As a Thought Leader, parents often ask me: “How can I get my son to major in stacking Benjamins instead of squandering our cash on medieval Catalan poetry?” Or: “Why is my daughter’s hair indigo? Why is she majoring in Women’s Studies—whatever that is?”
I get where folks are coming from. Honestly, I do. College bites hard enough without all those wacky pronouns and diversity workshops. Let alone the different hair colors.
Back in my day, we didn’t have pronouns. We just got on with things. The only workshop was a bunch of wood, some sawdust, and a table saw that would rip off your fingers if you didn’t watch out.
But times change. In our classrooms today sit budding innovators imagining the Brave New World of tomorrow. Policy-makers. Visionaries. Game-changing entrepreneurs. The Thought Leaders of Generation Next.
All with a full set of digits.
What Big Ideas stoke these wannabe geniuses? Engaging in ideation, for one. In my day, we called it “thinking.” But guess what? In today’s fast-moving world, employers could care less. They need career-ready graduates to ideate the heck out of any hole. That means soft skills. Communication! Multitasking! Getting your think on! The kind of soft skills that would have ripped off your fingers back in the day, if you weren’t careful.
You guessed it, the Humanities is where it’s at. Philosophy is dropping like it’s hot. Poetry is on point. Even History is starting to rhyme. Both with itself and with other learnings.
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Maybe it was Kelly Clarkson. Same difference, irregardless. Ask any shop instructor.
The Humanities may have some nicks to its fingers, but now it’s ready to kick some ass and name some names.
That’s why I created AnthropoTize™, the bold new app for thinkers who get things done. AnthropoTize™ blends cutting-edge technology with the timeless wisdom of the Humanities. A 360° platform seamlessly integrates analytics, edge cloud architecture and key learnings from internationally-known Thought Leaders, eliminating the time, effort, and sweat demanded by today’s educational landscape.
Imagine hosting a podcast with Aristotle, Michelangelo, Mitch Albom, Walt Disney, and Judith Butler, to name a few. You visualize them, there they are. All in the same room, talking at the same time. That capstone assignment would write itself!
With AnthropoTize™, the possibilities are endless. Wanna hire Machiavelli as your personal learning coach? Or hang with Alexander the Great and his buddies in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? No need to dream anymore. The technology does all the work for you—painlessly and conveniently implanted in one simple surgery.
Here are just a few testimonials from satisfied customers. Steve from Flagstaff, AZ writes: “Yesterday I couldn’t spell philosopher. Now I am one.”
Lucy from Middletown, OH writes: “Since replacing our advisory board with AnthropoTize™, productivity at our ‘no-kill’ animal shelter has increased 8x.”
Alison from Providence, RI writes: “I used to think the Humanities was for losers, but thanks to AnthropoTize™, my hedge fund has quadrupled in the last six months.”
Once, I was That Guy, buried hours each day in Homer’s Iliad or Dante’s Inferno. Straining my imagination, tickling the ivories of human nature. What a snooze! I never got beyond “Abandon hope, all ye who enter.” Now with AnthropoTize™, I cut to the chase, boiling down millennia of esoteric knowledge to real-world application faster than I can count to seven on my fingers.
Parents, what are you waiting for? As another school year rolls round the bend, why agonize about tuition or alternative lifestyles, when you can write off years of college fees in just one afternoon at our licensed outpatient clinic?
AnthropoTize™ is the smartest investment in your child’s education, and ten times cheaper than a B.A. in Beyoncé Studies from some weird Ivy League gulag. Your kids may hate you at first, but they will thank you in the end.
Trust me. I’m a Thought Leader.
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Matthew Smith is a professor at a small college in southwest Ohio frequently mistaken for being in Florida. By day he ruminates on the vicissitudes of history and runs several lecture series on campus. By night he enjoys writing for numerous popular outlets including American History, The Conversation, and Kentucky Humanities. He also enjoys writing short fiction, though this is his first foray into satire.