In high school, Kristin Hsu thought she’d become a doctor.
“I would do STEM summer camps and learn more about biology,” she recalled. “And then I had a small injury, and I fainted when I saw my blood.”
When she enrolled at Georgia Tech — a school known for science, engineering and football — she pivoted, declaring a major of literature, media and communication.
“I didn’t want to just narrow in on something full humanities. I wanted to broaden my experience and be surrounded by people who think differently,” she said. “It’s really shaped my experience and helped me figure out what I want to do in the future.”
Georgia Tech’s program is part of a growing trend in higher education known as “applied humanities,” reframing liberal arts as a path for students to build essential job skills like communication, collaboration and deep critical thinking.
“They’re learning to think in other people’s shoes,” said Richard Utz, dean of Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.
Utz, a medievalist by training, said the college is removing institutional silos and dismantling outdated perceptions about higher education.
“There is no English department at Georgia Tech,” he explained.
In his classroom, Utz assigns his students to read 15th century ballads about Robin Hood, challenging them to understand values beyond their own. In turn, they can connect those skills to real-world applications like job interviews — something he knows some old-school professors bristle at.
“Humanities scholars need to get over their own myth they have created about themselves, which is that we’re the last of the race — the last remnant of humanity, and that without us humanity and the world will come to an end.”
From the Renaissance to the Industrial and Digital ages, Utz pointed out, there is simply no proof of that myth.
A national shift
Enrollment at Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College reached its highest-ever level last fall — nearly 2,000 students. And the school is not alone in appealing to students by reframing the humanities as job-friendly. The University of Arizona took a similar approach, and its humanities enrollment grew by nearly 80%. Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire launched a humanities institute to weave “humanistic thought into daily life.”
The shift comes as employers increasingly want candidates with strong communication, critical thinking and adaptability — skills many college grads today lack as artificial intelligence automates more and more technical work.
“There are a number of CEOs since the launch of GPT that have been talking about how much they’re beginning to run in the direction of humanity skills,” said Rishi Jaitly , who founded and runs an executive education program at Virginia Tech.
“I see the humanities as a lifelong, always-on pursuit."Rishi Jaitly, Virginia Tech
His program uses the humanities to help train mid-career managers and executives from companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing, Zillow and TikTok.
“Yes, TikTok,” he affirmed, laughing. “Leadership inside of organizations is and can be about matters of the heart.”
A former Google and Twitter executive, Jaitly said he believes colleges must rethink how they “package and sell” humanities degrees in the face of a looming shortage of 18-year-olds known in higher education as the “demographic cliff.”
“We need to reimagine how we think about how the humanities,” he said. “Go to market, meet people where they are, and show up in the cultivation of what is really a superpower.”
The U.S. Military agrees. West Point and the Naval Academy are maintaining their liberal arts requirements, enlisting humanities to create better, more adaptable leaders.
Admiral James Foggo, who leads the Center for Maritime Strategy in Arlington, Virginia, said he often reminds young cadets hoping to become engineers that they are what they write.
“There are a lot of engineers out there who are really, really smart, but they cannot communicate in the English language — and nobody’s gonna understand what you want, what you need, what you recommend,” he said.
Changing the narrative
While some colleges are successfully rebranding the humanities, the broader landscape has its share of uncertainty.
Funding for the humanities is facing headwinds after The National Endowment for the Humanities, the country’s largest public humanities funder, recently cut off federal support to state humanities councils and many existing grants.
The Mellon Foundation stepped in Tuesday with $15 million in emergency aid, but it covers only a fraction of the $65 million in funding that was expected — leaving many programs, especially in rural areas, at risk.
Joy Connolly, president of the American Council of Learned Societies, has long highlighted the massive disparities in research funding between the humanities and sciences. Still, humanities degrees continue to offer long-term career value, even if initial salaries lag behind technical degrees.
“It is true that the immediate job after college for humanities majors is often less well-compensated than the first job for someone who’s working as a coder,” she said. “But later on in the career, those numbers even out.”
More than 80% of humanities majors report being happier with their jobs than peers in other fields, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Connolly, an expert on ancient Roman political thought, said studying a subject you’re passionate about prepares students for a future in which multiple career changes are the norm.
“It’s that experience of digging into a topic, whether it be astrophysics or art history, that really gives your brain the workout, and the preparation for a life that these days is going to involve six or seven career changes in a really unpredictable world,” Connolly said.
The value of a liberal arts education has been debated for years. American politicians, on both the ideological right and left, have urged American families to seek more technical degrees.
In 2014, former President Barack Obama urged Americans to consider skilled trades.
“A lot of young people no longer see the trades and skilled manufacturing as a viable career. But I promise you, folks can make a lot more potentially with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree,” Obama told General Electric workers in Waukesha, Wisconsin. “Nothing wrong with art history. I love art history. So I don’t want to get a bunch of emails from everyone.”
Obama did get a bunch of emails. For that art history insult, he faced immediate backlash from the academy and the Democratic base, prompting an apology and even a hand-written note to one professor.
More recently, speaking to students on stage at Hamilton College, Obama sounded a different note.
“Unless you are really good, like one of the top 1% of in terms of understanding how to code, you’re better off with liberal arts education,” he said, predicting AI will soon disrupt many white-collar jobs.
“What these machines can’t yet do, and I don’t anticipate will be able to do, is tell as good a story or show compassion or be able to inspire a child or build a sense of teamwork and get people to understand and believe in a common mission,” he said.
Looking forward, Obama said those people-based qualities will only grow more valuable.
Thoughtful and hireable
At Georgia Tech, the steam whistle still blows every hour, just as it has since the 1880s , once calling students to shop classes.
After class on a recent afternoon, sophomore Zara Vaughan said she’s glad she switched from neuroscience to humanities.
“In our classes, we are so heavily discouraged from things like ChatGPT,” she said. “I know you don’t normally have to write an essay as an adult, but communication skills are really important.”
Vaughan said studying the humanities has helped her slow down in a world ruled by Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
“Everything is so fast track,” she said. “We have short attention spans.”
Vaughan hopes to become a sports reporter, but is also minoring in pre-law to keep her options open.
Meanwhile, senior Kristin Hsu just landed a job at a human resources and tech company.
“I’m just so excited,” she said. “To feel secure and know what I’m doing when I’m graduating is the best feeling.”
She’s one more student proving that humanities grads aren’t just thoughtful, they’re hireable.
This story is part of GBH’s podcast College Uncovered. The latest episode “The Revenge of the Humanities” is out now. Subscribe, listen and learn wherever you enjoy audio.
