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Comment by zacinbusiness | Hacker News Reader

There is a big anti-intellectualism trend happening in the US right now. It's a lot like the sort of "hate" that the humanities gets these days as being somehow less important than the STEM disciplines. It started with art programs, and then philosophy, then English, then languages, and I imagine it will spread until there are only a few, if any, majors and degrees that are actually "valued."

This is in a country with a pitifully low literacy rate.

Both my wife and I are very luck - we both have MAs in English (she focusing on rhetoric and I on technical communication) and we each landed great, full-time employment in our fields.

Still, we have friends with similar degrees and focuses that work in the same jobs they had when starting college, or worse are without employment at all.

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There are rants about PhDs and Masters in Computer Science as well. And MBA fits more into 'Business studies' rather than humanities.

I am not going to argue about importance of each field. But computer (and technical) illiteracy is very high as well.

Yeah my wife has students who are in college that can't sign up for a Gmail account on their own. She actually spends a great deal of her time teaching basic computer literacy because she doesn't think that the kids can succeed in 'real life' without those skills. And that's on top of teaching them to think critically, to analyze sources of information, and to develop rational arguments that are based on facts rather than "My daddy always said..." which is an opening sentence that she gets far too often.

i think the "trend" is towards advising people against studying humanities unless they have a very strong motivation to study these subjects and are fully aware of the opportunity cost. when people give such advice it does mean that they "hate" the humanities.

No I understand that and you're entirely correct. But there is a very powerful discourse, especially in the US south, that begins when someone learns that you are majoring in the humanities: "You're an English major? What could you do with that?"

It turns out that if you're motivated and smart then there's a great deal that you can do with an English degree (disclosure: I earned an MA in English). But that's true for all degrees.

Unfortunately, few people will sit down and tell a new student that all degrees, rather than just humanities degrees, are basically worthless if you don't do professional development and networking. My degree wouldn't help me at all if I hadn't impressed important people and made them remember me. That way they can give references and recommendations. But the same is true for CS degrees, MDs, and pretty much anything that's worth doing.

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