Greek writer and historian), who spent years studying, seemed useless.

And this phenomenon is always taken for granted: if someone wants to understand postcolonial theory, they can read South American novels or deconstruct vampire movies, just as a hobby. But don't expect to make a living. It's just like going to the movies and going to parties. It's pure entertainment and there's no money to make.

But on the other hand, the high rate of unemployment-or job mismatch-among humanities graduates suggests that there are major problems between modern society and the university system. Obviously, we do not understand the real use of the humanities, which includes culture and the arts. We go on and on, preaching the nobility and value of the humanities, and funding some professors to study related academic issues, but from a social point of view, we have never thought about what the humanities can do for us. As a result, liberal arts students can only make coffee.

The problem lies with the university. If you ask the head of the university why young people bother to study history or literature, they can't give an answer. The humanities department is worried that it will not be able to compete with practical disciplines such as physics and computers, so they calculate carefully, maintain the prestige of the discipline with a vague sense of existence, and even direct students to do incredible things. For example, to earn a bachelor's degree in English literature, you need not only to interpret the wasteland (hailed as a milestone in modern Anglo-American poetry) from a metaphorical and biblical perspective, but also to find out the influence on the drama of James I in England (1566-1625) from the drama theory of Seneca, ancient Roman statesman, philosopher and tragic writer.

This shows that the true meaning of the humanities has been seriously ignored, in fact, such disciplines help us to understand the meaning of life and death. The humanities is the closest religious equivalent we have. It is like a treasure trove of important knowledge that guides life: novels teach us to deal with emotions; works of art broaden our horizons; drama provides an outlet for catharsis; history is a case study of our personal and political situations. Like ancient religions, culture can play a healing role and highlights the importance of humanities in this troubled world.

We need to reshape the university. Classifications such as history and literature are not fine-grained enough to focus on its practicality. Therefore, the reconstructed university in the future should set up emotion discipline, death research institute and self-cognition center. In addition, it should become a hub of expertise, including job hunting, improving relationships with children, rebuilding relationships between people and nature, and dealing with diseases.

Students can still study fiction, history, screenplay, psychology and painting, but with a more specific healing purpose. Therefore, Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary should be included in the course "how to overcome marital tension" rather than "Fiction Trends in the 10th Century".

Humanities students built in this new way will be in demand because no one knows how to run a relationship, raising children is confusing, and some people don't know how to control anxiety and fear of death.

It is a pity that it is difficult for liberal arts graduates to find jobs, but culture can provide the solution. We just need to take the essence, then properly package and fully commercialize it, so that liberal arts graduates can really apply what they have learned.

Source: youth reference