CHAPTER 4

The Perception Disconnect

One of the most compelling findings in this year’s Global CEO Outlook is that over two-thirds of chief executive officers believe that agility is the new currency of business. If they fail to adapt to a constantly changing world, their business will become irrelevant.1

—2019 KPMG Agile or Irrelevant Report

Introduction

The next disconnect concerns the perception related to career opportunities for humanities majors and graduates. For far too long liberal arts graduates are often told that if they are unable to find work as a teacher they will end up as taxi drivers, coffee baristas, or bartenders. With “useless degrees” no one will want to hire them. Nothing could be further from the truth. This disconnect over the perception of career opportunities is the leading reason why the number of humanities majors has decreased during the last few decades. More specifically, the inability of college administrators, faculty, and staff to help students and graduates understand the wide variety of career opportunities is the leading reason why the number of majors has decreased. Unless this disconnect is addressed immediately and effectively, the number of humanities majors will only continue to spiral downward. Administrators, faculty, and staff need to think differently, have a sense of urgency, and illustrate the myriad of career opportunities available to humanities majors. This is especially true in today’s return-on-investment (ROI) driven society.

The latest student loan debt statistics for 2019 show how serious the student loan debt crisis has become for borrowers across all demographics and age groups. There are more than 44 million borrowers who collectively owe $1.5 trillion in student loan debt in the United States alone. Student loan debt has become the second highest consumer debt category—behind only mortgage debt—and scores higher than both credit cards and auto loans. Borrowers in the Class of 2017, on average, owe $28,650, according to the Institute for College Access and Success.2 Choosing a college degree with the highest possible return on a student’s investment is becoming more of a priority. As emerging technologies rapidly and thoroughly transform the workplace, some experts predict that 400 to 800 million people worldwide could be displaced and will need to find new jobs by 2030. The ability to adapt and quickly acquire new skills will become a necessity for survival.3 “Too often, degrees are still thought of as lifelong stamps of professional competency. They tend to create a false sense of security, perpetuating the illusion that work—and the knowledge it requires—is static. It’s not.”4

To achieve and sustain career success during the 2020s and beyond humanities majors and graduates need to become more agile in their thinking, approach to careers, and skill development. Agility is derived from the Latin agilitās meaning nimble, fleet, or quick. Regardless of career position, status, or title, it will behoove individuals to improve their agility as the world continues to adapt to disruptive technologies. Since two-thirds of chief executive officers believe that agility is the new currency of business those who fail to demonstrate flexibility risk their organization becoming irrelevant.5 Rapid technological advancements will continue into the next decade driving the need for workers to increase their flexibility. As computer programmers develop new algorithms to automate current manual tasks workers need to stay agile and commit to lifelong learning in order to develop new skills, identify new career paths, and consider new occupations.6

Explaining the Disconnect

The lack of college faculty with employment experience outside of the academy, the shifting reliance on college degrees by employers, and inadequate career service offices are the three main contributing factors to the perception disconnect. More than 80 percent of students cite the prospect of a job as a critical factor in their decision to enroll in college.7 Unfortunately, once they’re enrolled, only a few students feel confident in their ability to participate in the job market and the workplace (34 and 36 percent, respectively).8 Part of the reason for this lack of confidence stems from the fact that many instructors lack professional work experience outside of higher education and struggle to help humanities majors identify career opportunities. Humanities departments place a premium on learning while relegating the connection to employment opportunities a distant second. It’s no surprise then that the number of humanities majors continues to decline. It’s true that academia has a bias toward formal credentials, but it is equally true to remember that a PhD by itself does not necessarily certify someone as capable of effective instruction. “Teaching quality is not actually part of what is judged for the credential. The PhD is a certification of significant scholarly achievement, but not so much effective teaching.”9

