湖南大学自主招生-在大海中永生

Pursuing a “Useless” Degree
文科专业又如何，特长和兴趣才是选择大学专业的关键。

AT UNIVERSITY, when I told people I was studying for a history degree,
the response was almost always the same: “You want to be a teacher?” No, a
journalist. “Oh. But you’re not majoring in communications?”
In the days when a university education was a privilege (特权), perhaps
there wasn’t the assumption that a degree had to be a springboard (跳板) directly
into a career. Those days are long gone. Today, a degree is all but a necessity for

the job market, one that more than halves your chances of being unemployed. Still,
that alone is no guarantee of a job — and yet we’re paying more and more for one.
Given those costs, most of us want to maximize (使最大化) that investment
— and that can lead to a plug-and-play type of approach to higher education. Want
to be a journalist? Study journalism, we’re told. A lawyer? Pursue pre-law. Not
totally sure? Go into STEM — you can become an engineer or an IT expert. And
no matter what you do, forget the humanities (人文学科), such as history,
philosophy and languages.
It’s true that the humanities come with a higher risk of unemployment, but
the risk is slighter than you would imagine. For young people in the U.S., the
unemployment rate of those with humanities degrees is four percent, just a little
more than that of engineering degree holders. Lower salaries may not be caused
by the degree itself either. The gender pay gap persists in the humanities, whose
graduates are more likely to be female. Is it any wonder then that English teachers
tend to make less than engineers?
According to LinkedIn’s research on the most sought-after job skills by
employers for 2019, the ability to communicate and get along with people, to
understand what’s on other people’s minds, and to do full- strength critical analysis
were all valued and appreciated. It goes without saying that you can be an
excellent communicator and critical thinker without a humanities degree. And any
good university education, not just one in English or psychology, should sharpen

these abilities further. But few courses of study are quite as heavy on reading,
writing, speaking and critical thinking as the humanities — whether that’s by
debating other students in a seminar (研讨会), writing a thesis paper (论文) or
analyzing poetry.
The whole question of whether a student should choose STEM versus the
humanities might be misguided to begin with. The headlines most of us see don’t
help. Whatever a student pursues in university, it must be something that they are
not only good at, but interested in. Even if it means pursuing a “useless” degree
— like one in humanities.
（选自Sciencemag）

1. The author’s experience was cited in Paragraph 1 to show that ______.
A. a history major can work as a journalist
B. a university education is no longer enjoyed by a small group of people
C. most people have a misunderstanding of the humanities
D. most students are more money- oriented than ever before
2. According to the article, the humanities are “useless” because
graduates are more likely to ______.
A. ①②

B. ②③
C. ③④
D. ①④
① follow a narrow career path
② face a relatively high risk of unemployment
③ receive low average salaries
④ see a widening gender pay gap
3. It CANNOT be inferred from the article that humanities majors tend
to do well in ______.
A. exchanging their ideas with other people
B. fighting off competition in the job market
C. sharing other people’s feelings
D. thinking outside the box
4. The author’s purpose in writing the article was to ______.
A. present readers with the fact that university education has greatly changed
in the past century
B. help readers properly understand the relationship between university
degrees and occupations

C. remind readers to choose a major they really enjoy without caring too
much about financial success
D. offer readers advice on how to stand out from the rest while looking for
jobs in the future
译文：
在大学里，当我告诉别人我正在学习历史学位时，回答 几乎总是一样：
“你想当老师吗？”不，记者“哦。但是您不是主修通信吗？”
在大学教育是 特权的时代，也许没有一种假设认为学位必须是直接进
入职业的跳板。那些日子已经一去不回。如今，学 位几乎是就业市场所必需
的，这一学位将失业的机会减半。不过，仅此一项并不能保证能找到一份工作，但我们为此付出了越来越多的钱。
鉴于这些费用，我们大多数人都希望最大程度地投资，而这 可能导致即
插即用的高等教育方式。想成为一名记者吗？我们被告知要学习新闻学。律
师？遵守 法律。不太确定？进入STEM- 可以成为工程师或IT专家。而且，
无论做什么，都忘记了人文学科，例如历史，哲学和语言。
的确，人文学科面临着更高的失业风险，但这种风险要比您想象的要
小。对于美国的年轻人来 说，人文学位的失业率是4％，仅比工程学学位持
有者的失业率高一点。较低的工资也可能不是学位本身 造成的。在人文学科
中，性别薪资差距仍然存在，其毕业生更有可能是女性。难道英语老师的收
入往往低于工程师吗？

根据LinkedIn对2019年雇主最抢手的工作技能的研 究，与人沟通和
相处的能力，了解别人的想法以及进行全面的批判性分析的能力都受到重
视和赞 赏。不用说，如果没有人文学位，你可以成为一名出色的沟通者和批
判性思想家。任何良好的大学教育， 而不仅仅是英语或心理学方面的教育，
都应进一步提高这些能力。但是，很少有学习课程像人文学科那样 ，在阅读，
写作，口语和批判性思维方面如此繁重- 无论是通过在研讨会上讨论其他学
生，撰写论文还是分析诗歌。
一个学生是否应该选择STE M而非人文学科的整个问题可能一开始就被
误导了。我们大多数人看到的头条新闻没有帮助。无论学生在 大学追求什么，
都必须不仅是他们擅长，而且是对他们感兴趣。即使这意味着要追求“无用
的” 学位，就像人文科学一样。

单词：
1. persist★
v. if sth. bad persists, it continues to exist or happen 继续存在或发生
e.g. You must see a doctor if the pain persists.

2. sharpen★
v. to improve sth. so that it is up to the necessary standard, quality, etc. 使提高，

使改进
e.g. The course will help students sharpen their computer skills.

3. analyze
v. to examine or think about sth. carefully, in order to understand it 分析，剖析
e.g. You need to sit down and analyze why you feel so anxious.
→ analysis n. (pl. analyses) 分析

语法：
It’s true that the humanities come with a higher risk of unemployment.本句使用
了主语从句形式展开行文，it 是形式主语，句中真正的主语是that引导的主
语从句，为避免头重脚轻的形式，将真正主语置于后部 。

答案：1.D 2.B 3.B 4.C