General degrees exhibit greater transferability than specialized degrees

Tags: Education Humanities

A study of more than 30,000 Spanish university graduates found that those who came from more general programs, such as Languages and Literature, History, Political Science, or Mathematics exhibited higher transferability of skills than those in targeted programs. These graduates' skills are not as highly specialized as graduates of programs like, say, medicine or engineering; this is a largely natural effect but may be suggestive of the value of programs in fields like the humanities in providing a broad, flexible foundation for future employment.

  • See Mismatch between degree fields and occupation is a poor metricMismatch between degree fields and occupation is a poor metric
    Tags: [[Humanities]] [[Education]]

    Mismatch between one's degree and their career field—called "horizontal mismatch"—is sometimes cited as a fault. This is particularly common in attacks on the va...
  • See Mismatch between degree and occupation is not confined to the humanitiesMismatch between degree and occupation is not confined to the humanities
    Tags: [[Education]] [[Humanities]]

    There is periodically reports in the media bemoaning the fact that humanities graduates are unable to find jobs in their fields. Often this kind of data is used ...

References


Salas-Valasco 2021