This scholarly achievement, while necessary for promotion and tenure purposes, seldom melds with what is actually going on in the world. It is surprising how many faculty members have no work or management experience outside the confines of their academic institutions. Part of the reason for this is that they choose not to gain industry exposure in favor of pursuing an academic career. Once a faculty member gains tenure, which is a guaranteed job and pension for life, then there is little incentive for them to find another employment position. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in business schools and classes. As one observer noted “It is ridiculous that seasoned managers in executive MBA programmes are often taught by people who have zero experience of making the challenging decisions their own students grapple with regularly.”10

The second factor contributing to the perception disconnect is the shift from solely relying on a college degree as the prerequisite for employment. “When you look at people who don’t go to school and make their way in the world, those are exceptional human beings. And we should do everything we can to find those people,” said Laszlo Bock, Google’s former SVP of people operations. “Academic qualifications will still be taken into account and indeed remain an important consideration when assessing candidates as a whole, but will no longer act as a barrier to getting a foot in the door,” added Maggie Stilwell, Ernst and Young’s managing partner for talent.11 Companies that do not require a college degree now include:

1. Google
2. EY
3. Penguin Random House
4. Costco Wholesale
5. Whole Foods
6. Hilton
7. Publix
8. Apple
9. Starbucks
10. Nordstrom
11. Home Depot
12. IBM
13. Bank of America
14. Chipotle
15. Lowe’s

Remember, this section addresses the perception that humanities majors can only do certain jobs, most of which are useless. This is completely false. While 65 percent of jobs require postsecondary education, managers still consider internships, employment during college, and volunteer experience more important than grade point average (GPA) or relevant coursework when evaluating a candidate’s readiness for a job. In short, the real world doesn’t care about your degree as much as your work ethic, ability to fit into the culture, and willingness to learn. Colleges need to inform their students of this expectation but seldom will because such a message relegates the institution to a secondary position. In today’s hypercompetitive marketplace, colleges and universities need to do everything they can in order to recruit students and stay afloat financially. Marketing a message that the school is secondary to a student’s career path would only jeopardize the institution’s recruitment strategy. If faculty are unable to provide reality based career advice, it is then up to the career services department to educate students. Unfortunately these offices often lack the resources, personnel and level of sophistication required and contribute to the perception disconnect that humanities majors can only apply to certain jobs.

According to data from a Gallup-Purdue University Survey recent college graduates were more likely than those in prior decades to visit a career center while in college but are less likely to view their interactions as “very helpful.” Only 17 percent of those who graduated from 2010 to 2016 said they found their college career centers to be “very helpful,” with another 26 percent reporting that the career office was “helpful.”12 That’s compared to 35 percent of students who graduated five decades ago and 55 percent of students who graduated between 2000 and 2009.13 The findings suggest it’s not enough for a college to simply offer career services, said Brandon Busteed, who leads Gallup’s education work. “This is very much about the quality of those interactions.”14 Moreover, engineering and business majors are the most likely to visit career services offices while arts and humanities and science majors, the least. How can an institution address the perception disconnect if humanities majors use the career services office the least? Well, there are numerous strategies available for use if an institution is committed to helping students understand that the humanities majors are relevant to the twenty-first century workplace.

If the humanities are to maintain relevance in the 21st century workplace administrators, faculty, and staff need to provide students and graduates with a different perspective on the many career opportunities available. Addressing this perception disconnect requires higher education institutions to help humanities majors expand their career horizons by implementing the three-career-path approach to professional development. Leveraging all of the career opportunities related to the three career paths paradigm is even more relevant given the fact that today’s college students will experience an average of 11.9 career changes over their lifetimes, half of which will occur between the ages of 18 to 24.15 Calling for “colleges to partner with business and industry to develop the skills that will prepare students for a future none of us can fully predict” is a noble idea but it is merely just one tactic.16 And since higher education institutions implement change at a glacial pace, it really is up to the students and graduates to leverage the three-career-path paradigm if they want to achieve and sustain career success. In short, to remain relevant to the twenty-first century workplace, humanities majors need to understand their options when it comes to employment opportunities. The first opportunity is the most common and the one spoken about frequently on college campuses and is known as the knowledge career path. The second path helps humanities majors find employment positions that are directly related to those issues most dear to their heart. Finally, the third career path provides a valuable alternative to humanities majors who want to leverage their skill set to land a job. Implementing the three-career-path approach will fail unless the institution is committed to educating students on the value of jobs outside of the academy for humanities majors. The percentage of undergraduates attending college to “get a better job” has risen from 72 percent a decade ago to 85 percent today.17 If students are serious about getting a better job, then they need to challenge themselves to think about each of the three career paths. Doing so will help them navigate the chaos of landing a job that does not exist using technologies not yet invited to solve a problem not yet identified.

