At some point in our diverse academic careers, we have all heard this riddle: The graduate with a science degree asks, "why does it work?" the graduate with an engineering degree asks, "how does it work?" the graduate with a management degree asks, "how much will it cost?" and the graduate with an arts degree asks, "do you want fries with that?" Although this joke may garner a chuckle out of the average arts student, it often worries and angers them as well. In the hierarchical division of undergraduate degrees, the Bachelor of Arts always seems to come in at the bottom rung, relegated to post-graduate studies of the fry vat rather than the more admirable, intellectual pursuit of medical research or a Masters' degree in mechanical engineering.
Would you like fries with that?
The Faculty of Arts at McGill has over 6,000 students, making it easy to feel like an insignificant factory worker in a lecture of over 200 students-hacking out paper after paper, writing multiple choice test after multiple choice test, without any individual contribution to the wider academic community. To survive in the face of academic oppression, many arts students resort to all-nighters, attempting to cram every bit of knowledge humanly possible into their brains before a 9 a.m. exam, yet forgetting all those specifics in a haze of cheap beer at Biftek by 9 p.m. that night. Not retaining the definition of a nation-state or forgetting the specifics of Laura Mulvey's critique of cinematic film can leave the arts student frustrated and contemplating the point of pursuing their degree at all. And forget about finding a job once you graduate. While management students flock to the Bronfman building in the fall sporting their fancy suits to meet with impressive financial firms, arts students are left in the cold, wondering: why doesn't anybody want me? What employer is going to hire an arts grad who, at best, is one of thousands that knows a little bit of everything, but nothing about one thing in specific?
As it turns out, plenty of employers. True, there is a definite lack of obvious correspondence between most arts majors and specific job titles, but this does not negate the Bachelor of Arts as a botched investment in your future. Jennifer Floren, CEO of a college recruiting service called Experience, explains that it is the generality of a BA degree that makes it so useful. "If you are concerned that your liberal arts education isn't going to train you for a specific career, you're missing the whole point," she says. "The value is that it's preparing you for any career." Once you begin to think of the arts degree in terms acquiring broad, transferable skills as opposed to specific techniques and knowledge, its merits become more apparent.
Oh, the choices
Still, with thousands of students in the Faculty of Arts all crammed into 18 academic departments, many feel a bit overwhelmed by the vast size of the faculty and the plethora of choices available to them. "I'm not sure where my university degree is going to get me," says Mikelis Steprans, U3 Political Science and Canadian Studies. Although he is in his last year of the four-year BA program, Steprans admits that he is not headed in one clear direction once he graduates. "I don't have any plans as of now," he says.
Because the Arts degree is not a vocational one, its graduates must do more work to prepare for the job search, says Gregg Blachford, Director of the McGill Career and Placement Center. "If you're in engineering or management, you're being streamlined," he says. For arts graduates, career paths are less obvious. "A lot of arts students are just not aware of the nature of work out there," Blachford adds. Papageorgiou agrees that graduating from arts can be confusing. "Arts is more subjective," she says, "there isn't someone telling you what to do, you have to make what you want out of it."
Sonia Kovacic, U3 International Management and Marketing, however, takes comfort in her choice to pursue a BCom as opposed to a BA because she believes it will make her job search that much easier. "That's why I'm here," she says, referring to her stakeout in the Bronfman library. To ease the painful process of narrowing down an arts-related career path, CAPS has created online guides entitled "What can I do with my studies in…?" that provide suggestions of typical entry-level positions depending on your major, experience and interests.
Focus, focus, focus
Dean of Arts Christopher Manfredi believes that the Bachelor of Arts is a valuable degree because it allows students depth in their discipline, breadth of education and "because of the skills it teaches you in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, ability to write and its broad exposure to questions of the human condition." For the university student, beginning adult life from the general perspective that an arts degree provides choice and moving slowly toward a more specialized focus after graduation is much easier than beginning with something very specific (say, neurobiology) and trying to expand your focus later. Most students begin their degrees at 17 or 18 and are likely to consider several different career interests before deciding on just one. The freedom to learn from several disciplines within the Faculty of Arts allows students to explore many academic paths to help them with this decision. Rania Papageorgiou, U0 BA & BSc relishes this half of her educational experience. "I like the fact that arts offers a broad education, that's how you figure out what you want," she says.
The liberal arts approach is making a slow comeback in Canada after years of focus on technical skills, needed to support the once-burgeoning high-tech sector. As the technological boom has begun to even out, the demand for employees with a broader mindset has resurfaced in the job market to manage the infrastructure and creative thinking behind modern innovation. In a January 2001 report, 30 top executives of major Canadian high-tech corporations released a joint statement citing a "strong need for those with a broader background who can work in tandem with technical specialists, helping create and manage a corporate environment."
The post-secondary education system in Canada is also shifting slightly to provide more liberal arts opportunities. McGill recently introduced the freshman Arts Legacy program, a year-long interdisciplinary approach that emphasizes rhetorical skills such as how to think critically and communicate effectively.
Taking the higher route
Although many question their business savvy, BA graduates are actually highly employable in the corporate world. "The CEOs of the world are mostly arts students," says Blachford. "They find their feat in the industry that they work in and tend to get the promotions, tend to establish themselves more strongly because they are more broadly based." According to a recent statistical analysis conducted by Dr. Robert C. Allen of the University of British Columbia, 50 to 81 per cent of arts graduates are employed in a professional or managerial capacity, which compared favourably with those in commerce, at 60 per cent. Manfredi believes this favourable statistic exists because "employers are looking for smart people who easily adapt to new situations." In fact, he suggests, "someone with an arts degree may be better at those things than someone with a more specialized degree."
Since so many arts students are unclear about what they want to do by the time their graduation impends, many turn to graduate programs as an alternative to entering the workforce or because they feel they must specialize further in order to get a good job. Although Manfredi and Blachford contest that a Masters' degree is necessary to achieve one's career goals after the BA, neither denies that the Bachelor of Arts degree is a solid foundation to build upon should one choose to pursue higher education. Whereas most Bcom and Beng students go straight to work after graduation, a larger chunk of BA students, 40 per cent, go on to higher education, says Blachford. Miriam Israel, who graduated from Concordia's Liberal Arts College in 2004 and is now in her first year Law at Universite de Montreal, feels she has a notable advantage over her CEGEP graduate counterparts. "Since Law School is 100 per cent finals, I think that if I didn't have the studying training to do it, I wouldn't be able to handle it under the stress," she says.
Down to an art
The merits of the broad arts program are resonating now with other faculties that are now shifting towards a multidisciplinary approach in their programs. "I think there is a recognition in the fact that we have created the Bachelor of Arts and Science degree, that people who are in science need exposure to arts and vice versa," says Manfredi. For Papageorgiou, participation in the interdisciplinary degree has opened more doors. "I was pushed into science by my parents, but I enjoy arts more," she says.
The Bachelor of Commerce degree at McGill has also been recently restructured to require fewer core courses from U0 students, opening up the curriculum and encouraging students to take more electives and courses outside of management. "I find arts more enriching [than management], you get something out of it," says Kovacic.
Getting something out of your four years as an undergrad is dependent on taking courses that you find interesting, whether in the Faculty of Arts or not. Exposure to diverse courses and disciplines gives the graduate with a BA the invaluable skill of adaptability. Dean Manfredi believes this is the most underrated asset of a broadly structured arts education.
"It makes you a better citizen, I think it makes you a better human being and I think the most important thing is that it gives one a degree of adaptability, which in a rapidly changing world, is absolutely crucial."
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