I like to think about the liberal arts & humanities and how they do and don’t fit into today's job market expectations.

Why? Well, because I chose to major in Classics when I was in school, and despite having graduated at the top of my class with impressive academic credentials, I still do not have a steady, reliable job; in other words, I’m a little bit invested. And although it is sometimes hard to prevent myself from getting cynical, I do genuinely believe that my Classics education—and really, my humanities education—was worthwhile.

I learned how to analyze and deal with complicated problems relating to law, politics, sociology, culture, morality, war, history, art, linguistics, etc.. I learned how to read the world, its people, and its problems. I learned how to think about thinking, which, infuriatingly meta and silly as it might sound, has been unbelievably helpful in assessing the world around me. I learned about what it takes to understand human problems and learned how to go about solving them.

And I cannot, for the life of me, get a positive response from a recruiter for positions that I know I am sufficiently intelligent to handle.

And so I think, Why?

Well, I put my Classical training to work and considered the big and small picture—who are my agents, what are their needs, why those needs, is this status quo, was it status quo, what changed, why, can my education provide those needs, etc..

And after this I can say that I've come to a somewhat disappointing diagnosis: my humanities education does not align with the expectations of the job market any longer.

The humanities ideally excels by providing its students with broad skills that help build general intelligence even when focus is not aimed at a specific topic of the humanities, like history or linguistics. These skills, when properly developed, are powerful and valuable.

It used to be that recruiters were willing to take bright, intelligent individuals out of college, if they proved that they were smart, willing, fast learners and, in some way that was not ultimately determinative, familiar with the germane tasks/materials associated with that position.

This is not the case any more. These factors—general intelligence especially—are no longer sufficient to warrant your even being considered as a potential candidate. Recruiters expect people to be psuedo-experts before they even exit college. Applicants are expected to have extensive training in a very specific, narrow area in order to be considered.

Many of the humanities tend not to train its students this way.