The Knowledge Career Path

Since higher education institutions are organized by academic departments, a model that has remained unchanged for centuries, the knowledge career path is the most common. This approach drives almost all of the marketing toward high school students considering college as a path to a lucrative career. In today’s ROI driven marketplace, high school students are told to major in business, finance, or other careers that “pay well” and to steer away from those “low-paying” humanities majors. All too often the perception both inside and outside of higher education is that the knowledge career path is the only one available to humanities majors. For example, history majors can work in an archive, English majors can write, or philosophy majors can teach. This paradigm of career development remains a stable approach for many. Table 4.1 provides examples of knowledge jobs for a history major. This is not a comprehensive list but it does illustrate the most common knowledge based jobs for history majors. These employment positions rely on the candidate’s knowledge, which is paramount to being competent in the job. Without this level of knowledge it would be difficult, if not impossible, to perform the required tasks the position demands.

Table 4.1 Examples of knowledge jobs for a history major

Historians as Educators	Historians as Communicators
Elementary schools	Writers and editors
Secondary schools	Journalists
Postsecondary education	Documentary editors
Historic sites and museums	Producers of multimedia material
Historians as Information Managers	Historians as Advocates
Archivists	Lawyers and paralegals
Records Managers	Litigation support
Librarians	Legislative staff work
Information managers	Foundations
Historians in Businesses and Associations	Historians as Researchers
Historians in corporations	Museums and historical organizations
Historians and nonprofit associations	Historic preservation
	Think-tanks

It’s unfortunate that far too many humanities majors feel as failures if they are unable to secure employment in their major. It’s important to remember that the world is not organized by academic major. Therefore, finding a job that directly relates to your major is not a perquisite for success. In fact, the majority of opportunities fall far from the knowledge based career approach. In the knowledge based career paradigm humanities will also lose out to the “more profitable” careers unless the perception is changed. For the humanities to remain relevant in the 21st century, higher education leaders, faculty, and other stakeholders need to recognize, respect, and promote the other two career paradigms available to students and graduates: the issue-based career path and the skill-based career path. Doing so will provide a much needed approach to reality-based career advising so sorely missing on almost every campus.

Issue-Based Career Path

In addition to the knowledge-based career path, humanities majors can pursue careers related to a specific issue. Most students care deeply about one issue or another. For example, take a history major who enjoys baseball. This particular student is a woman so professional baseball is not in her future. Nevertheless, she majors in history and spends most of her undergraduate experience studying the way baseball has been perceived throughout history as new communication mediums were created. Examples of questions she studied were: what impact did television have on baseball? What impact has social media had on baseball? Luckily this particular student understood that employers seldom care about college majors so she applied for and received an internship at a local minor league baseball team. This young woman graduates cum laude with a history degree and full-time job offer from the minor league baseball team helping out with marketing and press initiatives. How is all of this possible? This humanities major understood that she could major in something that made her happy while pursuing a career related to an issue dear to her heart. She was not limited by the knowledge based career perception prevalent on most campuses. For those who might need help identifying an issue all you need to do is turn your attention toward the United Nations.

