Why an Arts degree is no longer a joke qualification

THE humble Arts degree has often been mocked as useless, but it’s making a comeback and could actually future-proof your career.

ARTS students and graduates know the jokes all too well.

“What’s the difference between a large pizza and an Arts degree? One can feed a family.”

“What do you say to an Arts graduate with a job? I’ll have a quarter pounder with cheese.”

And so on ...

The broad, humanities-based degree has long been the laughing stock of the university world and considered by some to be an expensive course in unemployment, or a stepping stone to a “real” course. But the tide is turning on the once-maligned qualification.

Now, thanks to a push by universities and the shifting demands of the modern workforce, it’s those who graduate with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) who’ll be having the last laugh.

Monash University is pushing its arts offering and launching a campaign to educate students about why the BA is one of the best degrees to future-proof your career and keep up with changing workplace requirements.

Dean of the university’s Faculty of Arts Professor Sharon Pickering told news.com.au the reason Monash was pushing its Arts course was because employers were asking for Arts graduates.

“I think this has been developing for a few years now,” she said of the qualification’s resurgence.

These guys each have a Masters in Arts. And they’re doing just fine.

“Employers keep telling us that they’re looking not only for a breadth of critical understanding and skills, but also a depth.

“We know graduates now are likely to have multiple careers and multiples employers and are more likely to be located within a global working environment. All of the transferable and enterprising skills that they’ll need, is ideally what a BA equips student with.”

Prof Pickering said that her course was taking the lead in responding to the changing workplace, and trying to make the value that a BA can bring “more explicit” to those requirements.

“We really do prioritise the importance around communication, collaboration, critical thinking and being enterprising,” she said.

“They’re all skills we know that in a digital world our students, and that’s what we’re equipping them with.

“These are the skills employers are telling us. As well as the capacity to be able to continue to learn. I think employers are noting, too, that the BA enables that skill to continue to learn.”

Prof Pickering acknowledges that that the Arts degree has had a bad rap in the past, but she said that’s changing due to the changing workforce, and graduate success.

“I think that people have often made assumptions about the BAs that have not been rooted in the evidence in the success,” she said.

“The portability of the skills and the know-how, is not necessarily always considered.”

Year 12 graduate Imogen Kane, 17, is expecting above average scores when she receives her VCE results next week, but she has only one course in her sights.

Imogen Kane, 17, plans to study Arts in 2018. Picture: Supplied

“I’m hoping to get into global studies which is part of the Bachelor of Arts course,” the Mordiallic Girls College student tells news.com.au.

“That’s specifically the field that I’m interested in, but I do like the freedom that Arts give me too. I love performing arts. I love literature, history, and the fact that I can still do all those, and have a well-rounded education, too.

“I’m not a one-trick person. I love multiple kinds of things.”

Imogen recognises too that she’ll likely need multiple skills when she enters the workforce as well, but doesn’t necessarily want to have to go back to uni if that happens.

While her ultimate goal is to work for the United Nations, she realises it mightn’t happen and she could lean on other aspects of her course as well.

“I might end up pursuing performing arts management more, but at the moment I want to do international studies, so that will be my focus,” she said.

Prof Pickeing said the BA was increasingly standing on its own as a qualification, rather than being used as a stepping stone to a course with more exclusive requirements.

“We’re really preparing students for that working life when they’re likely to change jobs so many times. We’re preparing students for a different future, the job that students are finding attractive didn’t exist two, three, five, let alone 10 yeas ago,” she said.

“What we need to be doing is equipping students to have a portability of skills, and that’s so important to the changing world of work.”