“What makes humanities students different isn’t their power of expression, their capacity to frame an argument or their ability to do independent work. Yes, these are valuable qualities, and we humanities teachers try to cultivate them. But true humanities students are exceptional because they have been, and are, engaged in the activity that Plato commends — seeking to understand themselves and how they ought to lead their lives.” (An edited version of remarks on the humanities by Mark Edmundson, professor of English at the University of Virginia).

Professor Edmondson says that that the humanities are not about success. They’re about questioning success — and every important social value. Those who study the humanities and choose to enter the rat-race do so having thought deeply about how they want to live their lives. Such people are far better employees than those who have moved lockstep into their occupations. He believes that self-aware, questioning people tend to be far more successful in the long run.

A University degree is not supposed to get you a job. That is the task of training. A university should teach you to think, and people who have studied the humanities are able to think outside the box better than others. They tend to be wary of the received wisdom and can lucidly offer alternatives to what is on offer. The mind of an historian is (big generalization!) broader and his general knowledge is sounder than than that of, say, a doctor, whose life is so consumed by detail that he often cannot see the woods for the trees.