In September 2015, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to transform the globe between now and 2030. The Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG) in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) acts as the Secretariat for the SDGs, providing substantive support and capacity-building for the goals and their related thematic issues, including water, energy, climate, oceans, urbanization, transport, science and technology, the Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR), partnerships, and small island developing states. DSDG plays a key role in the evaluation of UN systemwide implementation of the 2030 Agenda and on advocacy and outreach activities relating to the SDGs.18 Here is a brief listing of some of the SDGs:

1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere. Extreme poverty has been cut by more than half since 1990. Still, around 1 in 10 people live on less than the target figure of international-$1.90 per day.
2. End hunger and all forms of malnutrition. This would be accomplished by doubling agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers (especially women and indigenous peoples) by ensuring sustainable food production systems and by progressively improving land and soil quality.
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. Significant strides have been made in increasing life expectancy and reducing some of the common killers associated with child and maternal mortality. Between 2000 and 2016, the worldwide under-five mortality rate decreased by 47 percent (from 78 deaths per 1,000 live births to 41 deaths per 1,000 live births).
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Major progress has been made in access to education, specifically at the primary school level, for both boys and girls. The number of out-of-school children has almost halved from 112 million in 1997 to 60 million in 2014. Still, at least 22 million children in 43 countries will miss out on preprimary education unless the rate of progress doubles.
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. According to the UN, “gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.” Providing women and girls with equal access to education, health care, decent work, and representation in political and economic decision-making processes will nurture sustainable economies and benefit societies and humanity at large.
6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. Worldwide, 6 out of 10 people lack safely managed sanitation services, and 3 out of 10 lack safely managed water services. Safe drinking water and hygienic toilets protect people from disease and enable societies to be more productive economically.
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. Targets for 2030 include access to affordable and reliable energy while increasing the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. This would involve improving energy efficiency and enhancing international cooperation to facilitate more open access to clean energy technology and more investment in clean energy infrastructure.
8. Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all. Achieving higher productivity will require diversification and upgraded technology along with innovation, entrepreneurship, and the growth of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation. Mobile cellular signal coverage has improved a great deal. In previously “unconnected” areas of the globe, 85 percent of people now live in covered areas. Planetwide, 95 percent of the population is covered.
10. Reduce income inequality within and among countries. Sustain income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population at a rate higher than the national average.

Can a philosophy major work for a nonprofit that has as its mission the conservation of oceans? Absolutely. Can an English major work for an organization that promotes access to technology in Third World countries? Of course. Can an anthropology major work for a market research firm? Without a doubt. Multiple opportunities exist for humanities majors willing to consider the issue-based career path. Students should feel free to major in whatever makes them happy. My second book Major in Happiness: Debunking the College Major Fallacies discusses this in greater detail. This paradigm shift will be difficult, however, for students who are not exposed to this type of thinking. When humanities majors find an issue based job professors often discount it as a failure since the graduate was unable to land a knowledge based job. The knowledge based career path is so ingrained across college campuses any employment outside of it is perceived as tantamount to treason. How dare a history major have a career with a baseball team!

For those who would like more information on how to find jobs at nonprofit organizations that support one or more of the 17 SDGs, or perhaps other relevant issues, use www.encore.org or www.idealist.org. Encore is the most comprehensive site for anyone interested in starting an encore career. Its Job Listings page includes a link to Encore Career Finder, a service that “scours more than 5 million listings for encore-friendly jobs” and lets you search by field and location. Also included are links to other nonprofit job boards, plus helpful videos and articles about searching for nonprofit work. Idealist.org is a nonprofit clearinghouse. Its robust jobs board recently featured roughly 10,000 jobs as well as a database of nearly 80,000 nonprofits.

