Imagine this: You have just graduated with a degree in liberal arts. You’re happy that after four years of rigorous work and hardships, you have finally earned your degree. As you celebrate the momentous occasion, articles and opinion pieces about the uselessness of your field of study start to appear. Many have deemed liberal arts degrees as useless, but is this an accurate conception?
Dr. John Thomas Scott is the current dean of The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the Macon campus of Mercer University. Scott earned his bachelors, masters, and PhD all in history. While liberal arts degrees do have low projected salaries, they aren’t entirely useless.
“People don’t understand what a liberal arts degree is,” he said.
Scott asks those who share the belief about if they really understand liberal arts degrees and their purpose. He continues to educate and explain the importance of the education field to those with doubts of its importance.
Liberal arts students at Mercer also have strong feelings about the value of liberal arts degrees. Kendall Ross is a rising-senior majoring in journalism and criminal justice at the Center for Collaborative Journalism at Mercer University. She says the importance of the liberal arts field gets understated.
“Because it isn’t so traditional like math and science topics, people don’t take it as seriously, but there is definitely a lot of work that me and my friends have to do regarding liberal arts. We put a lot of work in,” she said.
Scott and Ross both disagree with the perception that liberal arts degrees as useless. Ross believes liberal arts students work hard to understand cultural differences in the world and deserve more praise for putting in the effort to understand them. Dr. Scott believes people aren’t talking about the same thing when they say ‘liberal arts degree’ and are slightly uneducated on their value.
Projected salary is a concern for many college students, seeing as inflation and cost of living continue to rise. Dr. Scott says that people also misunderstand the salary potential of liberal arts degrees. Liberal arts degrees are a broad field and salaries can range. He also says when people think about low paying liberal arts degrees, they are mainly thinking about the humanities. Humanities include: fine arts, film, philosophy, history, theater, religion, literature, and other subjects that delve into the human race.
“If you go out 15-20 years, those folks [humanities degrees] their salaries are typically higher than folks with other kinds of degrees,” Scott said. “Humanities tend to work their way up the management ladder. The reason they are able to do that is because of the skills and the qualities they got from liberal arts degrees.”
Scott gave examples of skills you could learn from studying subjects within liberal arts: the ability to communicate well, the ability to solve problems by looking at an issue from different perspectives, critical thinking skills, ability to listen to different perspectives, and/or emphasize diverse perspectives.
AI and technology advancement is also a concern because some fear that they will take over their job, specifically the field of journalism . However, Ross isn’t afraid of AI ‘taking over.’
“Journalism is not just the story that you write, but it’s also the connections you make within the story and the trust and development you build. I just feel like AI can’t really replicate the connections you need to make to be able to get that deep to have stories with people,” Ross says.
Ross and Dr.Scott gave advice to those who may be struggling in choosing what they want to study in college.
Ross thinks the resources you’re given, like internship opportunities and classes that teach relevant skills are more important when choosing a major than choosing it based on salary.
“I think when you have those resources, it can be just as profitable. It’s really about how you market yourself and how you use your degree,” Ross says.
Scott advises that students focus on an area that makes them happy. He advises that students put their mental and emotional health first when thinking about their potential field of study.
“Major in something that you enjoy. You’ll be a much happier person,” Scott says.
