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Don’t Panic, Liberal Arts Majors. The Tech World Wants You. 文科生？别慌张，科技圈需要你 乔治·安德尔《你无所不能：“无用”之文理教育的神奇力量》 YOU CAN DO ANYTHING：The Surprising Power of a “Useless” Liberal Arts Education By George Anders 兰德尔·斯特罗斯《一项实用的教育：为什么文科毕业生能成为优秀员工》 A PRACTICAL EDUCATION: Why Liberal Arts Majors Make Great Employees By Randall Stross Surely one day the ability to interface directly with the nanomachinery connected to our brains will render computer science as we know it obsolete. When experts start arguing for its continued relevance, undergraduates choosing a major will begin to realize that the obscure art of manually punching arcane symbols into keyboards is no longer a safe bet. At the present moment, however, it is only liberal arts majors who have to wonder whether all of the articles and books promoting the marketability of their chosen discipline should make them more or less uneasy about the future. Two additions to this growing field have appeared just in time to try to soothe the post-graduation panic that some within the class of 2017 may be experiencing: George Anders’s “You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a ‘Useless’ Liberal Arts Education” and Randall Stross’s “A Practical Education: Why Liberal Arts Majors Make Great Employees.” 也许有朝一日，纳米机器会接入我们的大脑，取代众所周知的计算机科学了。当专家们开始为这一学科辩护，认为他还有用，本科生选择专业时将意识到，不能把未来寄托在用键盘输入晦涩难懂的符号这一令人费解的艺术。不过以目前来看，只有文科生必须对大部分推介所选学科市场广泛的文章心生疑虑，这是否或多或少地让人对未来感到心神不安。有两部新出版的作品正当其时，它们对症下药，旨在减轻2017年应届毕业生的毕业后恐慌：乔治·安德尔的《你无所不能：“无用”之文理教育的神奇力量》和兰德尔·斯特罗斯的《一项实用的教育：为什么文科毕业生能成为优秀员工》。 According to both Anders and Stross, the ever-expanding tech sector is now producing career opportunities in fields — project management, recruitment, human relations, branding, data analysis, market research, design, fund-raising and sourcing, to name some — that specifically require the skills taught in the humanities. To thrive in these areas, one must be able to communicate effectively, read subtle social and emotional cues, make persuasive arguments, adapt quickly to fluid environments, interpret new forms of information while translating them into a compelling narrative and anticipate obstacles and opportunities before they arise. Programs like English or history represent better preparation, the two authors argue, for the demands of the newly emerging “rapport sector” than vocationally oriented disciplines like engineering or finance. Though it does not automatically land one in a particular career, training in the humanities, when pitched correctly, will ultimately lead to gainful and fulfilling employment. Indeed, by the time they reach what Stross terms the “peak earning ages,” 56-60, liberal arts majors earn on average $2,000 more per year than those with pre-professional degrees (if advanced degrees in both categories are included). 安德尔和斯特罗斯认为，日益扩张的科技业正在创造大量人文学科的就业机会——项目管理、员工招聘、人事关系、品牌创建、数据分析、市场研究、设计、融资、采购，不一而足，这些领域尤其需要人文学科技能。要在这些领域有所成就，必须拥有出色的沟通能力，能够读懂微妙的社会情绪信号，说服谈判对象，迅速适应不稳定的环境，将新式的信息翻译为引人入胜的故事，并预见还未发生的危险和机遇。两位作家提出，相对于工程或金融这类职业导向性强的学科，文学和历史学科为满足新兴“睦恰产业”的需求做好准备。人文学科的训练，尽管未明确地指向某一职业方向，只要找对路，将最终带来报酬丰厚、成就感十足的就业机会。说实话，当文科生到了斯特罗斯笔下的“黄金就业年龄”即56到60岁时，年均比职业导向型专业学生多赚2000美金（两个类别的高等学位都包括在内）。 