Humanities Crisis

Nursing and the Human Culture

The studies of human culture presents in the nursing field through Humanities courses. Subjects that do not have much relation to nursing have been reconsidered as important and incorporated into nursing as a means to train better nurses. Looking into the branches of Humanities, moreover, you will see that it has subjects that would make nurses knowledgeable on certain issues that aren’t in their nursing curriculum.

One of the branches of humanities is languages. If you know at least one additional language as a medical practitioner, you will have a lot more opportunity as a nurse. Talking to your patient is one thing, but communicating with them in their own language is a higher level of nursing entirely.

Art is a branch in humanities that can be of use when it comes to the nursing profession. Sometimes it takes art to be able to treat a patient, especially when the latter needs special attention. It helps that you can be creative when dealing with your patient. Art can help to open the doors of trust between the nurse and patient. Artistic creativity is a way of thinking that transcends traditional nursing.

Literature is also a study in humanities that is useful in nursing. There are some patients who just can’t stop talking and sharing a their stories. As a nurse, you should be able to handle this type of patient. Sharing an intimate story with them is at times more effective than giving them technical reports about their illnesses. Be prepared and take time to share a line or two.

Philosophy and religion are also main tenets of humanities. This branch in humanities is perfect for those older patients, because these are topics that they usually talk about. If you can join in on the discussion, then you have given them something worthwhile with which to relate to you and their care – something more meaningful to them than administering medicines.

Humanities goes a long way with nursing courses. It makes for a more complete and knowledgeable nurse in return.

Studying the Humanities

Why is studying the Humanities important? Many have asked that question because to be honest many have also argued that studying the liberal arts or the humanities in general is a complete waste of time. Others would even argue that the Humanities are the unwise path for college students to take because non-technical degrees tend to have unemployment rates compared to those who are studying to be engineers, accountants, or business people.

Dr. Elwood Watson, in his article at diverseeducation.com, has discussed why studying the humanities always will be important. Dr. Watson said, “To minimize the value of the humanities, or any other area of academic inquiry for that matter, to one’s ability to earn an ample salary is to misunderstand the purpose of what such an education is about.”

The humanities provide students with the ability and vital ingredients necessary to think critically and holistically about an overabundance of issues, including business, science and technology for that matter. And, in an article by Scott Samuelson of the Wall Street Journal, businesses and employers were aggressively seeking to employ graduates who possessed “a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly and solve complex problems.” Therefore, discrediting the argument of some about the irrelevance of the humanities and how students who study it will not earn as much as those who study other hard sciences.

In addition, Clayton State University, on its departmental website, listed the top 10 reason for people to study the humanities:

To practice the analytical thinking skills you need to be a successful student and employee.
To improve your skill at oral and written communication.
To see the interconnectedness of all areas of knowledge ― how it all fits together.
To develop a global perspective by studying cultures throughout the world.
To deepen your understanding and appreciation of other’s cultures and other’s points of view.
To support and strengthen your local arts community by learning to appreciate the importance of creativity.
To clarify your values by comparing and contrasting them to what others have thought.
To deepen your sources of wisdom by learning how others have dealt with failures, success, adversities, and triumphs.
To appreciate what is enduring and to be able to tell the difference between the meaningless and the meaningful.
To be inspired by some of the greatest minds and thoughts of the ages.

The humanities are the cornerstone of any and complete well-rounded education because it provides a good, solid foundation in critical thinking skills. The importance of the humanities should not be dismissed.

The Effects of Humanities to the Students

According to the dictionary, Humanities are academic disciplines that study human culture. The humanities use methods that are primarily critical, or speculative, and have a significant historical element as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences. The basic understanding of the word humanities is the study of how human being live here on earth. However, if we look at deeply the significant things that we need to know and understand, it is how the human being lives on earth right from the very beginning of our existence.

