Union College is known for having ABET-accredited engineering programs, as a liberal arts school. It is one of the few schools that offers engineering in the form of a liberal arts education. Many students will commit to Union for this integration. When committing to Union, I was thrilled to be a part of a community that fostered both STEM and the humanities. However, after a few months of being on campus, I began to alter my excitement.
This all began with jokes from other peers when I told them I was majoring in English. They would make comments saying how I would never get a job or that I had it easy. I knew they were kidding, but when more and more people would make similar jokes, I started to feel as if I weren’t being taken seriously.
An anonymous interviewee stated, “I feel like I was falsely advertised to when applying to Union. I’ve been talked down to when I share that I am majoring in Psychology.” This proves other students have faced similar instances, even leading them to believe that Union isn’t exactly what they advertised for.
It is important to note here that psychology is technically a STEM field. However, many students consider it to be a “soft science” because it requires less quantitative reasoning. “Hard sciences” include areas such as engineering and natural sciences. So, it is not just the humanities that are looked down upon, but also the social sciences.
According to Union’s common data set for 2024-2025, 27% of students are majoring in the humanities. For a school that claims it values the integration of the humanities and STEM, this is a notable low number of people who focus on the humanities. This is not just the case for Union, however. A lot of other colleges face the same issue of a lack of students who have an interest in the humanities. According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, “The number of bachelor’s degrees conferred in the historical categories [humanities] has been falling more quickly than for the field as a whole—with a decline of almost 37% from 2012 to 2022.”
Schools all around the United States are losing interest in the humanities, and trustees are highly aware of that. This means that funding for humanities departments starts to decrease.
“Schools seem to have given up, which leads to them taking funding away from the humanities field,” commented English major Alex Sano ‘28. Although education buildings and their needs alter with catering towards certain majors, there is a notable trend that STEM buildings are taking over campus. There is even a new building in progress for engineering. All this highlights the limited resources and finances being put into the humanities.
Overall, there is a substantial loss of interest in the humanities, not just at Union but at many other colleges. Due to this, the field is losing funding and resources. Many do not realize how important the humanities are, and if this continues to happen, the future will lack creativity, critical thinking, and inspiration.
