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作者：詹姆斯·格罗斯曼 编译：熊一舟 来源：洛杉矶时报 时间：2016年5月30日 现状 — 边缘人文类专业 —
自2007年的经济衰退发生以来，历史学专业在学术界失去重要的“市场份额”，从占所有本科毕业生的2.2%下降到1.7%。
在2014年美国毕业的所有本科学生中，历史专业学生比上一年度减少了9%。这一下降趋势在研究型大学和著名文科院校中尤为明显。
这是非常不幸的——不光对这些学校而言，对美国的经济和政治而言也是如此。当然，不仅仅是历史学专业受到轻视，学生们也冷落了其他人文类专业，包括哲学、文学和语言学专业等。
总体而言，核心人文类专业仅占2014年授予的所有学士学位专业的6.1%，自1948年以来占比最低。 缘由 — 看重立即回报 — 学生们往往在家长的压力之下，选择那些更有可能在毕业后获得高回报、就业机会多的专业，如商科（占专业总数的19%）或技术类专业。而历史学看上去则像牌局中那张最差的牌。
雪上加霜的是，历史学专业曾被认为是进入法学院的最佳预备专业之一，但现在历史学专业的学生成为律师的可能性越来越渺茫了。历史学专业学生的另一个传统就业方向是教师，但由于公办学校预算紧缩，对教师的需求量也下降了。
事实虽然如此，但作为历史学者，他们知道如何看待这种简单逻辑之外的前景。是的，毕业之初的几年里，技术和工程类专业、商科专业的学生拥有更多的就业机会，特别是工程和计算机科学专业的学生。
在经济衰退的背景下，学生们当然更为关注获得的第一份工作。 事实 — 厚积薄发的收获 — 长期以来，历史学专业和其他人文类专业的毕业生在经济收入上的表现同样不俗。毕业15年后，哲学专业的学生比商科专业的学生收入更高。历史学专业的学生与商科专业学生的收入不分伯仲。
这是因为，美国和其他国家的劳动力市场是不稳定和难以预测的。在就业岗位频繁变换的大背景下，最有用的专业是那些能够打开许多大门、使学生学会学习的专业，而不是教会学生从事某一特定事务的专业。 所有事物都有其历史。历史地思考，就是承认所有问题、所有情况和所有机构都是在历史背景下发生和出现的，在做出决策之前必须了解这一点。
任何一个机构——公司、政府或非营利组织——都不能没有历史学家。我们需要更多历史专业的学生，而不是更少。
附英文原文 History isn't a 'useless' major. It teaches critical thinking, something America needs plenty more ofBy James Grossman Los Angeles Times 30 May, 2016 Since the beginning of the Great Recessionin 2007, the history major has lost significant market share in academia,declining from 2.2% of all undergraduate degrees to 1.7%. The graduatingclass of 2014, the most recent for which there are national data, included 9%fewer history majors than the previous year’s cohort, compounding a 2.8%decrease the year before that. The drop is most pronounced at large researchuniversities and prestigious liberal arts colleges.
This is unfortunate — not just for thosecolleges, but for our economy and polity.
Of course it’s not just history. Students also are slighting other humanities disciplines includingphilosophy, literature, linguistics and languages. Overall, the core humanitiesdisciplines constituted only 6.1% of all bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2014,the lowest proportion since systematic data collection on college majors beganin 1948.
Conventional wisdom offers its usual facileanswers for these trends: Students (sometimes pressured by parents paying thetuition) choose fields more likely to yield high-paying employment right aftergraduation — something “useful,” like business (19% of diplomas), ortechnology-oriented. History looks like a bad bet.
Politicians both draw on those simplicitiesand perpetuate them — from PresidentBarack Obama’s dig against the value of an art history degree to Sen. Marco Rubio’s comment that welders earn more thanphilosophers. Governors oppose public spending on “useless” college majors.History, like its humanistic brethren, might prepare our young people to becitizens, but it supposedly does not prepare workers — at least not well paidones.
The utility of disciplines that preparecritical thinkers escapes personnel offices, pundits and politicians.
The diminished prospects for attorneys inrecent years extends this logic, as the history major has long been consideredamong the best preparation for law school. The other conventional career pathfor history majors is teaching, but that too is suffering weak demand due topressure on public school budgets.
A historian, however, would know that it isessential to look beyond such simplistic logic. Yes, in the first few yearsafter graduation, STEM and business majors have more obvious job prospects —especially in engineering and computer science. And in our recession-scarredeconomic context, of course students are concerned with landing that first job.
Over the long run, however, graduates inhistory and other humanities disciplines do well financially. Rubio would besurprised to learn that after 15 years, those philosophy majors have morelucrative careers than college graduates with business degrees. History majors’mid-career salaries are on par with those holding business bachelor'sdegrees. Notably these salary findingsexclude those who went on to attain a law or other graduate degree.
The utility of disciplines that preparecritical thinkers escapes personnel offices, punditsand politicians (some of whom perhaps would prefer thatcolleges graduate more followers and fewer leaders). But it shouldn’t. Labormarkets in the United States and other countries are unstable andunpredictable. In this environment — especially given the expectation of careerchanges — the most useful degrees are those that can open multiple doors, and thosethat prepare one to learn rather than do some specific thing.
All liberal arts degrees demand that kindof learning, as well as the oft-invoked virtues of critical thinking and clearcommunication skills. History students, in particular, sift through substantialamounts of information, organize it, and make sense of it. In the process theylearn how to infer what drives and motivates human behavior from elections tosocial movements to board rooms.
Employers interested in recruiting futuremanagers should understand (and many do) that historical thinking prepares onefor leadership because history is about change — envisioning it, planning forit, making it last. In an election season we are reminded regularly thatsuccess often goes to whoever can articulate the most compelling narrative.History majors learn to do that. Everything has a history. To thinkhistorically is to recognize that all problems, all situations, allinstitutions exist in contexts that must be understood before informeddecisions can be made. No entity — corporate, government, nonprofit — canafford not to have a historian at the table. We need more history majors,not fewer.
James Grossman is the executive director ofthe American Historical Assn.
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