There may be a family member who says you ought to be ashamed of pursuing a humanities major.  Associate professor of English Jason Peters calls him Uncle Ed. Unfortunately, Uncle Ed has a misguided view of the purpose of education, favoring utility over all else: Learn, regurgitate, and repeat until you land a job. Yet we should be proud to admit that the humanities are beautiful, and that’s reason enough to cling to them. The alternative is forsaking beauty at the expense of pure practicality, which sounds like a blueprint for Brutalist architecture and a culture devoid of a soul.

While education offers practical applications, these will never be its sole purpose. Humanities majors learn to think critically about essential things. Literature teaches us to read ourselves into the world. History teaches us the mythos of heritage. Theology addresses important questions of how best to live in Creation. These help, not hinder, our ability to make a living and contribute to society. Students of the humanities engage in conversations within the tradition of the humanities as teachers and pastors. A humanities major might open doors to law school, or a career in journalism or politics. Half the beauty of engaging in rich tradition is applying what we have learned.

The humanities peer into the human experience. Studying them requires an outlook on education that sees past utility. Trust that beauty in what you study actually does matter… and don’t mind Uncle Ed.