Many has already changed and many things have evolved. The way of living from the past is totally different in the present. Nevertheless, the things that happened in the past have a connection in our present. Therefore, humanities can be described as the study of how people process and document the human experience. How does studying humanities affect the students? It has a big impact when we study humanities; it helps us know the world and it opens up our mind to appreciate the beauty of creation and the magnificence of the world. It helps us understand others through their languages, histories and cultures. It helps us develop our creativity and it helps us know the reason about being human. Most of all, it helps us realize the value of human life.

However, only a few of our generation today can appreciate the beauty of the ancient arts and the classical music. That is the dilemma that is being faced by our educators today. Ancient arts, cultures and philosophy are the foundation of all the different aspects of our life and we can only learn these things by looking back to our past experiences and learn from it. Thus, it is very significant to the student to study humanities to learn the different walks of life.

Digital Humanities

The humanities are in a crisis again, or still. But there is one big exception: digital humanities, which are a development market. During 2009, the nascent field was the talk of the Modern Language Association (MLA) convention: “among all the challenging sub-fields,” a press reporter had written about that year’s gathering, “the digital humanities seem like the first ‘next big thing’ in a long time.” Even previously, the National Endowment for the Humanities designed its Office of Digital Humanities to help finance projects. And digital humanities is constantly on the go from strength to strength, thanks in part to the Mellon Foundation, which has seeded programs at a number of colleges with large grants, most recently, $1 million to the University of Rochester to make a graduate fellowship.

Despite all this passion, the question of what the digital humanities is has yet to be given an acceptable response. Indeed, no one asks it more often than the digital humanists themselves. The latest development of guides on the subject from source books and anthologies to crucial manifestos is an indication of a field undergoing an identity crisis, trying to find out which, if anything, combines the different actions taken on under its advertising. “Nowadays,” says Stephen Ramsay in Interpreting Digital Humanities, “the term can mean anything from press research to digital art, from information exploration to edutech, from scholarly editing to anarchic blogging, while inviting code junkies, digital artists, standards wonks, transhumanists, game theorists, free culture supporters, archivists, librarians, and edupunks under its capacious fabric.”

These are the types of concerns that humanists ought to be well prepared to answer. Indeed, they are just the latest types of concerns that they have been asking since the Industrial Trend started to make our tools our masters. The position of uncertainty is a wearisome one for the humanities, now perhaps more than ever, when technology is so assured and life is so self-suspicious. It is no wonder that some humanists are influenced to toss off the traditional burden and generate the humanities with the content sources and the militant assurance of the digital. The risk is that they will awaken one morning to find that they have marketed their birthright for a mess of applications.

“Crisis” and “decline” are the terms of the day in conversations of the humanities. A primary stimulus for the issue is a stunning factoid: only 8% of undergraduates major in humanities. But this number is deceiving. It does not consist of degrees in carefully relevant areas such as history, literature and some of the social sciences. Nor does it take consideration of the many needed and optional humanities programs learners take outside their degrees. Most essential, the 8% contains only those with a serious educational interest in literary works, songs and art, not those dedicated to generating the creative works that humanists study.

Once we identify that deeply caring about the humanities (including the arts) does not need specializing in philosophy, English or foreign languages, it’s not at all apparent that there is a crisis of interest in the humanities, at least in our colleges. Is the crisis rather one of severe financial reality? Humanities degrees on average start making $31,000 per year and shift to a normal of $50,000 in their middle years. (The numbers for authors and executing performers are much reduced.) By comparison, company degrees begin with incomes 26% greater than humanities degrees and shift to incomes 51% greater.

But this information does not show that business degrees generate more because they majored in business. Business degrees may well be more enthusiastic about making profits and so agree to jobs that pay well even if they are not otherwise satisfying, whereas individuals enthusiastic about the humanities and the arts may be willing to take more satisfying but lower-paying jobs. Higher education teachers, for example, often know that they could have made far more if they had gone to law school or gotten an M.B.A., but are willing to agree to considerably reduced pay to teach a topic they enjoy.