Inventing new career paths: the Humanities and Management curriculum
To break the traditional partitioning of training courses, and to support the professional integration of high-level students in the Humanities and Social Sciences, the ENS and Université Paris-Dauphine launched in October a new curriculum: the post-Master’s degree Humanities and Management.
Antoine Blanc, lecturer at Université Paris-Dauphine, in charge of the post-Master’s degree, tells us about the challenges of this innovative and atypical course of study.
PSL: Humanities and management have been, and still are, very often presented as two opposed fields of study... Can you tell us about the origins of the new training? And what are the main expectations?
A.B: As it often happens, the project was born from a discussion. In 2015, Marc Mézard, director of the ENS and Laurent Batsch, then President of the Université Paris-Dauphine, noted that there was no satisfactory curriculum to support students with high potential in the Humanities and social science (SHS) to businesses. Yet, not only have the profiles of students and their career aspirations diversified, but PSL offers all the resources necessary to imagine and implement the future training. The project was launched, and the post-Master’s degree Humanities and Management hosted the first promotion in October 2017. The training program offers exceptional courses in Literature, Music, History of Art, Philosophy. We will guide students for one year (4 months of course and 6 months of internship) to build their career path.
PSL: What do you think are the main skills that students in Literature, Humanities and Social Sciences can bring to companies?
We cannot predict exactly the benefits companies will yield from experts in the Humanities and social sciences; however, we can definitely assure they will offer new perspectives.
A.B: Beyond sound judgement and great cultural awareness, students from a Humanities background have, in general, good capacity for synthesis and the understanding of complex systems. They are also able of curiosity and depth of analysis. They are, in general, sensitive to the world and passionate about their subjects of study. An attitude which is more and more valued in recruitments. For companies, this is an interesting profile: they are able to think outside the box. However, the experimental dimension is now imperative for companies in the current international competitive landscape. We cannot predict exactly the benefits companies will yield from experts in the Humanities and social sciences; however, we can definitely assure they will offer new perspectives. Whether it is a new perspective on strategic topics, or a greater reflexivity, these profiles are undeniably, for companies, key actors to future innovations.
Today, however, the misunderstanding between the two domains is such that both businesses and students are reluctant to take the plunge. It is important to reduce the risk margin, and this is one of the missions of the Humanities and Management training.
PSL: What are the main advantages of this post-Master’s degree for future students and employers compared to other complementary courses (MBA, IAE - University Schools of Management)?
A.B: Originality comes first of all, from the positioning of the curriculum, which is designed specifically for high-level students in the Literature, Humanities and Social Sciences. In other words, it is not a question of transforming, in only one year, a young doctor in History into a student of Management resulting from a school of business or an IAE; on the contrary, we to take into account the specificity of these profiles.
Concretely, the training foresees an articulation between two teaching practices: first, learn-by-doing lessons intended to reinforce the concrete knowledge of the corporate sector and, secondly, more theoretical lessons to develop a personal reflection on the new subjects taught. A majority of teachers are backed by research centers renowned for their transdisciplinary approach to management (History, Sociology, Art, ...). For example, the course of accounting led by Pierre Labardin is both from an instrumental angle - how to read a balance sheet or an income statement? - and from the theoretical angle of the History of Accounting. The pedagogical approach is mainly "American style", that is to say based on personal readings, business cases, group projects and many interactions with the teacher. This facilitates a quick acculturation to the problems of the companies while developing a strong personal reflection.