I read some of these articles about "saving the humanities" and I am amazed at the gloomy picture they paint. It's a naive question, I know, but: what's wrong with someone getting an innocent little undergraduate degree in Classics or English? Why doesn't anyone want to do it? Why are their prospects so dim if they do?
Lots of people work in fields unrelated to the topic of their degree. My brother has a degree in sociology and works in sales (very successfully, I might add). Why do I get the feeling a classics major would have a hard time getting a job like that? William Pannapacker's article in Slate, "How to fix humanities grad school," inspires a couple of thoughts on this.
Pannapacker writes about how an English PhD applying for regular jobs has to hide their advanced degree "like a prison term." He also insists that professors need to be in touch with the current (lamentable) state of their profession. Students and teachers need to abandon the idealism that aids in their exploitation.
Classics BAs face a similar set of problems. Non-classicists make assumptions about their level of experience or interest in the real world. It can also be very hard to convince the students themselves to venture out into the real world. My husband and I have worked hard to convince several students not to pursue Classics PhDs. It seems like a sweet life (and it can be, if everything works out). To a certain extent students see only the people for whom it has worked out.
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