Attention, humanists: Want to find your mojo? Take a page from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. 

Everywhere I look, I'm hearing Chicken Little stories about the decline and fall of the humanities: There's a decline in majors! (On second thought, maybe not.) A decline in funding! A decline in women's enrollment! Our fate as humanists is a constant topic of debate and consternation. Mark Sample, a visiting associate professor of digital studies at Davidson College, has even created a Twitter bot, @SaveHumanities, which offers machine-generated insights-"we need to quit being so damn pretty," "we need to make our own cryptocurrency," "we need a more awesome story"-on how to save our supposedly dying discipline.

Is our discipline really on the wane? Yes. No. Maybe. The reactions are mixed.

How do you become a scientist? Ask anyone in the profession and you'll probably hear some version of the following: get a bachelor's of science degree, work in a lab, get into a Ph.D. program, publish some papers, get a good postdoctoral position, publish some more papers, and then apply for a tenure-track job at a large university. It's a long road-and you get to spend those 10 to 15 years as a poor graduate student or underpaid postdoc, while you watch your peers launch careers, start families, and contribute to their 401(k) plans.

And, like you, he had to put together a resume to get his next gig. So in 1482, at the age of 30, he wrote out a letter and a list of his capabilities and sent it off to Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan.

So to celebrate Leonardo's birthday tomorrow on April 15th, I'd like to share his wonderful resume with you. 

To read the full article by Marc Cendella , click here.

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