No wonder, even today STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields are the career options students prefer because of the pool of opportunities it offers in terms of jobs and remuneration. But gone are the days when jobs after humanities degree used to hold little or no scope. If you are planning to kick start your career in humanities, then now is the best time to go ahead with your decision. Here, let us discuss the various career options after 12th humanities!

What is Humanities?

Humanities are academic disciplines that involve the study of different aspects of human society and culture. These aspects include anthropology, archaeology, classics, human history, ancient and modern linguistics, and languages, law, and politics, literature, philosophy, religion, performing, and visual arts.

The field of humanities is all about studying the human condition, culture, history, and other major aspects as mentioned above. It uses the critical, philosophical, and analytical approach in deriving answers, speculations, and premises in understanding humans.

Humanities stream prepares you to learn how to think creatively and critically, to question and derive answers. All in all, it is a holistic approach to education as it offers an expansive and broad foundation across multiple academic disciplines. For anyone who is even slightly curious to know what are the career options after 12th humanities or just want to broaden their knowledge base about courses after 12th arts, must read this article completely.

Why study humanities?

• Education in humanities or liberal arts offers a number of career options after 12th humanities as you will be well equipped with the latest skills that are most in-demand by the recruiters. As a humanities or liberal arts graduate, you will learn the skills such as communication skills (both oral and written), creativity and critical thinking skills, problem-solving, and analytical reasoning.
• The world today is rapidly changing and as we become more globally connected with the opportunities available to us also grow exponentially. The same holds true for the job market, and there are more and more interesting jobs one can do after a humanities degree. Not only are there numerous career options after 12th humanities, but also immense scope in each one of these careers.
• As Brad Smith, Microsoft President and Harry Shum, Executive VP Technology & Research, Microsoft (1996 to February 2020) wrote:

“As computers behave more like humans, the social sciences and humanities will become even more important. Languages, art, history, economics, ethics, philosophy, psychology, and human development courses can teach critical, philosophical, and ethics-based skills that will be instrumental in the development and management of AI solutions.”

• Now, humanities stream subjects go hand in hand with other fields and a combination of soft skills and hard skills are becoming imperative in most workspaces. A degree in Humanities and liberal arts would equip the students with the skills that are significant to succeed and thrive in the competitive workforce of the future.
• As per the latest statistics, 75% of employers consider life skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking as the major employable skills. These skills are accentuated and taught in humanities and liberal arts courses. As employers seek a potential workers’ ability to think creatively and find solutions to the problems; innovate and create ideas by thinking out of the box, the relevance of basic life skills is higher than it was decades ago.
• According to reports by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU), almost 74% of the recruiters say that they would recommend 21st-century liberal arts educations for students to prepare today’s young students for success in their professional lives.

Skills you Develop after Humanities Stream

According to the World Economic Forum, complex problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, people management, and emotional intelligence are some of the top skills students need to thrive in the future workplace.

Just like other groups of subjects, there are some 21st-century skills that studying courses after humanities stream helps develop. Learning these top skills in today’s time has become the need of the hour as the career options after 12th humanities are integrated with almost all major disciplines. Let’s take a look at some of the skills you develop after the humanities stream:

Creative and Critical thinking

• It is important to have the ability to think out of the box, challenge the status quo, raise questions, and ask the right questions.
• Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally to understand the logical and practical interconnection between ideas and concepts.
• Critical thinking skills are one of the top skills for students to be able to adapt to complex workplace structures and environments as a professional.
• To develop a critical thinking approach, you learn observation, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, identification, explanation, problem-solving, and decision making, through ideas and concepts in humanities streams.
• And creative thinking allows you to expand and discover possibilities in almost every aspect of their lives.

Observation

• The ability to take notice of key facts and important events around as well as awareness of small to bigger aspects is both beneficial in the short-run and long run.
• Observation is a necessary life skill. Today’s young minds are already well equipped with advanced technology that observing and being aware of their actions and surroundings becomes vital to living a successful life.

Empathy and Insight

• Empathy is important not only in the workplace but also in one’s personal life. Learning in-depth about human life and culture makes one more acceptable and understanding.
• Empathizing is about deeply understanding problems. When design thinking is applied in real life, students learn to empathize and understand themselves and others better.
• Using insights and observing the details, students get to take bigger life decisions more effectively.

Communication

• One of the most important skills to have irrespective of the field one is in, is communication. Communication is the basis of all our interactions and is perhaps the most valuable skills one picks up studying humanities.
• Having the ability to communicate effectively is one of the most vital life skills for students and individuals alike. Communication skills are not something someone is born with but are developed over a while. These basic life skills may as well take a lifetime to master.
• Effective communication skills will help you a lot while applying for jobs or looking for promotion or even reaching out to your supervisors. Communication skills are required to speak properly at the same time maintaining good eye contact, listening effectively, presenting your ideas accurately. Many of these are important life skills that most managers seek.

Now that you are aware of what humanities is and what skills you develop, let us now take a quick look at the list of humanities stream subjects and then take a look at what are the career options after 12th humanities.

Top 25 Humanities Stream Subjects

A degree in humanities or liberal arts teaches you to study extremely engaging and interesting multiple disciplinary subjects. From philosophy, literature, legal studies to art linguistics and language studies, students get to choose from a pool of career fields. There are more than 100 career options after 12th humanities to choose from. But first, understand that these courses after 12th arts are branched from the following list of humanities stream subjects.

