Welcome to 2016, the year for breakthrough technologies in the fields of medical engineering, rocket science and energy engineering. The year where Siri and Google Now artificial intelligence are part of our mobile phones; smart objects are starting to become more and more common; drones; virtual reality; bio-security; and even the controversial Hover-boards.

This also marks the year when people started to realize that the most desired "American Dream" changed to reflect today’s society's life goals. From the white-fenced, two kids and one dog aspiration our parents had as young adults, our generation’s ambitions run more along the lines of getting into college, study business and coding during the day and dream about web design at night. Then, start a brand new company, make it go viral and sell it to the Mark Zuckenbergs and Bill Gateses of the time.

In the new era of technological innovations, smartphones, and even pet babysitting, liberal arts studies lovers face the hardest challenge ever: to prove the importance of an arts and sciences education. Since a liberal arts education usually doesn’t focus that much on technical skills or career-faced expertise, we usually end up being challenged by our technical degree peers, parents and even ourselves to explain and understand the importance of an arts and sciences degree.

What even is a liberal arts education? Is it inhaling Plato for lunch and thinking about Hobbes in between classes?

In reality, liberal arts comes from the Latin "artes liberales" and was used to denote the subjects all ancient Greek citizens mastered in order to fill their political role in society. In today’s universities, it is used to define all majors that require a full understanding of natural and social sciences, humanities, mathematics and writing skills.

But what does that mean?

Basically, students of arts and sciences don’t focus on learning only technical skills that are going to be super duper important when they get a real job. Our curriculum focuses on giving integrated, life-long knowledge of subjects that are going to expand our minds and make us have a more comprehensible approach to issues such as work crisis, family drama and even international conflicts. Instead of focusing on a specific schedule of classes that prepare students for a career, liberal arts classes focuses more on interdisciplinary subjects and thought.

I personally think that aspect of liberal arts is important since college is a place for social and personal development in addition to acquiring knowledge for a future career, not only the latter. As a sophomore studying International Relations myself, I’ve had to take more liberal arts classes than ones towards my actual major. We might complain about it (a lot), but at the end of the day, we’re learning and exercising both parts of our brain so much that we personally evolve with each and every general education class we take. In addition to that, a liberal arts education prepares us for the real life issues we’re going to face once senior year finishes and real adulthood begins.

No, I’m not claiming that liberal arts students think “What would Edgar Allan Poe do in this situation?” when there are no Cocoa Puffs boxes in the supermarket.

What I’m really trying to get at here is that as we learn about the Self vs. Alter Ego theme in Poe’s Gothic tales for a writing class, we’re also learning how to identify causes and effects in a tale; how to think what could relate back to this theme and bring something new to the table of discussion. These characteristics might not seem as important as learning something career-directed towards engineering, or even business, but even though we’re taking the long and (sometimes) tedious process, it teaches us subconsciously more than we, and other people, actually realize. It’ been proven, for example, that learning another language can make you think differently. Imagine how broad and open-minded language and linguistics majors must be, since they mastered the study of languages.

Honestly, it might seem that that anthropology or astronomy class was going to be useless for your political science major; and that philosophy class you absolutely had to take to finish your mathematics degree must’ve felt endless. In the end, though, you’re going to have the perfect balance of professional and personal preparation for adulthood (and career) to come with your arts and sciences degree.

And what does that mean for future arts and sciences students?

Well, that fundamentally means that when you decide to pursue a degree in English/international relations/anthropology, you must also be ready to answer the cringe-worthy question of “what kind of job do you get out of that?” It’s absolutely fine for people to ask that. Even we, students of arts and sciences, can’t be 100% sure of how our major will translate into a job and career in the future. While our mechanical engineering major peers can easily translate their major into an over $60k starting salary, according to Pay Scale Inc., it is harder for a English or sociology major to get a starting point like this.

But fear not, arts and sciences majors, because according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, social sciences and humanities majors are better off as their career plays out. According to the article and an analysis from the Association of American Colleges & Universities, arts and sciences degrees tend to be flexible and levitate to higher earning careers in the long run, like management, law, politics and sales. Also, the traits acquired in college like critical thinking, oral and writing skills and problem-solving characteristics are things hiring managers look for in a CV. And as the author of the play Doubt once wrote:

“We are living in a culture of extreme advocacy, of confrontation, of judgment, and of verdict. Discussion has given way to debate.”
- John Patrick Shanley

Our society still constantly needs people with writing skills, communication, language, humanities and social sciences backgrounds. While our technical degree peers are the ones making the engine of society in 2016, we’re the ones that make it move towards a better future. It’s an important and often forgotten balance between technical and liberal arts that makes 2016 part of such an interesting and new era.

So, my friends, in the year of new technologies and information, we are still here, and wisdom is still needed.

Welcome to the world, critical thinkers and problem solvers. Go on and make a difference.