Highest cut-offs at Delhi University were earlier confined to BA English (Hons) or BSc (Hons) Electronics courses. But, this trend changed in 2018 when BA programme witnessed highest cut-offs at DU. Lady Shri Ram College witnessed the highest cut-offs with 98.75% being highest percentage. An increase of 3.25% was registered this year as compared to the last year. The trend was different earlier when students just preferred science or commerce and worked hard to get into a premiere institution. Most of these courses led to economically secure careers for them. But, the trend is reversed now and even engineers are leaving their several years of their daunting education to pursue their interest in humanities.                      

What does Humanities Include?                                                                        

What does stream of humanities encompass? It includes all the subjects that fall under languages, art, culture, history and research techniques related to it. Hence, a humanities degree comprises of subjects such as economics, history, literature, and sociology. These subjects are becoming so much popular now that even top engineering institutions such as IITs are adding even fine arts and humanities in their curriculum along with other engineering subjects. Their aim behind this is develop students into holistic individuals.  IIT-Madras now has developed an integrated five-year programme in English and Economics, while law courses are available at IIT Kharagpur now. In addition to this, IIT-BHU has modified most of its curriculum to impart element of humanities to engineering students.       

Leaders Emerged from Humanities

There is common misconception that most of leaders in tech world were once engineering students. In fact, most of them have specialized in liberal arts and humanities. For example, LinkedIn’s founder Reid Hoffman has specialized in philosophy; Slack’s founder Stewart Butterfield is a major in English; and Airbnb’s founder Brain Chesky has specialized in fine arts. Subjects of humanities help students to understand other languages, cultures, and historical significance of a ritual, relic, or an architectural monument. This helps them to figure out more moral, spiritual, and intellectual sense of the world. A survey conducted by CareerCo in nine cities among 36,000 students says that 74% of students were inclined to opt for courses in humanities.    

Reasons Behind Popularity of These Courses  

What is the reason behind popularity of these courses? Kanika S Ahuja, Associate Professor of Psychology, LSR suggests, “It has a lot to do with students’ piquing interest in Civil Services. Two subjects, history and political science which are in the Mains, are both covered by the BA programme.” Students which possess graduate and post-graduate degree can pursue careers in civil services, international NGOs, social research firms etc. Most of the humanities consist of studying language and its history at a deeper level. Exposure to such subjects hones journalistic capabilities in a student. Hence, courses in humanities offer numerous career alternatives to a student.