While “You Can Do Anything” and “A Practical Education” supply useful talking points in support of the financial viability of studying the liberal arts, they may arouse more fear than hope. Both feature myriad anecdotes of job searches, all with happy endings, but the journey there invariably proves daunting, circuitous and chancy. Moreover, the reality that apparently favors liberal arts majors is precisely what makes the current job market so forbidding: extreme precariousness. Trained to be flexible and adaptable, these students are well equipped, according to Anders, to navigate an unstable job market, where companies, fields and sometimes whole industries rise and fall at a nauseating clip, where automation is rendering once coveted skills redundant and where provisional short-term jobs, freelance assignments, part-time gigs, unpaid internships and self-employment are replacing long-term, full-time salaried positions that include rights and benefits protected by unions. While Anders, a contributing writer at Forbes magazine, clearly wants the best for recent liberal arts graduates, his pep talk often consists of rebranding the treacherous market conditions of the 21st century as part of a thrilling new frontier. Instability can promote “quirky-job-hopping” and greater “autonomy.” Recent liberal arts graduates who find these conditions less than inviting, Anders says, simply need to discover the proper spirit of adventure — the same spirit that led them to their chosen field of study. But somehow it seems unlikely that his analogy to white-water rafting will get them excited to send out yet another batch of cover letters and résumés. 尽管《你无所不能》和《一项实用的教育》摆明了学习文科的赚钱前景，他它们引发恐慌多于希望。两书均提及大量求职故事，无一例外以求职者获得成功结尾，可过程无一不是令人气馁、，好事多磨，甚至靠碰运气。不仅如此，文科毕业生受重视这一事实恰恰反映出当下就业市场何以令人生畏，极度风雨飘摇。用安德尔的话说，文科生受到训练，他们身段灵活，适应性强，有足够手段把握一个不稳定的就业市场，这里的企业、部门甚至整个产业都浮沉不定。自动化让曾经梦寐以求的技能没了用武之处，临时工、自由职业、兼职、无薪实习和创业者取代了长期的全职岗位，后者拥有受到工会保护的权利和福利。福布斯特约作者安德尔显然想为为文科毕业生争取好的未来，但他鼓舞士气的话中，也包括将这一21世纪危险重重的市场条件重塑为激动人心的新领域。不稳定性会激发“神跳槽”和“自治”。因此，安德尔认为，近年来对这种情况避之不及的文科毕业生只需发扬点冒险精神，那种让他们选择所在专业的勇气。然而，将其比作“白水泛舟”恐怕不可能让学生们有心情再寄送一轮求职信和简历。 The two books also raise hard questions about who exactly can turn a liberal arts degree into a successful career. In almost all of the stories, job candidates must survive a significant lag time before finding a position that pays the bills, during which they are often forced to pursue additional training or accept poorly compensated work while relying on financial support from their parents. Moreover, in just about every case, they end up tapping into an extensive network of family and friends. Ominously, Stross, a professor of business at San Jose State University, chooses to restrict his study to Stanford graduates in order to ensure that he has a sufficient number of success stories. And even these individuals end up struggling along the way. How much harder must it be for those with fewer connections and with B.A.s from less prestigious schools? No wonder first-generation, working-class and foreign students are so often drawn to technology and business majors, which appear to provide a more direct line between credentials earned and career opportunities secured. 两书也提出谁能将文科学位转化为成功事业的难题。几乎所有故事里，求职者得到一份能够糊口的工作前都要等上很久，期间，他们不得不接受更多的职业训练，或是干一份低薪工作，靠父母资助过活。不仅如此，在几乎所有案例中，求职者最终不得不求助于自己家人和朋友的关系网络。可怕的是，《一项实用的教育》作者、圣何塞州立大学商科教授斯特罗斯仅将他的研究对象局限在斯坦福大学的毕业生中，从而确保成功故事的数量——就连这些精英学生都在求职路上面临了重重困难。那些毕业于相对普通的高校、关系不多的本科生要经历的困难又会如何呢？难怪第一代大学生、来自工薪阶层的大学生和国际生更倾向于选择技术、商业等专业了：只有这样的选择，才能更加直接地将教育履历和职业机会联系起来，为学生提供一个更可靠的未来。 