Arts vs Sciences: the degree debate

Why?
Why am I doing an arts degree? A degree said to give me lower wages, lower prospects, less job stability, accessibility and that will most likely, and people are most pushing for, make me go into teaching? Is because I love it an ok answer? Not for adults. A term which now includes me.

Becoming an adult means making adult decisions. It means I am working over Easter, I washed my sheets before coming home from uni and that I buy milk instead of chocolate at the supermarket. It also means considering my future and seriously this time. What do I want to be now I’m all grown up? When the government seems to hate the arts by cutting funding and courses, I question why I bother to study English Literature with Creative Writing at all. The harsh truth is; the world doesn't need more tortured artists or more wannabe writers. The professions are over saturated as it is. So where does that leave me?



What the world does need, is my twin brother. He is a computer science student who intends to specialise in cyber security, which is not only one of the most highly demanded professions in the UK but an incredibly lucrative field. And here I am, writing poems.
The sciences scream stability and longevity. Their students career paths are not only visible but practical. Something I wish I could say about my own. Jobs like secretaries are on the way out and according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, 30% of British jobs will submit to automation by the 2030's. Workers will be replaced by apps and computers, that my people like my brother will programme. They don’t need humans anymore.

But as much as they try, they can’t code my voice. No AI (artificial intelligence/robot) could replicate my sarcasm, my dry sense of humour or the fear of failure that motivates everything I do. In fact, I don’t think AI’s can feel fear at all. The arts supply innovative and broad minds which are more necessary in our volatile economic and social society than ever before. It is an arts mind, full of Hemingway and Wuthering Heights that can secure the timeless jobs of authors, actors and play-writes because a robot won't do. The study of literature, of the Arts, is worthwhile, even if not followed by a huge paycheck, because it is these artists that hold society accountable with their work. Money makes the world go round but books are always needed to offer a word of advice, prop up a table or sometimes change the world.

I love my degree. When its good its good. But when it's bad, I get 2.1’s and a lifetime of defending my BA. Maybe I am just feeling disillusioned, and will always envy the degree, the path, I did not follow. The grass always seems greener. And on the grass, is sat my twin brother.

Comments

  1. Yes Sophie, your brother will most likely earn more money, and AIs may rule the world, but in dark days, when the lights go out, the snow falls and bitter winds blow across war torn landscapes, what is it that the man in the street does to lighten his load? First to show defiance, he sings, then to record hardship of battles won and lost, he paints. Round community/family fires and hearths, he tells stories and to record the narrative, he writes to be recorded the History. The songs bring hope, soothe the frightend child, bring humour to the situation mock the aggressor. The paintings record for those who cannot read the story, and poetry soothes the soul and brings joy that can be remembered and carried in the heart and mind for recall in a moment. Can an AI do any of that, and will money bring satisfaction if there is no art to clothe a fractured world? Art is the opposite to cyber, Each need he other but which one feeds the soul? Brenda A

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