Marketing the Liberal Arts Major

Getting a Job with a Liberal Arts Degree

Over the years of my career as a history professor, as someone who is absolutely convinced of the intrinsic worth of a liberal arts education, I have been disheartened to hear from students, their parents, faculty in other departments, and even college administrators the repetitive trope that the liberal arts just are not practical. "You can't get a job with a history degree."

I am convinced that this is wrong.

What we teach students in the liberal arts are serious, transferable skills that can take them into virtually any career.

I am also convinced that those of us who teach in the liberal arts do a terrible job of conveying this. At open houses and other everts where we encounter students and their parents we often have some sort of boiler-plate that says that a liberal arts degree is applicable to a wide variety of careers and very often we then have a list of alumni who have gotten jobs outside of teaching.

I don't think this is convincing. We need to show students -- and perhaps more importantly, their parents -- concretely how what they are taught in our classes can be transferred to the real world and get them jobs.

If we don't do this more effectively, our disciplines will essentially die. In this economy, where everyone is very concerned with getting a job, it is no longer enough to tell students that what we teach will make them better people. We need to show them that what we teach will get them jobs.

I have a document in which I set out some of the language that students can use in their cover letters or resumes to demonstrate the applicability of the skills that we taught them. If you want to see it, just drop me an e-mail. I am happy to share.