Communication is a key part of society and the business world, and communication is exactly what a majority of humanities is all about.
So why is it at the first mention of budget cuts that humanities get the boot?
Theater is about communicating through a group to tell a story. Music teaches us to communicate and evoke emotion through song. Mass communication teaches us to take the story and share it with a larger audience.
But where does science fall into all this?
Why doesn’t science get the same treatment as nearly every other major degree program out there? What makes science so much more important than everything else?
Science classes don’t teach anyone how to communicate.
By no means am I trying to say science deserves the budget cuts. They don’t deserve to lose their funding any more than humanities do. I’m simply trying to state that the humanities programs are as important as any other degree program.
However, because the general public typically sees humanities courses as an easy “A” and not as the hard, time-consuming work those in the programs know it as, the humanities typically get some of the worst cuts.
Being a theater major, I can certainly attest the extensive amount of work involved in the liberal arts. Theater takes hours upon hours of work for even the smallest of productions.
But theater is not alone.
History requires a firm command of dates and cultures that are far removed from anything we could experience in modern life. Foreign languages compel us to understand how a culture other than our own communicates, not just through words, but action, beliefs and lifestyle.
Sciences should not get a free pass from budget cuts on the grounds that they are “more important. What truly determines something’s importance is not the people looking from the outside, but those in the field itself. The hard work and dedication of every discipline — science, history, math, arts, or otherwise — is evident from those who truly love what they are doing.
It is time we fight to keep the classics alive. Where would we be today without them? And what exactly makes a degree in science so much better?
Sciences are more societally accepted, but I am more than willing to bet each person who says humanities aren’t important actually relies on humanities to some extent.
In fact, I am nearly certain each and every person in the world relies on humanities to one extent or another.
If nothing else, the humanities show us we all rely on communication, no matter what our field may be, and there couldn’t be anything more important.
Victoria DeJohn is a 19-year-old theater sophomore from Baton Rouge.
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Guest Column: Humanities important, shouldn’t be first victim of cuts
January 30, 2011