US liberal arts could shift focus to help post-study work options
Published 18/04/2024
Humanities departments in the US may need to shift their focus so international students can find better post-study work and garner a “wider variety” of international enrolments, stakeholders have suggested.
Liberal arts students are afforded the fewest official opportunities for post-study work. STEM and science students have OPT, scientists and accounting and finance majors have jobs at both fintech and technology companies – humanities students are feeling the lack of options.
“We pretty much have three options as international humanities majors. We can ‘sell out’ — get a job in consulting or tech, our only chance at a work visa sponsorship,” an international humanities student wrote in the Daily Princetonian, Princeton University’s newspaper, quoting a fellow international student.
Another option includes going to grad school to “palliatively lengthen our stay with another F1”.
“If all fails, we marry an American,” they added.
The PIE identified 19 colleges in the US to date from the beginning of 2023 that announced their closure which are either listed as liberal arts colleges or carry “strong liberal arts traditions”.
Enrolments for those remaining are dipping both for domestic students, and despite a slight uptick in the 2021/22 academic year, dipping for international students too.
According to the latest Open Doors report, fewer than 16,000 students came from abroad to study humanities in US colleges in 2022/23 – only a few dozen more the previous year, whereas in 2020/21 the number was just shy of 17,000.
Over 240,000 students went to study maths and computer science, engineering programs also received just over 200,000 – and business and management was the third most popular, with 157,000.
“If all fails, we marry an American”
For years, there have been warnings of the decline in traditional liberal arts programs in the US.
Some students are pressured by parents, who feel their job prospects would be better if they studied other programs – a sentiment not shared by all.
“I had one student who was so inspired by one course I run about novels in Southeast Asia, she gave up dentistry… her parents were not happy with me as she shifted her major,” recounted Gerald Fry, a professor of international studies at the University of Minnesota.
He told of another student who was doing accounting, and wanted to switch – but her parents wouldn’t let her, despite her consistently getting poor grades in the subject.
While it has never been the most popular area of study for international students, one SIO argued, an opportunity could arise to change the way the humanities are marketed.
“Inherent in all of these [humanities] disciplines is the advent of technology,” Jon Stauff, assistant VP of international affairs at South Dakota State.
“Where we might have added a major in a language or a second humanities discipline years ago, today we have students connecting the humanities to data science and the study of other STEM fields to be prepared for the future job market,” he continued.
A suggestion made by Fry was for students to consider, if possible, majoring in a liberal undergrad before moving to a more business-focused or accounting postgrad.
“Humanities teaches us the most important competency of all – how to live and how to learn. It prepares you for any job, anywhere.
“The ideal situation is to get an undergraduate degree in the humanities, then do an MBA or some kind of professional training… our data shows that those with a [humanities] education actually do better long term,” Fry noted.
The student writing in the Princetonian said the “open-endedness” of the humanities degree by itself is “precisely what disadvantages international students in the practical reality of the job search process”.
“Today we see students connecting the humanities to data science”
The system essentially “pressures international students to do a STEM degree regardless of interest”, perpetuating a “harmful myth” that they are intrinsically superior.
Stauff said that the pragmatism from students and their families is needed because thinking strategically about graduation is “incumbent upon them”.
“Understanding the competencies mastered in the study of English, history, the arts, or other creative disciplines opens possible career paths.
“Historians apply their skills as data analysts, as they recognise patterns of behaviour and understand cause-and-effect relationships well, and students of literature take their ability to decipher a plot and develop communication strategies for corporations,” Stauff suggested.
“We have to let the students follow their passion,” argued Fry.
“We just commercialise vocational and undergraduate education in America. It’s terrible. It’s a place where we open our minds – or it should be,” he noted.
Stauff also noted that it may be time to see what the federal government can do to change how post-study work is made available to different fields of study.
“Lobbying [them] to allow novel approaches to CPT and OPT makes perfect sense, as we attempt to attract not only more international students, but also a wider variety of them.
“Ultimately, I think we all share some responsibility – students, university educators, and government – in addressing this phenomenon,” Stauff added.
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