I found a really old post on bit.listerv.history from 1992 which shows I’ve been saying the same stuff for almost 20 years (and still can’t type properly)
“I agree that many people end up in humanities undergrad courses due to a lack of direction, or failure to get into other faculties; and I accept there are very few jos for history graduates as historians. I can’t accept the “no practical use” point though.
Although I’m doing a hsitory Phd, I have taught business undergrads
both history and MIS, and I’ve known quite a number of business students. There
is a trendancy in the “professional” disciplines to teach undergraduates
“how” rather than “why”, which, while it fulfills a necessary social function
inasmuch as we need doctors (I wonder about accountnats) it limits critical
thought and innovation. This may be one of the main roots of the “Ready, Fire,
Aim?” school of management.
The intellectual skills which students in history courses are supposed
to develope – abilty to read texts & evidence critically, to assess bias, to
assemble an overivew from incomplete or contradictory sources, to write crisp
presentations — are all useful and marketable skills. Not, I agree, to the
extent that thetre should be a job in industry for every humanities graduate
but the position should be better than it now is.”
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