Today’s BA offers thinking and computer literacy
This week, my son began his first year of university. Like almost a quarter-million other young Canadians, Jacob is starting a new adventure, with a curiosity about the world around him, an eye to the job market and a relationship with technology that sometimes baffles his dad.
Like all parents, I am concerned for his future. But as he settles down in a new city and province, eager to get away from mom and dad, I am confident that he will succeed, and that the four years, and thousands of dollars, will be worth it.
Why? Because my son wants to go into business, or perhaps law, or maybe communications — like most 18-year-olds, he’s still making up his mind — and he has chosen to enrol in a bachelor of arts.
To some people, his choice will come as a surprise. Conventional wisdom — and believe me, Jacob heard it regularly from his friends — is that an arts degree is a one-way ticket to life behind a barista bar.
The facts tell us otherwise. While graduates from science, technology, engineering and math (STEM fields) have higher starting salaries, those with arts and humanities degrees catch up over time.
According to Statistics Canada, Canadians with a degree in geography earn an average of $72,000 per year, about the same as those with degrees in the biomedical sciences. In other countries, the picture is similarly rosy: in the United Kingdom, 55 per cent of professional leaders are liberal arts graduates.
When it comes to offering career advice to my son, I have an advantage on some parents, because in addition to being his dad, I’m also a dean of a faculty of arts. As a result, I know that in his BA, Jacob will be able to wrestle with some of the most pressing issues of our day.
Environmental change may take him to classes and professors in geography. The rise of social media may bring him to communications. The need for inclusive economic growth, across all regions and classes, may mean he’s in economics. And in these courses he won’t be doing rote memorization, he’ll be encountering different perspectives and debating solutions.
For his part, Jacob knows that when he enters the job market, he will be competing on a global scale, and he intends to be ready. As his dad, I recognize how quickly the world can change.
One of our uOttawa arts alumni, a self-described “history nerd” and now CEO of a securities exchange, points out that several of the world’s largest companies, by market capitalization, did not exist a decade ago.
My hope for my son, as we look to an uncertain future of regular disruption is that his degree will help him learn to learn. I’m confident that in his BA he will practise how to research thoroughly, analyze carefully and tell the difference between facts and opinions.
Whatever problem he decides to tackle, he’ll do it through both quiet reflection and intense use of technology.
And here is where I have another advantage over some other parents. Because in addition to being a dean, I’m also a history and digital humanities professor, who teaches students with paper and pen as well as databases and apps.
This may be the biggest difference between Jacob’s degree, and the bachelor of arts I took nearly 30 years ago. I remind students such as Jacob, who have never owned a phone that wasn’t smart, that solving the challenges of today requires book learning and deep thinking, as well as the full weight of contemporary computing tools.
“It’s hard to predict, especially the future,” goes the old saw. My son will be spending the next four years studying for his BA, wrestling with many of the most pressing questions of our time, learning to learn and using contemporary technology to propose answers. He’ll be ready for whatever awaits him.
Kevin Kee is dean of the faculty of arts at the University of Ottawa. This first appeared in the Ottawa Citizen.