Finding Certainty in Uncertainty: The Future of the Humanities Student
In a society that has faced the tumultuousness of a pandemic, the threat of world war, and the looming presence of a climate crisis, the role of the humanities is one often called into question. You cannot fight a disease with words – but does this mean they are unimportant? In reflecting on my academic journey so far, I’d like to try and put into words the personal and public struggles of career uncertainty as I consider the impact of the future and the relevance of the humanities on the future of the individual student.
Having grown up with a fascination for words, I had been convinced from the get go that I would pursue a degree in English literature. For me there had really been no other option. Even in the face of better grades, and the promise of an “easier” career path that pursuing Psychology would have given me, I remained unswayed in the face of my love for the subject. English was always an easy answer for me – but choosing a future based on passion rather than logic is one that has left me uncertain.
Let it be understood that I have never known what I want to do in the future. Even amidst my certainty for gaining an English literature degree, I have never once been convinced of what I would do with said qualification. I still find myself reassuring those around me with half baked plans that haven’t changed since I was fourteen – not because I am confident of my path but rather because it has likely not yet been paved. To me, English was only ever about passion – about my deep love for the subject and for the books it allows me to read and discuss – when it came to turning this passion into a career I felt lost.
This was only exasperated through the covid university experience. Amidst a pandemic where key workers were from STEM or other such technical fields, I struggled to place myself or other humanities based students and academics within this context – especially in the wake of government cuts seemingly targeting the humanities. My departure from science-based psychology seemed all the more foolish. How could I, an English student, carve a place for myself in a post-covid society? An in-depth analysis of Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague could hardly help at this moment and learning about archives from behind a Zoom screen hardly bolstered any other skills to contribute to the ever-worsening state of society. The lockdown had shown the necessity and appreciation for medical staff, scientists, and the like, but had not revealed the importance of the humanities.
For the first time, I began to regret my decision to follow my desires instead of the safety a more practical degree could have given me. I had been good at Psychology, enjoyed it even. If I had followed that path, I could have become a counsellor, and failing that, a teacher of Psychology – in the wake of my anxieties, this alternative seemed all too simple. The humanities, including my treasured English literature, seemed like a dying subject.
Or so I had thought.
Unwittingly, I had been blinded by my own fear. The Humanities were survived by the passion of academics – not reduced by them. I had spent two years at university surrounded by peers and lecturers who had proved
just that. Perhaps it would be hyperbole to say that humanities academics were vital workers during the pandemic, but their role helped society record and recover from these events. Everyday for the last twoyears, people have read news articles, have commiserated with blog posts, and have found comfort, and more poignantly stability, in words – the humanities have never been more important.
I still find myself riddled with the same concerns over the future of my career. It is hard to be certain of your future in a world built on uncertainties.
However, following the past two years, this is a narrative I now find comfort in. We can never know what the world will throw at us, it is impossible to know our futures from day one – but, if I have learnt anything over this period, it is that both the humanities and I will prevail somehow. Maybe I won’t have the clarity and security of a predestined path that some of my peers will experience, and perhaps I will change my mind someday in the future, but I do not think I will ever regret choosing a degree for passion over reason, nor will I regret standing by the humanities. I would have missed English, and my experience as a pandemic student has taught me that words are invaluable to the future of our modern society.