The Skill-Based Career Path

In addition to the knowledge- and issue-based career paths, there is a third option available for a humanities major to remain relevant to the twenty-first century workplace: the skill-based career path. Let’s go back to that history major example from the last section. Using the skill-based career paradigm, perhaps this young woman enjoys telling stories. After all, she is a history major and telling stories is critical component of her undergraduate experience! As an undergraduate she has had to make several written and oral presentations tracing a story from the beginning to its logical conclusion. She has had to assess sources, create a chronology, and present her information in a clear, concise, and compelling manner. She truly loves studying history. But she also loves baseball. Armed with the knowledge that an internship will help her grow both professionally and personally, she applies for and receives an internship at a local baseball team. During the interview she discusses her love of storytelling yet manages to exclude any mention of the “holy trinity” of where she is going to college, her major, or her GPA. Using this skill-based career paradigm she is well aware that there is little correlation between the “holy trinity” and future income potential. The manager of the team is conducting the interview. Prior to the interview he received news that his sports information director left. Since he has a need to fill the manager mentions this to the student. She realizes that her skill of story-telling, when coupled with her love of baseball, will help her learn the role of a sports information intern. The student ensured the manager that she was a quick study (another skill) and would be honored to be their intern as long as they allowed her time to learn on the job. She accepted the job and learned first-hand what a sports information director does. They tell stories! The baseball team needed someone who could tell stories and understood the game. She utilized her skill for a career she did not even know existed. For humanities majors willing to look outside of the typical knowledge-based career paradigm, the skill-based paradigm opens an entirely new world of possibilities.

What are some other skills employers are looking for today? In no particular order, here are the top 15 skills most employers will identify as critical to the success of someone launching a career. Humanities majors take heed, all of these are within your grasp and, hopefully, your experiential learning opportunities provided opportunities for you to develop one or more of these skills. Interestingly enough, most of these also appear on the list of skills that more experienced professionals need to work on if they would like to obtain leadership and managerial positions.

1. Empathy: Critical to building trust and connecting with people. Slow down and learn to find out how people are feeling. Get to know your colleagues, but don’t be so intrusive as to come off as offensive. Realize that everyone has struggles. Also understand that most people have created barriers to survive so use rely on empathy to make a connection.
2. Ability to influence peers: Work is not just about work. Work is about working with people who are in different departments, have other agendas, and want to focus on something else. Thus, it is important to have the ability to influence colleagues, even if you do not have direct authority over them, to accomplish a specific task.
3. Emotional intelligence: Also known as EQ. The ability to assess and manage your own emotions as well as build meaningful professional relationships is one of the most important skills successful leaders possess.
4. Curiosity and positivity: If you demonstrate both curiosity and positivity, you will go a long way in differentiating yourself from others in the workplace. Humanities majors are generally curious since they have studied subjects that rely on curiosity as part of the learning process. And if you are positive you will be easy to work with; a trait found far too seldom on the modern workplace.
5. Active listening: When someone is speaking to you look away from whatever screen is in front of you and make eye contact. Active listening means focusing on the person in front of you and ensuring they understand you heard what they said.
6. Humility: Humanities majors that want to succeed in the workplace need to balance a firm belief in their work with the humility to ask others for input. Doing so will help you build relationships since people like to be included in the decision-making process.
7. Oral and written communication skills: Time and again employers highlight oral and written communication skills as the number one trait lacking in recent college graduates.
8. Creative problem-solving: Humanities majors would serve themselves well by remembering the STAR method when discussing their ability to solve programs. STAR involves discussing the specific situation, task, action, and result of a situation. Doing so effectively will help people understand how you are a creative problem-solver.
9. Resilience: The old adage “fall down seven times; get up eight” is a useful tool for humanities majors as they launch their career. Practicing grit, or perseverance, will help recent graduates see the value of working through difficult situations and gleaning learning from each one.
10. Observation skills: Learning to observe, and see beyond the obvious, is paramount to achieving any long-term success. Practice observing what is said compared to what is not said as well as how people interact in meetings.
11. Ability to contextualize: There is always a bigger picture within an organization and often times entry level workers fail to contextualize situations. Humanities majors are usually good at seeing the big picture and then working through how specific situations fit into that. Doing so will go a long way in helping humanities majors maintain their relevance.
12. Willingness to ask questions: There is nothing wrong with asking questions, especially of those who have worked on a similar project. Asking questions is a strength and not a weakness. Better to ask than to do it wrong in the first place and then need to redo the work.
13. Courage to make recommendations: No matter how junior the role, learn to make recommendations to your leader and team with justification for your recommendation. Accept that they may not take your recommendation, yet be brave in offering your opinion on next steps and decisions rather than looking to others to tell you what to do. Doing so will show your commitment and courage to be a problem-solver and solution seeker.
14. Relationship building: Working with people who are different from you is often overlooked as a critical skill. Most organizations today have a dynamic workforce so it is likely that your colleagues will not look or sound like you. Learn to build relationships with everyone.
15. Self-awareness: Professional development is directly linked to personal growth. Therefore, if you want to develop as a professional, you will need to grow as a person. Self-awareness is perhaps the most critical skill humanities majors can work on as they look for ways to maintain relevance to the twenty-first century workplace.

