TOW #4 - Humanities, All Too Humanities!

In his piece, Humanities, All Too Humanities, Joel Stein humorously emphasizes the importance of liberal arts majors. An established columnist for Time Magazine, Stein describes how the humanities are experiencing a fall out, due to the admission process of colleges around the country and the increasing popularity of sciences and technology majors. The subtitle of his column states, "Incoming college freshmen should study great books rather than come up with great apps", indicating that he is addressing students who are applying or entering college. He also addresses college admission offices in general, pointing out the exact types of students they have been accepting (and not accepting). Joel Stein appeals to ethos and logos and uses humor in an attempt to achieve his purpose of giving important advice to colleges and college students. At the beginning of this piece, he states that he majored in English and he gives a personal example and says that he went out to lunch with a fellow Stanford graduate, indicating that he graduated from that school, one of the best colleges in the country. In both of these examples, Stein appeals to ethos, indicating he has a lot of knowledge on the topics of liberal arts majors, and that he attended one of the most prestigious schools in the country. He also uses logos to help achieve his purpose and gives data and statistics. He states, "In 2010, 7% of U.S. graduates majored in one of the liberal arts, compared with 14% in 1966…". Stein gives these facts in order to illustrate the decrease in popularity of the humanities, in an attempt to achieve his purpose. His humorous tone also helps him to educate his audience. When discussing why he majored in English and not another topic, he says, "I didn’t choose not to physics. Physics chose not to have me major in it, by make absolutely no sense at all". By providing information in this humorous way, Stein captivates his audience and makes his topic more intriguing. As a rising college student, I thought that Joel Stein did an excellent job and achieved his purpose. He not only made me laugh, but provided some important points to consider and I learned some new things about college admissions. In this column, the author, Joel Stein, effectively discusses the importance of college majors and attempts to educate his audience while doing so.