Thanks C19fan.
Posted on 12/11/2018 7:55:14 AM PST by C19fan
A recent study confirms a disturbing trend: American college students are abandoning the study of history. Since 2008, the number of students majoring in history in U.S. universities has dropped 30 percent, and history now accounts for a smaller share of all U.S. bachelor’s degrees than at any time since 1950. Although all humanities disciplines have suffered declining enrollments since 2008, none has fallen as far as history. And this decline in majors has been even steeper at elite, private universities — the very institutions that act as standard bearers and gate-keepers for the discipline. The study of history, it seems, is itself becoming a relic of the past.
It is tempting to blame this decline on relatively recent factors from outside the historical profession. There are more majors to choose from than in the past. As a broader segment of American society has pursued higher education, promising job prospects offered by other fields, from engineering to business, has no doubt played a role in history’s decline. Women have moved in disproportionate numbers away from the humanities and towards the social sciences. The lingering consequences of the Great Recession and the growing emphasis on STEM education have had their effects, as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at warontherocks.com ...
Every job today that pays over $10/hour wants a college degree. They don’t care if it is History or Basket Weaving, they just want to see that piece of paper you paid $80,000 for. They’ll train you once you get there.
The article brings up some very important trends in education and society in general, but it seems overwritten.
A good editor could have skimmed away about 25% of the copy and still ended up with solid messages. There was much redundancy. Perhaps this was a collaborative effort, with multiple contributors.
As one poster here noted, there are limits on how many historians can be easily employed at any given time. Career educators tend to stay in one spot for quite some time.
The other reason is the rise and saturation of ‘Touchy-Feely’ historians who primarily focus on individual emotional impact of events, vs overall societal impacts and consequence.
“Now for my personal pet peeve - when they decided to change BC and AD to BCE and CE. WTH is that?”
Before Christ and Anno Domini are too Christian/Western centric, and we can’t have that in the new cultural relativist academy, now can we? Has to be “Common Era” and “Before Common Era” (the “Common Era” just happens to coincide precisely with the birth of Christ)
Thanks for the post.
I went to college in a different century, but even then the campus-—especially the liberal arts buildings-—were at least fifty percent libs.
My father, who wasn’t able to go to college, saw the value of a broad education. He warned me about the lefties in the classroom, and of course he was right (in both senses!).
But it was decent then. I had profs who pushed for thinking and understanding, not rote acceptance and behavior.
Books have played a large role in my life because of my time in higher ed, and because of my parents too, of course.
BC = Before Christ
BCE = Before Common Era
I noticed it in schools about 17 years ago when I worked as Teachers Aide to disabled high school students.
This was just BEFORE 9/11. People were already worrying about such things.
BCE is meant to keep the Atheists from complaining or threatening to sue. They had already ruined Xmas in most schools on the scale it used to be. That wasn’t enough.
I frustrated a liberal once, and said that CE stood for Christian Era.
History does not matter when all truth is formed by political narrative to secure more power over the masses, even more so when all truth becomes non negotiable under complete tyranny.
There will be nothing to learn from, “imagine a boot stomping on a human face forever.”
How many jobs do we ever see for history majors?
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Several of my friends were History majors and went on to Law School..... They wanted to avoid all the crap classes involved with a Political Science degree....
So the history major could be a gateway to something else, such as law school, but is not leading to a particular career path in and of itself.
The reason for the change is that there are those who do not want to acknowledge the One Who is the reference point.
And for your pet peeve... BCE(Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era.)
Ridiculous isn’t it?
"Ridiculous isn't it"
Yes.
I remember reading a letter to the editor from a graduate of North Texas State with a history degree. He moaned that the only thing he got from his education of any use was learning how to type.
except the trades
That’s because Academia has been absolutely infested with PC Revisionists in history especially. Their goal is not to educate but rather to indoctrinate. If you disagree with the new PC Revisionist orthodoxy, you will not get hired and you will not get tenure.
There is some good news. To the great frustration of the hardcore left win PC Revisionists, the public is very skeptical of what they “teach”. Their efforts to delegitimize authors and anyone else outside the Academy have failed and several books about history written by those outside the clutches of the Academy have been among the top sellers in History in recent years.
and yes I was a history major. If I had it to do all over again, I would not have chosen history as my major. I’ve learned far more history since leaving college than I ever did doing my coursework in college.
Yes, it is ridiculous. I can imagine a Founding Father like Benjamin Franklin reading a modern book and staring at the page and asking “What the hell!”
Thanks C19fan.
History was a required subject.
It isn’t any more?..................
I have a cousin who has a doctorate in history.
He drives a Big Rig....................
Why would any woman get a degree in history when she can get an unMrs degree
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