As Stephanie Scorziello of USA Today noted regarding humanities majors,

If you’re coming into any organization, it’s absolutely critical that you do think critically. Unless you’re super specialized, you’re probably not coming in with a lot of hard skill value. So your value is going to come from how you’re going to benefit the organization in more of a soft skill way. It’s super important to ask questions, think critically, and collaborate. You can’t be afraid. You have to be willing to ask questions and work with people.19

Let’s turn our attention to one example of a skill-based job that a humanities major could apply to.

Example of a Skill-Based Job: Nonprofit Fundraising Development—Entry Level

We are seeking applicants who will work closely with our client base. We are looking to train across events, sales, and client management. Our office needs enthusiastic candidates to assist in the development and implementation of our strategic plans. Responsibilities include:

• Executing marketing, sales, public relations, promotion and communications campaigns
• Increase customer acquisition and retention
• Implementation of product launches
• Collaborating on development of marketing and communications strategy

Job Requirements:

• Must possess strong and creative communication (oral and written), and customer service skills.
• Must demonstrate flexibility, initiative, ability to prioritize, strong organizational skills, and ability to manage deadlines in a fast paced environment.
• Must be comfortable networking in-person.
• Strong initiative, creativity, and attention to detail.
• Requires flexible hours (some early mornings, late evenings, or weekends) and a willingness to travel to participate in events.

Here is a position entirely based on skills: communication, flexibility, networking, and attention to detail. If a humanities major is interested in this job, they should follow the directions on how to create a clear, concise, and compelling story as outlined in Chapter 3. Remember, humanities majors are relevant to the twenty-first century workplace and need to keep an open mind as there are many opportunities when traveling the three career paths of knowledge, issues, and skills. It would be helpful, however, if higher education institutions endorsed this three-career-path approach in order for humanities majors to maintain relevance in the twenty-first century workplace.

Jobs Outside of Academy

Just as undergraduate humanities majors need to rethink career opportunities and expand their horizons by including issue-based and skill-based job opportunities, so too do graduate students. The National Science Foundation has found that doctoral graduates in science, math and engineering degrees fields are struggling to find work as PhDs have a less than 50 percent chance of having a full-time job, and that percentage has been decreasing for about 20 years.20 “Worse yet, as of 2011, approximately one-third of people graduating with a doctoral degree in science, technology, math or engineering had no job or postdoctoral offer of any kind.” 21 Since most graduate students hyper-focus in one specific aspect of the knowledge career path, these numbers come as no surprise. By limiting the number of career opportunities those enrolled in a humanities graduate program do themselves a grave disservice. One needs to look no further than the fact that “a quarter of the families of part-time college faculty members are on public assistance.”22 This job crisis, or lack of ability to think differently about the issue or skill-based career paths “may be just the impetus graduate humanities education needs in order to recognize that what it has to offer is essential to training leaders in a whole range of fields, far beyond academics.”23

