Things that Sound Like Jobs

As I prepare for a new semester, I often escape onto social media for respite. Last night, I found no succor. Instead, I was confronted by a random gathering of posts either disparaging or misunderstanding a liberal arts education. Oh how the stars align.

Instead of thinking about the last minute changes I need to make to my syllabus, I revisited my musings about how to better communicate the skills and craft of liberal arts — and more specifically the value of learning U.S. history — into things that sound like jobs. This task is all the more important given that I’m teaching the Historical Methods seminar this semester, which is a sophomore-level skills course for majors.

In my senior seminar last semester, I had students read a series of articles reflecting on the crisis in the humanities. We read defenses of the liberal arts from the left and the right, and discussed how the students respond to the question of “what are you going to do with that?” It was a useful exercise for them (I think), though limited because it comes at the end of their college career.

Thus revisiting an age-old question of how to make our courses relevant to current undergraduates, I began thinking of how to embed, while also making explicit and providing useful language to students…of things that sound like jobs. We all know that employers look for the kinds of skills that come with a liberal arts degree: communication and erudition, critical thinking in its various forms, the ability to synthesize information and draw inferences, etc. etc. The AHA’s Tuning Core in 2013 did a nice job of laying out the different skills inherent to a history major, but now I turn to how to make those skills translatable into the job market, since we seem to be constantly on the defensive about what our degrees offer.

Perhaps it’s useful to translate the skills of our major and courses into things that sound like jobs. But to do this, we should first engage students with their motivations, both internal and external, and help them identify the kind of work they want to do in the future.

One need not engage in polemics to have this conversation. The liberal arts, and areas of study, have always been attempting to define their contributions to broader society, and higher education has always reflected ongoing economic, social, political, and cultural currents. We could rehash the ways that liberal arts study is useful in the information economy, as mechanization and automation loom heavily and have the potential to reshape the types of jobs that are available in the near future. But instead, it seems more relevant to turn attention to what we have students read, and what we have them write, to consciously identify these skills and to connect their coursework to the goals they have for their college careers. It’s not just about luring enrollments, or justifying our existence, but is part of an ongoing conversation about higher education’s purpose and the role that history plays in it and in the intellectual and public life of the nation. Moreover, given recent examples like W. Caleb McDaniels’ rubric for historical thinking, leading scholars are making explicit the bigger (meta?) skills that students gain from the study of the past.

In my senior seminar, and this semester in my methods course, I selected several articles from a list of mainstream publications regarding the “crisis” in the humanities and the purpose of studying history. I found many of these in this helpful Readlist from a colleague of mine, a Medieval literature scholar, and fellow co-coordinator of Fitchburg State’s Center for Teaching and Learning, Kisha Tracy. I also reviewed (and will introduce to the method students) the habits of historical thinking and excerpts from Sam Wineburg, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001) and John Tosh, The Pursuit of History (New York: Rutledge, 2009).
In the senior seminar, after having students write a “diagnostic essay,” which was a primary source analysis to assess their basic skills and provide individualized feedback about how to improve their writing, I asked them to write the following:

After we conclude our discussion of articles related to the purpose and value of a history major, compose a short (800-1000 word) description of what core skills you have taken from your time in higher education, explaining what courses, assignments, or conversations have been most productive; how your major will contribute to their future career; and how you will explain to prospective employers and inquisitive minds what skills you developed in your time in higher education.

This assignment is meant to be an easy to complete, but you should take good notes on the readings provided and be thinking about it during discussions.

This paper is also a chance to demonstrate that you are taking the advice from the diagnostic essay into consideration. Papers should have a clear introduction with a thesis, good paragraph development, use of examples and analysis (i.e. an assignment that developed certain skills and your explanation of what you took away from it); and excellent prose.

Now I turn to constructing a similar assignment for sophomores. I have not decided how much to change this assignment, or what new readings to add. Moreover, I continue to have conversations with historians in my department, friends from grad school, and elsewhere about this idea. What skills to we emphasize in our courses? How explicit should we  be in connecting what we do in our classrooms—our content, our skills, our readings—to the wider world? It is not something on which I have settled my opinion, and thus would love to hear the ideas, responses, and comments from other fellow historians. What articles have you found useful? Or do you reject the premise underlying my recent efforts?

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