In a society where utilitarianism reigns, the humanities seem relegated to the background. Nothing is further from reality. In recent years, the interest of companies in humanistic profiles has not stopped growing. The humanities are gaining weight in the job market.
“Despite the widespread discredit to which knowledge that does not have an immediate effective utility is currently subjected, today the humanities continue to be a true engine of individual and social transformation,” says Albert Moya, vice dean of the Faculty of Humanities. In this sense, he insists that “the promotion of humanistic profiles in our societies becomes, therefore, not only a necessity but also a duty”.
For Dr. Moya “we are faced with a versatile and generalist profile that integrates professionally in multiple sectors of the field of culture from a multidisciplinary perspective. In this peculiar condition, the humanities offer resources and approaches that no other knowledge can provide, thus making them irreplaceable. Along these lines, he asserts that “the humanities foster cross-disciplinary dialogue, as can be seen today in their relationship with fields such as bioengineering, health sciences or technology.”
The vice dean explains how “in recent years we have been able to verify the interest of large technology companies such as Google or IBM when it comes to betting on the talent offered by the humanities. It is estimated that humanistic knowledge has a lot to contribute to issues as pressing as the repercussions of technology and artificial intelligence, in addressing borderline issues such as those raised by transhumanism or in the ethical design of robotics”.
Dr. Moya also highlights how “the importance of creativity, innovation or originality that business sectors demand so much today goes through the promotion of imagination, whose root is essentially found in the cultivation of humanistic knowledge that is capable of facilitating an opening to possible worlds, just as art and literature do in an incomparable way”.
Choosing a career in the humanities should not encounter any social resistance, according to the UIC Barcelona professor. There is a general lack of knowledge about the usefulness of Humanities studies, although there are numerous contributions that this discipline makes to society. Some of them would be, according to Moya, “the analysis and updating of the past, the formation of personal identity, the development of critical thinking or the ability to make value judgments based on moral and free responsibility.”
The contributions made by the humanistic disciplines in the field of health sciences are also especially significant. The irruption of the so-called “medical humanities” or the broader health humanities, which for some decades now have been addressing central problems of medical education, is allowing “a progressive transformation of medicine that takes us from an instrumental and technical mentality to a more qualitative and democratic one and in which patient care stands as the center of professional medical practice”. Likewise, Professor Moya has pointed out that “medical humanities are valuable in shaping the professional identity of the future healthcare, as well as in the provision of healthcare training that allows the monitoring of the patient throughout their experience of health and illness”.
UIC Barcelona collaborates closely with the business fabric, as well as with different institutions, organizations and universities. The Faculty of Humanities currently has more than 300 agreements with companies in the cultural sector, including entities such as MACBA, CCCB or the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, music festivals such as Sónar, publishers such as Planeta and other institutions and organizations such as the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona City Council, the Cervantes Institute or the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation.
In addition, UIC Barcelona offers the possibility of expanding professional opportunities with the simultaneous study program with other degrees (ADE, Law, Primary Education, Journalism) and with a double degree in International Relations or Political Science in the United States, specifically at Iona College in NY.
The humanities “are used for many things and their professional possibilities are enormously broad, with real contributions and benefits at a human level,” concludes Professor Moya. The talent and training of humanities graduates are already essential in companies, organizations and institutions of the present and of the future.
