Transferable Skills

Skills Humanities Students Often Develop

  1. Writing. This seems obvious, but it’s more than just being able to communicate through the written word. Often, humanities students are very good at quickly learning and mastering new genres of writing. That means that with some training, they can go into fields like grant-writing, business communication, public relations, and law, which require specialized formats.
  2. Research. Again, this may seem obvious, but students can translate the work they’ve done here in terms that are transferable: They can marshal sources from a variety of arenas they gather information through books, journals, on-line sources, conference presentations, etc.
  3. Reporting. This is a component of the research and writing process that gets neglected when humanities students talk about what they do. In addition to planning and carrying out a research project, they are capable of reporting the results to others in (and near) their field of study.
  4. Critical, analytical, and synthetic thinking. In all humanities fields, students are required to move back and forth between close-readings and broader theories. Again, this skill sometimes has to be translated very carefully so that people outside the academy can understand that it’s part of what the humanities student can offer.
  5. Working well independently (a great deal of the time), collaboratively (in workshop settings and in TA situations), and with oversight. (This is something students have to be able to do both as teaching assistants and in their scholarly pursuits.) Ideally, they also develop a good ability to hear and respond to constructive criticism.)
  6. Depending on their area, humanities students also develop strong abilities in languages beyond English.
  7. This is not exactly a skill, but there is a general curiosity and willingness to learn among humanities students, along with a general desire to improve (or at least not worsen) the world, which often makes them good matches for positions in non-profits (the good works kind)

Posted August 8, 2006