My child is weak in science, should he switch to liberal arts?

When I was in high school, because I particularly liked history and Chinese, I chose liberal arts as a subject.

After hearing that I chose liberal arts, all the elders in my family would almost always ask me this question:

"Why did I choose liberal arts? I'm afraid it will be difficult to find a job in the future. ..."

There seems to be more than a little prejudice against the liberal arts. Once upon a time, the liberal arts also came out on top

Everything was inferior, but reading was the only one that was superior. If we look at history, those who became officials back then were all liberal arts students. A cursory look at our country’s traditional culture: the Four Books, Five Classics, and Twenty-Four Histories. Even after flipping over and over, we can’t escape the category of liberal arts.

Sima Xiangru was sent to manage the southwest frontier because he wrote well in parallel verses praising virtues; Wang Anshi, from official to prime minister, was the leader of hundreds of officials; Ouyang Xiu, served as Minister of the Ministry of War and was the youngest prince. Teacher; even Su Shi, who was demoted many times, was still the magistrate of a county and had some status.

The time goes back to the 1980s. At that time, studying in university was almost equivalent to studying in the Chinese Department, because in that romantic era, everyone in arts, science, industry, and medicine was reading poetry, and the entire university was one. Department of Chinese Studies.

Whether it is the literary world, the intellectual world, or the ideological world, scholars and students in the Chinese Department were at the forefront of the trend in the 1980s.

At that time, "Shanghai Literature", an important town in the field of humanistic thought, had a large number of writers such as Acheng, Wang Anyi, Han Shaogong, Wang Shuo, Zhang Wei, Su Tong, etc., and the reviewers of this magazine, such as Zhou Jieren , Li Jie, Wu Liang, Xu Zidong, Chen Sihe, Yin Guoming, Nan Fan, etc., most of them are from the Chinese Department.

For a time, the Chinese Department was unparalleled and became a popular major sought after by many students. "You who study liberal arts are just memorizing things by rote."

However, as society develops and the demand for practical subjects based on science increases, today's liberal arts students are often looked down upon.

In the prejudiced perception of many people, they always feel that science is full of mathematical thinking and has a strong sense of science and technology, and is a weapon for making the country rich and powerful; liberal arts students just write things and memorize them by rote. , do paperwork. It is not difficult to study and work, and the professional threshold is not high.

Looking back when we chose arts and sciences in high school, most of the top students in the class chose science, while only a few top students chose liberal arts. Many students with poor grades have retreated to seek stability and chosen liberal arts, thinking that liberal arts are less difficult.

Xiao Zuo, a senior, told the editor:

“Take our school as an example (a provincial model key middle school, I won’t mention the name). When I was going through subject selection, we The head teacher told us that if a student with particularly good grades chooses liberal arts, the school will take coercive measures (that is, not letting you choose). In addition, if the grades are okay, the teacher will keep talking to you to persuade you to stay, which I chose at the time. It was liberal arts, and there was a junior high school classmate who also planned to choose liberal arts. Then the two of us were constantly warned by parents, teachers and various people who had experienced it. The reasons were various, but the general argument was that the liberal arts classes were chaotic, it was difficult to find a job, and there was no future. "

However, few people ask, why do you study? Where does prejudice come from

As for the prejudice against liberal arts students, we have to start with when the division of liberal arts and sciences began.

Now, the Ministry of Education does not require that middle schools must be divided into liberal arts and sciences. However, before the implementation of the "New College Entrance Examination", there were divisions into liberal arts and sciences. Therefore, as soon as you enter high school, the school begins to prepare for liberal arts and sciences. , the second year of high school is completely divided into arts and sciences, with clear distinctions.

In people's common belief, there is such a perception: liberal arts are easier than science, and the reason is that it is easier for science students to make up for their knowledge of literature, philosophy, and history, but it is more difficult for liberal arts students to make up for their knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology. .

Secondly, people tend to use employment and income to evaluate the value of a subject.

The 2017 Internet Employment Report shows that big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and the Internet of Things occupy the top positions in high-paying industries, and most of these jobs are distributed in leading Internet companies, and clearly require them during recruitment. Have relevant professional background.

Take employment as an example. In Max's "2018 College Student Employment Report", most of the top 50 majors in the employment rate of 2017 undergraduate graduates six months later are science and engineering majors, and the employment rate is The top three majors are software engineering (96.7), energy and power engineering (95.8), and electrical engineering and automation (95.6).

But looking back on the ranking of majors with high unemployment risks over the years, liberal arts has always been the "big brother".

In the end, people treat liberal arts and science differently just like they treat gender differences between men and women.

There is often some kind of gender discrimination implicit in the prejudice against liberal arts. Generally speaking, if there are more girls in liberal arts and more boys in science, then the public will form an impression that liberal arts are more feminine and science is more masculine.

Naturally, it is not a big deal for girls to choose liberal arts. The public has relatively low social expectations for women, believing that they can be more family-oriented in the future by engaging in less lucrative and relatively easy jobs; while boys who choose liberal arts will most likely be rejected by their parents or teachers. Firstly, they believe that boys have an advantage in learning such a subject with relatively high mental activity, and secondly, they believe that studying science will provide them with a wider range of employment options and relatively ideal remuneration when they enter society. Are liberal arts students inherently inferior?

“I don’t regret studying liberal arts”

There is a question like this on Zhihu:

“Did liberal arts students or science students change the world?”

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The most upvoted answer is:

"Where did the difference between liberal arts students and science students come from when the world was changed? A child never abandoned this kind of 'liberal arts students' for a day He is just a weak and stupid child according to the stereotypes of 'science student', 'academic master' and 'a scumbag'."

Liberal arts and science are just different directions chosen by each person based on their personal strengths. High and low.

Both liberal arts majors and science majors in universities have social value and perform their own duties in society.

Although we are all in an era where pragmatism and utilitarianism are paramount, humanistic education is the least valued. Employment pressure forces everyone to face reality. Which major is the best to find a job and the most profitable, may have become our biggest concern.

In some colleges with science and engineering characteristics, liberal arts majors are in a state of neglect and do not receive much resource support.

In terms of work, liberal arts students cannot find positions that have too many technical barriers, while science students can easily enter positions with low liberal arts barriers.

This is very realistic, and it also makes many people who are truly talented in liberal arts choose a path that they do not like.

But I believe that in the current era of rapid development, human development cannot be separated from technological innovation, and social development cannot be separated from humanities and social sciences. This will eventually be an era of studying both arts and sciences.

Those liberal arts students who once worried about their future will find their own suitable position in society, take root and sprout, and become pillars of talent.

Rather than succumbing to prejudice and so-called reality, it is better to be content with your heart and insist on doing what you like. Whether it can grow into a big tree does not entirely depend on where it is planted and where it germinates. The seeds themselves are also important.