But higher education institutions have done little to help society at large understand the application of a liberal arts education to “fields far beyond academics.” Since many professors lack such experience beyond education, it is often difficult for them to help students understand the enormous potential and various employment possibilities that exist for liberal arts majors. “Students should not have to find those careers on their own,” argues Krebs and they certainly should not be disparaged for taking employment positions outside of academia, especially since academia holds little promise for future employment for most graduates.24

Instead of seeing liberal arts majors as being trained for one narrow career path, higher education institutions need to think differently. Far too often schools focus on how students can use the “furniture or specific body of knowledge” to find a job. Instead, colleges should consider doing much more to help students understand that the “discipline” of mind—the ability to adapt to constantly changing circumstances, confront new facts, and find creative ways to solve problems is far more applicable when looking for employment. As one music major noted,

As a performing musician, one advantage I have is that it’s possible to be professionally active without being in academe. Many musicians pursue careers in orchestras or opera houses, or prefer to freelance in major cities. A faculty job teaching music is by no means the universal career goal in my field.25

A teaching job is in fact no means the universal career goal for most students who major in liberal arts. Students majoring in history, English, philosophy, and other liberal arts need to realize that they have a tremendously valuable skill set, a discipline of the mind that is applicable to so many different industries.

Commenting on the potential, if not absolute necessity, for liberal arts majors to find employment beyond education, Richard A. Greenwald, dean of the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies and a professor of history at Drew University, observed that humanities professors “too often overvalue a mirror image of themselves and it is sad and terribly wrong when graduate programs highlight graduates who received tenure-track placements and ignore its alumni teaching at community colleges or working in museums—or, God forbid, in business or government.”26 According to Greenwald, “We need to find a way to recognize more than one successful outcome for graduate education. Our job is to train smart, able people to contribute to the intellectual and cultural life of the nation, and we have failed.”27

Such hubris and admiration of all things similar limits progress, demeans education, and narrows the vision required for higher education institutions to create novel strategies to help students deal with and adapt to the hyper-change and dynamic global marketplace of the twenty-first century. What is more, thinking that life outside of the academy cannot exist, or even flourish, for liberal arts majors in “God forbid business or government” also demonstrates time and again that practitioners lack the ability to necessary training and experience to help their students understand the realm of what is possible.

Conclusion

Higher education institutions need to address the perception disconnect and help the humanities maintain their relevance in the twenty-first century workplace. Doing so requires faculty to recognize and teach the three career paths available to all college students and graduates: knowledge-, skill-, and issue-based. In order for humanities majors to remain relevant in the twenty-first century workplace they need to constantly remind themselves of these three available career paths. Moreover, humanities students and graduates need to understand that one’s undergraduate or graduate major is often a secondary or tertiary aspect of employment consideration. Employers understand that one’s willingness to work with others, skill set, and dedication to the mission of an organization, remain far more important than where someone graduated, their GPA, or their academic major.

A study by the Brookings Institution analyzed the market value of the twenty-five most commonly cited skills listed by alumni of each college in their LinkedIn profiles. It demonstrated that skill development, not your undergraduate major or the college you choose, is most critical to your earnings potential.28 Recognizing that many employers are unhappy or disengaged from their work, one observer noted “It’s no wonder many of us aren’t fully satisfied with where we’re at professionally. We keep ignoring that crucial personal component that helps drive great results.”29 It is time that higher education institutions pay attention to that crucial personal component of a student’s undergraduate experience. To develop that crucial personal component, and to succeed in the job market of today and tomorrow, workers across all industries and titles will need to engage in a great deal of self-reflection. Doing so will allow people to get better at the skills of human interaction. As Geoff Colvin noted in Humans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know that Brilliant Machines Never Will, workers need to “become champions at the skills of human interaction—empathy above all, social sensitivity, collaboration, storytelling, solving problems together, and building relationships.”30 Once higher education institutions address the perception disconnect, they can then turn their attention toward the vocation disconnect. Doing so will help the humanities remain relevant in the twenty-first century workplace by illustrating the dynamics required to launch and sustain a career.

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