Honore Daumier

This post presents a potential critique of the central question of my ethnographic research: What does it mean to prepare to be a 21st century knowledge worker? This question might be perceived as defining college too narrowly, as job preparation rather than as something to educate the whole person. Perhaps my approach ignores the argument that college education serves purposes other than preparing students for employment, including economic and civic returns that benefit individuals and society as a whole. Further it could be argued that my project misses the fact that a liberal education grounded in the humanities and social sciences is foundational, in a democracy, to creating an informed and engaged citizenry.

Some people might assert that my ethnography will contribute to the erosion of interest in the humanities and social sciences because it presents students who are interested in innovation, design, and entrepreneurship as cool, and their pursuits as the basis of future economic prosperity and societal well-being. Historically, Yale and its peer institutions, educated the elite by giving them a menu of intellectual lessons; today, learning is trending towards incorporating a skills or experiential component, making something that is practical, useful and functional or solving real world problems. Applied knowledge versus pure knowledge, or knowledge for knowledge sake.

What are some of the forces behind this discussion? As education has gotten more expensive parents and students perceive themselves as consumers of a product: education. Therefore they are raising the intriguing question about “return of investment.” “The greater the focus on ROI,” says Eric Liu, “the more attention is paid to strategic fields with obvious employment prospects, like business and computer science.” Liu states moreover, that the “Rush to practical education, which accelerated since the Great Recession, arises not so much from optimism about what science and technology can do for our country but from anxiety about falling behind in a time of severe inequality” (emphasis added). This anxiety is evident before students enter the workforce.

The notion of work is loaded with cultural ideas of one’s meaning and purpose. This is what anthropologist Katherine S. Newman writes about when she characterizes being laid off/downward mobility as “falling from grace.” Work is put in a moral or Biblical framework. Lane (2011:10) says a job seeker’s view of how the world works is a myth, in the sense that it is made up, a symbolic way of conceptualizing society’s moral order and situating themselves in it. Moreover, work is at the heart of the American Dream and how Americans conceptualize what it means to be happy and successful.

“A humanities education offers very few skills except for those that can’t be automated,” Liu asserts sarcastically. He continues, “A humanities education offers very little job security except for the ability to adapt to changing circumstances.” Liu then presents a compelling list of reasons that the study of humanities and social sciences offers students 21^st century workforce relevant skills:

• You should study history only if you’re interested in how people exercise power over one another.
• You should study literature only if you’re interested in understanding the motivations of your friends, family, colleagues and competitors.
• You should study art and art history only if you’re interested in seeing patterns others don’t or can’t.
• You should study theater only if you’re interested in knowing how to read and send cues in social situations.
• You should study philosophy only if you’re interested in creating the explanatory frameworks within which everyone else lives.
• You should study music only if you’re interested in having a voice.

My contention is that the well-prepared 21^st century student is studying at the intersection of the humanities, social sciences and the natural sciences and technology. She is aggregating skills that constitute a wide toolbox. The wide toolbox is a metaphor for a portfolio of skills that at its core defines a new level of workforce preparedness for 21^st century knowledge workers. Liu’s notion of ROI or strategic or practical jobs is not based on students having a wide toolbox. The cohort that has the wide toolbox is distinguishable from the cohort that is merely chasing the latest hot job categories. My research is motivated by a deep desire to examine how understanding and applying the principles of innovation, design, and entrepreneurship can provide an antidote to the erosion of the power balance between labor and capital. This antidote would empower students to produce their own jobs and jobs for others through control of their own labor, as well as the means of production and intellectual property.

Some professors might flinch when we talk about the need to prepare students for jobs. But it is undeniable that all programs need to prepare students with the talents and abilities to succeed in the workforce. All programs should be job-orientated, what kind of jobs is the issue.

In making the case for the humanities and the social sciences professors and administrators will need to demonstrate how these academic subjects translate into real world skills for problem solving and the creation of innovative ventures. What If the principles of innovation, design, and entrepreneurship were applied to the humanities? Perhaps an art major would start a venture to produce art using recycled objects from urban streets, thus harnessing his passion for art to address an environmental issue.