When Anders observes that Etsy wants employees who can “banter about Jenny Holzer’s conceptual artwork and turn theory into praxis,” this sounds like code for people who can speak the language of privilege. It is possible, of course, for a B.A. in the liberal arts to help working-class students acquire the cultural fluency that generally develops out of being raised amid the affluent and the highly educated, but it also seems likely that an elite background, not a degree in theater or art history, is the most reliable gateway into the career fields Anders is plugging. Anders does cite a 2015 study indicating that students with liberal arts degrees from lower-ranked schools entered the tech sector at only a slightly reduced rate compared with students from highly ranked schools (7.5 percent to 9.9 percent). But his summary does not indicate exactly what jobs these different types of students got or what they were paid, and Anders himself admits that extra career guidance may be necessary to help students at second-tier universities make their liberal arts education work for them in the way he thinks it should. 手工艺交易网站易集希望招收能够“拿珍妮·霍尔泽的抽象艺术打趣，并化理论为实践”的员工，安德尔认为，这是在暗示能够理解贵族话语的人。当然，人文专业有可能帮助工人阶级学生获得那种只有生于富贵人家及书香门第才能拥有的文化自在，可似乎精英家庭背景而非戏剧或艺术史专业才是通向安德斯所言的这些职业领域最可靠的入口。安德尔引用2015年一项研究发现，从排名较低学校的人文专业毕业的学生进入科技领域的比例并不比从著名院校毕业的文科生低多少（前者是7.5%，后者是9.9%）；但这一结论并未说明这些学生究竟在从事哪些工作，薪水如何。安德尔自己也承认，对二流学校的学生们而言，额外的职业引导能帮助文科教育以他们认为的方式发挥作用。 Advocates of the liberal arts will maintain that the intellectual experiences fostered in these disciplines ought to be available to everyone. If the trust-fund kids don’t have to weigh the practicality of studying feminist philosophy when registering for classes, why should the scholarship students? Moreover many academics dismiss the now widespread tendency to assess fields of study in terms of their marketability, viewing it as a sign of the American university’s capitulation to a corporatist, neoliberal ideology. The goal of the liberal arts, they would say, is to impart knowledge, promote the capacity for serious intellectual inquiry and encourage critical perspectives on prevailing norms and assumptions, whether or not such training attracts prospective employers. But then what professors don’t want their students to get good jobs after college, particularly those saddled with debts accrued to pay their tuition? Indeed, in the face of what looks like permanent budget austerity within higher education, the future of many humanities disciplines probably depends on their perceived ability to open doors to professional opportunities. Thus true believers in liberal arts degrees may find themselves rejecting the criteria that Anders and Stross use to assert their value and viability while secretly, desperately hoping that the two authors’ prognosis is correct. 人文教育的支持者们会说，人文学科培养的知识经验对每个人都适用。如果靠信托基金上学的孩子选课时无需考虑学习女性主义哲学的实用性，为什么拿奖学金的学生就需要呢？不仅如此，如今许多学者对根据就业机会选择专业的潮流表示异议，认为那是美国高校向公司主义和新自由主义意识形态屈服的标志。他们提出，人文教育的目标是传道授业，提高严肃学术探究的能力，鼓励学生对规范和假设采取批判视角，无论这种训练对雇主而言是否有效。可怎么会有教授不希望自己的学生——尤其那些为债务所困、还付不起学费的学生——获得一份好工作呢？面对高等教育持续的预算紧缩，许多人文学科的未来可能取决于它们能否获得工作机会。人文专业真正信仰者可能不同意安德尔和斯特罗斯的价值和可行性评判标准，内心却急切希望二人的预判是正确的。 Timothy Aubry, an associate professor of English at Baruch College, is the author of “Reading as Therapy: What Contemporary Fiction Does for Middle-Class Americans.” 蒂莫西·奥布里是伯鲁克学院英语副教授，《阅读疗法：当代小说对美国中产阶级意味着什么》作者。 译者 鲁漪文 《核战朝鲜》系列明日继续更新，敬请期待。 |
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来自： smiller2016 > 《43826》
