Humanities Majors Outperform Their Peers on Several Measures and Enjoy Their Studies

This section combines personal stories of students finding their way through the humanities with data on learning outcomes and performance to demonstrate that humanities majors thrive - both subjectively and objectively. Placing them together helps demonstrate how the rigorous pursuit of subjects of intrinsic interest promotes intellectual and personal growth.

The data shows that humanities majors make greater strides than various other majors in critical thinking and reasoning. Employers have indicated the value of these skills in potential employees. In addition, humanities majors excel on graduate school entrance exams and see great success in being accepted to medical and law school. These achievements help provide humanities majors with a range of options for continued success post-graduation, including immediate employment and their choice of graduate programs. They also position humanities majors for long-term career success.

The second point elevates the voices of humanities students to illustrate how their studies equipped them for lifelong learning and success. Hearing directly from students provides a personalized look into their experiences as they discuss what they have learned, skills they have gained, and their plans for the future. These profiles convey the practical aspects of majoring in the humanities, as well as students’ deep interest in their fields.

Together, these data and stories illustrate why students primarily drawn to the humanities should major in a humanities discipline. “For a student to fulfill their full capacity for growth and learning, they need to pursue what they’re most excited by and interested in,” says cultural and political sociologist Andy Perrin. “The student who chooses against their natural interests for pragmatic reasons leaves some of the energy they would have put toward studies of greater personal interest on the table.”