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Study the humanities: It doesn't always have to be business administration
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Raphaël Lorand / plainpicture
SPIEGEL:
Ms. Griem, initially you didn't want to do this interview because you can no longer hear the question of why the humanities are needed.
Do you often have to justify your specialty?
Griem
: Yes, the debate about the meaning and purpose of the humanities is constantly being heated up.
Subjects such as German studies, philosophy or art history are evaluated differently than medicine or engineering.
SPIEGEL:
Does this also affect young people's interest in the respective subject?
According to the employment agency, there have been fewer new students in the humanities every year since 2016.
Griem:
Student preferences are constantly changing.
The humanities are not the center of everything - and sometimes I wish there was more relaxed sportsmanship in "my" subjects.
Of course, disciplines have different tasks and reputations.
We are not developing cancer drugs and we should know our limitations.
If you want to be right in the middle of such developments, you can study something else.
SPIEGEL:
Why should you still study the humanities?
Griem
: Maybe because you're interested in a different way of studying.
In these subjects, it's not about completing as many exams as possible quickly and using the university as a service to get a successful job quickly.
I should think about whether I'm studying so that I can eventually earn a lot of money and go on cool vacations, or whether I'm interested in other questions.
SPIEGEL
: What questions are these?
Griem:
Humanities help us to better understand many complex problems and to ask questions differently.
We need knowledge about other languages and cultures, about patterns of perception and forms of communication - in order to be prepared and
To make decisions.
Major crises often come as a surprise.
The war in Ukraine, for example, showed us that we in Germany have too little Eastern European expertise.
That's why you should keep a certain range, for example when studying seemingly remote languages.
A need for experts in this area can arise overnight.
At the same time, humanities scholars also keep an eye on long-term cultural developments and remind us that our present cannot be taken for granted.
SPIEGEL:
How, for example?
Griem
: In companies, in church, in sports: we want cultural change everywhere and preferably overnight.
But how?
Unlike a company, a company cannot simply bring a coach into the house, walk over hot coals or jump into the ball pit.
SPIEGEL
: But?
Griem
: Cultural change takes time and cannot be decided easily.
Let's take the topic of nutrition.
It's not just about food itself, but about deep-seated attitudes.
Why do some people hold on to their right to eat cheap meat every day?
What need for recognition lies behind it, what stories, traditions and identity concepts?
The humanities also deal with this.
SPIEGEL:
What does our society have in terms of well-trained humanities scholars?
Griem
: Let's imagine a society in which people only talk about hydrogen engines and Bitcoin, but in which there is less and less interest in the design of memorials and music lessons.
Something would be missing!
SPIEGEL
: But teaching and the humanities – they're different things, right?
Griem
: No.
This is part of our core business.
We need to train teachers better.
Not just for the MINT subjects, but also in German, religion, music and art.
SPIEGEL:
Teachers are desperately needed, what are the job prospects for other humanities scholars?
Griem:
The prospects are not bad.
It recently became known that German museums are urgently looking for staff.
Humanities scholars work in human resources departments, science management, journalism, political consulting and further education.
SPIEGEL:
Humanities courses are often structured differently than those in the natural sciences or engineering, for example: discussions instead of laboratory work, term papers instead of exams.
Does this play a role in the reputation of the subjects?
Grim:
Definitely.
Knowledge is acquired differently and tested differently.
This sometimes earns us the accusation of being one of the soft subjects.
However, I think these categories are problematic.
SPIEGEL:
Why?
Griem:
You deepen gender stereotypes, and this brings us to another important point: the humanities are still largely studied by women, and other subject areas are clearly studied by men.
You should ask yourself: Why is that?
Is it also because of this distribution of roles that the humanities are taken less seriously?
more on the subject
Choosing a course of study and gender stereotypes: "Certain subjects are not even considered" An interview by Larena Klöckner
SPIEGEL:
What can universities do to give the humanities a better image?
Just write more exams?
Griem
: No.
We should all focus more on good teaching, rather than just research
.
We need a reform of the entire higher education system because it has become too cumbersome and hierarchical.
The working conditions for young colleagues are poor;
Many courses and learning groups are too large.
In well-paced courses there is not enough time to impart basic knowledge in such a way that you are productively irritated.
SPIEGEL:
What deficits are there?
Griem
: I notice that the willingness to concentrate on demanding texts is decreasing while the students are getting better and better orally.
However, reading carefully and thus understanding complicated and contradictory facts are skills that we cannot do without.
This is also evident in the discussion about the Gaza war.
If we don't continue to practice this, then we as a society will lose the opportunity to practice patient and thorough tolerance.
SPIEGEL
: What else do you expect from young people who want to study the humanities?
Besides reading books?
Griem:
If you look at the whole spectrum, it doesn't have to be enthusiasm for literature.
It can be an enthusiasm for monuments, an enthusiasm for pottery shards, for cinema or computer games, for lost cultures, small languages, cults and rituals.
We have an incredibly wide range.
Nevertheless, people who openly tell me in advanced seminars that they are not interested in reading at all - they are in the wrong place in the humanities.