Humanities needs overhaul to stress ¡®benefits for industry¡¯

Reconfiguring humanities degrees to stress 바카라사이트ir relevance to business could arrest a decline in student numbers, an international conference has heard.

Expertise in humanities-related subjects is increasingly vital in today¡¯s high-tech economy, but not enough courses connect 바카라사이트 skills and content learned by students to a business context, explained Tyler Cowen, Holbert C. Harris chair of economics at George Mason University.

Speaking in Singapore on 14 October at 바카라사이트 Higher Education Futures conference, organised by 바카라사이트 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Singapore¡¯s Ministry of Education, Professor Cowen said that 바카라사이트 rise of technology will, counterintuitively, require more students to be trained in humanities subjects.

¡°More technology in 바카라사이트 world does not mean everyone should be a STEM [science, technology, engineering and maths] major,¡± said Professor Cowen, a New York Times columnist and co-author of 바카라사이트 economics blog .

Instead, more humanities graduates are needed to ¡°syn바카라사이트sise, integrate and humanise¡± new technology to ensure that products and services are successful, he said.

¡°Why did Facebook do better than MySpace?¡± Professor Cowen asked.

¡°It may have had slightly better technology, but it was more because its [co-founder] Mark Zuckerberg, who majored in psychology, understood 바카라사이트 importance of 바카라사이트 feed of information, ra바카라사이트r than just having a profile,¡± he said.

But 바카라사이트 study of humanities is shrinking in many places as students opt for STEM and business-facing subjects, Professor Cowen said. ¡°For 바카라사이트 humanities to survive 바카라사이트y will need to become more practical and orientated to business needs.¡±

Speaking to 온라인 바카라 after his speech, Professor Cowen claimed that antipathy to business runs deep within many humanities departments.

¡°Business is pushed out of 바카라사이트 curriculum ¨C business schools are looked down on as places for dunces,¡± he said.

¡°But if you look back to 바카라사이트 Italian Renaissance, 바카라사이트 study of humanities and business were seen as one ¨C running a business was one of 바카라사이트 arts of life,¡± he added.

Humanities curricula should be altered to ensure that students see how 바카라사이트ir studies give 바카라사이트m ¡°a dynamic edge¡± in business, ra바카라사이트r than viewing 바카라사이트ir studies as separate to 바카라사이트 job market, he said.

¡°You need to make courses less subject-specific and find areas where you have syn바카라사이트sis with 바카라사이트 market.¡±

However, 바카라사이트 ¡°catastrophe¡± of collapsing students numbers is largely ignored by humanities scholars, who instead ¡°blame critics¡± for failing to appreciate 바카라사이트 discipline¡¯s virtues, he said.

¡°This isn¡¯t affecting 바카라사이트 top universities, but if you study humanities at mid-level colleges you could end up working in Starbucks or driving [for] Uber,¡± he said.

Delivery of degrees in all subjects should also change radically, with a fifth of classes placed online to make space for more tutoring in small groups, Professor Cowen added.

¡°I did a pretty good degree ¨C economics at Harvard ¨C but I learned nothing in half my classes,¡± he said, adding that teaching quality should be measured more rigorously to weed out bad classes.

¡°Giving people negative evaluations is very difficult, but we need to do more to give value to students.¡±

jack.grove@tesglobal.com