Some of the courses you might take in humanities stream include:

1. Anthropology
2. Archaeological Anthropology
3. Archaeology
4. Communication Studies
5. Criminology
6. Economics
7. Education
8. Environmental Studies
9. Foreign Languages such as English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and other
10. Geography
11. History
12. Home Sciences
13. Indian Languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Odia, Assamese, Punjabi, Kannada, Maithili, Urdu, Sanskrit, Bhojpuri, Kashmiri, Konkani, and other
14. International Relations
15. Liberal Arts
16. Linguistics
17. Media Studies
18. Philosophy
19. Political Science
20. Politics
21. Psychology
22. Social Sciences
23. Social Work
24. Sociology
25. Women’s Studies

These subjects help develop and enhance skills such as communication and critical thinking and an understanding of the workings of the interconnectedness of the world and open a pool of career options after 12th humanities.

Some career options after 12th humanities require you to major in particular subjects, but it is possible to go into some fields such as law and publishing after having studied a variety of subjects.

Must read- 11 Reasons Why Liberal Arts Education is Worth it!

When you’re deciding what career options after 12th humanities should you focus on, take both your interests and the subject you majored in into consideration. There are many more career options than those listed below for people with a bachelor’s degree in humanities, the following are only a few examples to give one a flavor of the possibilities there are. It is important to know that the prospects of a humanities degree today go beyond what they were 30 years ago, or even a decade ago.

Top 101 Career Options after 12th Humanities

Not only are there more than 100 career options after 12th humanities but also plenty of scope in each one of them. Let’s take a look at the list of careers in humanities and social sciences you can choose from:

1. Anthropologist
2. Archaeological Anthropologist
3. Archaeologist
4. Archivist
5. Art conservator
6. Art curator
7. Art Dealer
8. Art Historian
9. Author
10. Bio Archaeologist
11. Biolinguist
12. Biological Anthropologist
13. Blogger
14. Career Counsellor
15. Cartographer
16. Child Psychologist
17. Children’s Rights Activist
18. Clinical Linguist
19. Cognitive Linguist
20. Communications Consultant
21. Computational Anthropologist
22. Computational Linguist
23. Computational Psychologist
24. Content Marketer
25. Content Writer
26. Counselling Psychologist
27. Creative Writer
28. Criminologist
29. Cultural Anthropologist
30. Cultural Consultant
31. Cultural Program Director
32. Cyber Psychologist
33. Developmental Linguist
34. Developmental Psychologist
35. Digital art Curator
36. Diplomat
37. Eco Linguist
38. Ecologist
39. Economist
40. Education Policy Consultant
41. English Litterateur
42. Entrepreneur
43. Environmental Economist
44. Environmentalist
45. Epistemologist
46. EthnoArchaeologist
47. Evolutionary Linguist
48. Experimental Archeologist
49. Family and Marriage Counsellor
50. Financial Advisor
51. Financial Economist
52. Forensic Anthropologist
53. Forensic Archaeologist
54. Forensic Linguist
55. Forensic Psychologist
56. Fundraising Coordinator
57. Geo Economist
58. Gerontologist
59. GIS Analyst
60. Health Economist
61. Health Psychologist
62. Historian
63. Historical Linguist
64. Industrial Economist
65. International Economist
66. Journalist
67. Labour Economist
68. Legislative Aide
69. Librarian
70. Linguist
71. Linguistic Anthropologist
72. Media Correspondent
73. Medical and Health worker
74. Medical Anthropologist
75. Mental Health Counsellor
76. Museologist
77. Museum Anthropologist
78. Neuro Linguist
79. Non-Profit Organization Executive
80. Paleontologist
81. Political Advisor/Analyst
82. Political Economist
83. Political Scientist
84. Psycholinguist
85. Psychologist
86. Public Affairs and Policy Expert
87. Rehabilitation Counsellor
88. Sanskrit Litterateur
89. Scriptwriter
90. Social Anthropologist
91. Social Media Strategist
92. Social Psychologist
93. Social Scientist
94. Social Worker
95. Socio Linguist
96. Sociologist
97. Sports Psychologist
98. Teacher
99. Technical writer
100. Theologist
101. Translator

Other Career options after 12th Humanities

One problem that has troubled students for generations and will continue to do so is when they aren’t sure what they want to do later and are confused while deciding their major. So, even if you earlier had no idea about the 101 career options after 12th humanities, you don’t have to worry if you couldn’t pick the major you now to pursue a career in.

Well here’s the good news! More career options after 12th humanities irrespective of what you chose to major in.

Several careers do not depend on your graduate degree or the subject you graduated in. Some examples of career options after 12th humanities that do not require any specific major are:

• Law
• Journalism
• Editing
• Publishing
• Marketing
• Work for not for profit organizations
• Indian Civil Services

There is no end to career options after 12th humanities as students with an education in humanities and liberal arts are all-rounders, they possess ample knowledge of the world and are better equipped with the top skills that employers want. With holistic know-how of the world and skills of the 21st-century, students in the humanities stream are bound to be successful in the future of the workplace.

In Conclusion

Even though people say it is difficult to find a job after a humanities degree and that the humanities are inferior to the sciences, rest assured that there are plenty of career options after 12th humanities.

Whether it is based on the skills you have acquired or on what you majored in- there are a pool of opportunities awaiting you. Whatever subject you studied will open doors to you in areas where you are interested. Perhaps a few decades ago there were limited job options available to those who had done a bachelor’s degree in humanities, but today that isn’t true as we saw in this article.

However, this is one of the most important decisions you will make in your life, and it’s important to not make a hasty decision. That is why today there are many career options after 12th humanities available for you to ensure you make the right decision, whether you talk to friends and family, or opt for something more professional such as career counselling.

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