The Value of Liberal Arts and Humanities Education

Running head: ACADEMIC SKILLS FOR ARTS
ACADEMIC SKILLS FOR ARTS
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ACADEMIC SKILLS FOR ARTS1
Introduction
Economic challenges over the past few years have led to reason the value of post-
secondary liberal arts and humanities education. While, many argue that learners must be
encouraged to follow practical or technical educations, others have been highlighting the
continual importance of humanities and liberal arts education (Wheelahan & Moodie, 2017).
With economic recession in 2008 along with job market demands towards science and
engineering degrees appeared to be obvious solution for successful and steady employment in
competitive market. The thesis statement of the essay is “Liberal Arts and Humanities Facilitates
Profession Development.”
Discussion
It is relatively common to hear in the era of big data and Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) that liberal arts and humanities degrees significantly lack
value in comparison to other technical subject domain. Many are of the perception that studying
humanities or liberal arts can only lead one to the domain of teaching. Private and public
institutions have been pushing students to avail stem education, which further elevated concerns
regarding the value of humanities, and liberal arts education (An, 2015). Such one-sided
determination towards STEM education has further given rise to arguments regarding the reason
why technology and science subjects have been perceived as significantly valuable especially to
people inclining towards stem fields. Reports have revealed that an insignificant number of
students have been obtained for humanities or liberal arts subjects in comparison to the
percentage which has been estimated a few decades ago (Pifer, Baker & Lunsford, 2015).
Furthermore, recent studies have claimed that the number of bachelor's degrees in the field of

ACADEMIC SKILLS FOR ARTS2
liberal arts and humanities which have been obtained in 2015 have dropped down nearly 10% in
recent times. Nevertheless, studies of An and Taylor (2015) have mentioned that the significance
of higher education degree has long been debited in the domain of academia. While many
questions that liberal education does not explicitly provide knowledge development opportunities
in a short skill, criticism in the field of humanities have noted that business organisations in
recent times have been seeking competences. These competencies are related to problem solving
skills and critical thinking abilities which would further provide significant revenues for students
to gain success in the vocational field (Wolff2017). Furthermore, there has been identified a
number of reasons for studying subjects within the domain of humanities for example religion
history philosophy language, art and music which most of the students in recent times have been
disregarding at their own liability (Macfarlane, 2015).
According to Kuh and Gonyea (2015), liberal education has been recognized as a
cohesive collection of events with each providing its own distinctive contribution to the
understanding of its practitioners. Moreover, liberal arts education has been principally involving
the study of natural sciences, which also include mathematics along with humanities and social
sciences. According to Nicholas (2017), natural sciences and mathematics have been usually
connected to the domain of stem education and has being very rarely perceived as a part of the
liberal education regardless of its linkage. On the other hand, the typical college curriculum
requires learners to sample fields in each subject. On the other hand, within the domain of
technology and science education students can obtain knowledge regarding what happens when
tiny particles tend to collide which can further open the window into the universe. However, on
the country within the domain of humanities, students can attain individuals and organisations
typically use knowledge regarding the resources, which can result in an improved understanding