Abstract
Why would someone enrolled at a business school study history? The reasons may not be self-evident. On the surface, history is a manifestly impractical subject, earning a spot on a 2012 ‘13 Most Useless Majors’ survey (Carnevale et al.; The Daily Beast, 2012). A student who completes a history course, a concentration in history, or even an entire history major, may not be well prepared to conduct an audit, trade stocks, build a house, repair an air conditioning system, or treat an ailing patient. Given such limitations, the professionally oriented undergraduate may perceive required history courses as a prerequisite leading to nowhere or even an obstruction on the road to a career in business. Tuition-wary parents may likewise view it as a vestigial piece of an outdated and prohibitively expensive educational ideal.
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References
Anthony P. Carnevale, Jeff Strohl, and Michelle Melton (2011), ‘What’s It Worth? The Economic Value of College Majors,’ Georgetown University Center for Education and the Workforce, http://www.agu.org/education/pdf/whatsitworth-complete.pdf (Accessed: May 8, 2012).
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Curti, Merle (1959) The Social Ideas of American Educators (Paterson, NJ: Pageant Books), p. 516.
The Daily Beast ‘The 13 Most Useless Majors, From Philosophy to Journalism’ The Daily Beast http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2012/04/23/the-13-m ost-useless-majors-from-philosophy-to-journalism.html (Accessed: April 28, 2012).
‘Major Decisions,’ Inside Higher Ed (May 24, 2011), http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011 /05/24/georgetown_study_of_salaries_for_different_maj ors_finds_big_discrepancy_women_and_minorities_in_low_paying_fields (Accessed on May 24, 2011).
Schultz, Eric B. (2009) ‘Why Historians Make Superb Strategists (and Other Self-Serving Notions)’ (November 21): http://theoccasionalceo.blogspot.com/2009/11/why-historians-make-superb-strategists.html, accessed: May 8, 2012.
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Wright, Robert (2009) The Evolution of God (New York: Little, Brown and Company), p. 26 and ff. See also Yerxa, Don (ed.) (2012), British Abolitionism and the Question of Moral Progress in History (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press).
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© 2013 Chris Beneke
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Beneke, C. (2013). Change over Time: The Study of the Past and the Future of Business Education. In: Hardy, G.M., Everett, D.L. (eds) Shaping the Future of Business Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137033383_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137033383_10
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