“I think there is something that permeates throughout the Baylor Honors College environment as a whole. It is a culture of faith and seeking reason and knowledge,” said alumna Josiah Padley when I interviewed her about the liberal arts at Baylor. Baylor Honors College has been classified as a “hidden gem” by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, and with most students in Baylor’s College of Arts and Sciences—which comprises the majority of majors on campus—having to take at least two Great Texts or English courses, the liberal arts take a prominent role at Baylor and impact the lives of many students.
Many liberal arts majors have been asked a seemingly obvious question: What are you going to do with that? Great texts? Philosophy? Who is going to hire you? At face value these seem like logical questions, though often implicit within them are assumptions that there is not anything one can do with that sort of major. How does a degree that entails little to no technical training prepare people for career success? Given the impact of the liberal arts on Baylor’s student body, I interviewed four alumni on their experiences with Baylor’s liberal arts.
How does a degree that entails little to no technical training prepare people for career success?
First, I talked to Grayson Meyers, a class of ‘25 University Scholar with concentrations in political science, history, and philosophy. On the general importance of liberal arts, he said, “I think having a good handle of these sorts of foundational topics… prepares you to be able to engage civically and ask policy questions, like what are particular policies for?…I think a lot of people don’t really think too deeply about the values they have, or question them, or engage with them correctly. They just kind of accept them as obvious.”
Indeed, the liberal arts are meant to provoke thought on life’s deep questions. Not only questions on a grand scale, such as politics, but even those in our daily life. The faculties that the liberal arts cultivate have a profound impact on how we behave socially as well as professionally.
Class of ‘24 political science and communications major Daniel Escobedo’s thoughts were that “part of the liberal arts education is the professor being like…stand up, tell the class your beliefs and defend them, and I think that’s a very vital skill. Not just in the political world, obviously, because that’s kind of what it all is, but also in the corporate world.” He elaborated further on how the liberal arts, rather than merely showing students how to do a job, teaches them to answer the questions of why they take certain actions. Ideally, education illuminates both the means and ends, not simply one or the other, though without a clear vision of the ends, the means remain aimless.
But who cares? Are Grayson and Daniel right? To address the critics of the liberal arts, I asked two alumni to respond to those who insist that a business or STEM degree guarantees a six-figure starting salary or a job at all: Mike Ortiz, a class of ‘25 University Scholar with concentrations in political science, great texts, and philosophy, and Josiah Padley, a class of ‘23 University Scholar with concentration in classics, political science, history, and great texts.
“Some degrees may place limitations. …if you’re wanting to go into med school, …it is difficult to not just study something in the natural sciences…but in other fields it is not so crystal clear,” said Mike. “I have a buddy of mine who is currently working in DC, and he was hired by some bank, I don’t remember which, having studied not just economics but philosophy and he was hired primarily because in an interview, as he was talking about his philosophy course work, his boss was so interested in it that he genuinely just wanted someone he could talk to…that seems like an idiosyncratic story that doesn’t apply to everyone… but is just an example of [how] the kind of thing you end up doing in college may or may not land you that job that you think the degree is or is not designed to get you.”
“He was hired primarily because in an interview, as he was talking about his philosophy course work, his boss was so interested in it that he genuinely just wanted someone he could talk to…” —Mike Ortiz, class of ’25
Josiah echoed that sentiment, explaining that, “If one is studying ancient Greek and ancient Greek alone, it is quite unlikely that they will end up working as an economist somewhere because they simply do not have the background or the training for that…When you’re thinking about how to successfully get a humanities degree and how to successfully leverage it in your career afterwards, what you need to be thinking about is doing things as excellently as you can and doing as many things as well as you can.”
In addition to excellence, anyone majoring in the liberal arts ought to have measured expectations. Each alumni stressed the importance of intentionality when pursuing these degrees. Josiah continued, “where I think people get in trouble is when they get a very basic humanities degree and they don’t do these amazing extracurriculars like writing, or researching, or getting involved with your community.”
With all this being said, what does your degree say about you? Probably not much, if we are being honest. A college degree is a certificate which demonstrates that you have learned the fundamentals and some specialized knowledge in a particular field. Of course, the actual value of that degree does depend on the quality of the institution and by extension the quality of the teaching faculty. However, the greater part of the degree’s value is what you do in the time in between starting and finishing the formal curriculum.
The most important take away from my conversations with these alumni is the importance of excellence and how Baylor’s liberal arts curricula help foster that environment. The liberal arts will not help you get a job in the sense that majoring in accounting will. No. It will not train you to do specific iterative tasks; there is no such position at any company titled “liberal artist.” And in spite of this each of them have found employment, Josiah is working in education policy, Mike is a Ph.D. student at Duke, Daniel is working as a paralegal while starting law school, and Grayson is doing likewise. Each of the alumni agreed that Baylor’s liberal arts helped them work better with people, something unavoidable in any career. Degrees do not inherently destine someone to destitution or riches beyond their wildest dreams. For those skeptical of the liberal arts, try taking some; you just might grow greatly as a person. And for those in the liberal arts thinking that giving minimal effort in college will naturally result in a well-paid corporate job, you are sorely mistaken.
