I wrote this rant a while back, and I think it is a great way to start off my history blog. Hope you enjoy!

Barry :D

So, as you probably dont know (or care) I am currently doing a double major in History and Philosophy. I'm on the History Students' Association, and I LOVE my Majors. Subsequently, every Laurier Day, I stand in front of the History Students' Association booth (which is pretty much the History booth) and sell History to prospective students who are coming to Laurier the next year. 

As you PROBABLY might guess, I get a lot of the same questions over and over again – what’s the courseload like, do they have my specific interest, how hard is a history major, et cetera, ad infinitum. However, Parents are the ones that bug me the most - especially aggressive ones. Yes, I understand you're concerned about your child's future - but there's "questioning" and "aggressive". You have to know where the line stops.

However, this brings me to the hardest of questions to give a good answer to - and by good answer, I mean "answer parents will accept". That question takes many forms, but when broken down to the essentials, its "why History?". And this is probably the most annoying question I get.

We live in a capitalist world in Canada. We are a land where immigrants flock to (after the States) and search for a better world where what they do for a living can increase their quality of life exponentially, and you get what you deserve. With helpful Government funding if worst comes to worst. In this capitalist, money-driven society (the Financial District in Toronto is probably one of the best in the world), it is believed that if your degree cannot be put to immediate use after you graduate, it’s pretty much a waste of money. 

I can quote statistics until I'm blue in the face, but this is ME as a history/philosophy student speaking in earnest - our degrees (whether they be Sociology, English, Cultural Studies, History, Philosophy, ad infinitum) ARE WORTH money. Yes, they may not be immediately payable after graduation unlike engineering, BBA, et cetera. Yes, I may be working for a Chapters until I'm thirty. I know all of that, yet I am proud to be studying the Arts.

Without the Arts and Humanities, NOTHING that we know would exist. None of the art, books, CULTURE would exist at ALL. There would be no point in math, science, engineering, business, etc. without any culture. The first major studies at Universities were History, Law, and Theology - all arts/humanities. It says something that these degrees that promise instant jobs and money are, realistically, relatively new, while the Arts and Humanities are subjects that have been studied for relatively thousands of years.

I’m not insulting BBA’s, Science, Math, Engineering, etc. All of them have ridiculously good merits, and our world wouldn’t exist without science and mathematics. Like we need our arts to provide for our soul, we need business and science to provide for the body.

But when people I know – good friends of mine – start insulting my major, calling it absolutely worthless, all because it doesn’t pay… THAT’S when I get angry and upset. When it comes down to it, my HBA is going to be worth EXACTLY THE SAME as a BBA or a B.Eng or a BSc to the prospective employers. Yes, I might not get that coveted accounting job, but I sure as hell will be able to fight for that marketing position, or that research and development job.

But in the end, is it really WORTH the money? University debts need to be paid off, and life costs money. That’s true. However, people change jobs just like they change majors – relatively frequently. What’s valuable today might be totally worthless tomorrow.

I’m not calling for a prohibition of anything that’s not Arts. I’m just asking that you treat the life, soul, mind, and creativity of the human spirit with a LITTLE bit more respect. After all, you can do a lot with a history degree – you can understand the world and humanity, or as Hegel put it, “History is fundamentally the striving of Spirit for its own freedom”. Give it a little bit more respect, please