Candidacy Essay Two

L'art d'être humain

A Look at the Value of a Humanities Education

By

Eric Williams

Advancement to Candidacy

Essay Two

Humanities External Degree Program

July 3, 2003

There has been a trend in the United States to favor graduate degrees that are either specialized or practical or both. Pursuing a Master’s Degree in Educational Technology or Social Services, for example, has become quite popular, and the value of higher education in those practical and/or specialized fields is readily apparent when one considers the growth in these fields. But is there value in studying the Humanities? A wide variety of U.S. colleges offer graduate work in some discipline or area of the Humanities, but what is the value of its study? To some, study in the arts and sciences is akin to career suicide -- that there is no use or value in studying artists, musicians, philosophers or historical figures long dead in moldy graves. Scholarly study of the Humanities should not be taken for granted, however, for to study the Humanities is to study something revealing of the human condition through the Arts and Social Sciences.

To study the Humanities is to study the human world and to know what it is to be human. Scholarly study of the Arts allows one to explore human culture and history, human beliefs and human values. Studying painting or sculpture allows one to better understand how various peoples in history expressed themselves, represented themselves, and how they dwelled on the primary conditions of what it was to be human. Scholarly study of the Social Sciences further allows one to analyze human behavior in regards to their relationships with their god(s), government, and each other. History and Philosophy illustrate the relationships between environmental, social, and ethical processes used to mold and craft civilization.

The further value of the Humanities is that advances in technology and communication have served to bridge gaps between nations and cultures. Every day the world pushes inexorably towards globalized technology, economy and communications. Now more than ever, graduates entering the work force need an ability to understand the nature of these changes by becoming better prepared to understand this new world environment. The Humanities offers students the ability to quantify how humans think, how they interact with another, and how they interpret their experiences. Further, deeper study of Humanities allows one to understand how various social and political institutions evolved and function as well as the valuable skill of understanding some of the important root elements of a culture and how that has affected their current society.

Scholarly study of the Humanities should not be taken for granted, for to study the Humanities is to study something revealing of the human condition through the Arts and Social Sciences. To study the arts and sciences is to acquire study skills useful in the world of today and tomorrow. It is a lifelong learning process that fosters a dynamic mind well suited for applying ingrained lessons into the progressive workplace. Armed with a suitable knowledge of the Humanities, today’s graduates are equipped with an ability to look beyond the surface of issues and relationships, indeed it allows them to delve well beyond that surface to appreciate and relate to the underlying idiosyncrasies of the world and its people.