Published in The Telegraph on 19 September 2026, an opinion piece by Durham first-year MLAC student Alexander Mort explores why he chose to study Russian and History despite growing anxieties about AI, career prospects and the future of humanities education.
First-year Russian and History student Alexander Mort makes a compelling case for following your intellectual passions, even as artificial intelligence and concerns about employability reshape the debate around university education.
In an opinion piece published in The Telegraph on 19 September 2026, Alexander Mort, now a first-year Russian and History student at Durham University, reflects on his decision to pursue two subjects whose value is increasingly questioned in public debate.
Writing shortly before beginning his studies at Durham, Alexander opens with a spirited defence of his chosen disciplines:
“This month I will be packing my bags to embrace life in Durham studying two things now regarded as unfashionable, suspect and possibly useless: history and Russian…”
His article, Ignore your AI job prospects and study your passion at university, offers a timely perspective on the pressures facing prospective students as they navigate questions about future careers, technological change and the value of a university degree.
At a time when the rise of artificial intelligence is prompting renewed debate about the future of work, Alexander's decision to study Russian and History offers a welcome reminder that university education is about more than preparing for a particular career.
Studying languages and cultures opens doors to different ways of thinking, encourages critical engagement with the world and fosters an understanding of societies beyond our own.
For Durham's School of Modern Languages and Cultures, it is particularly encouraging to see a new student publicly championing the value of language learning and the intellectual curiosity that inspires it.
Alexander concludes his article by turning to one of Russia's greatest literary figures, Leo Tolstoy, whose reflections on language and communication resonate particularly strongly with the study of modern languages:
“The only means of intellectual communication between people is the word, and in order that this communication may be legitimate, it is necessary to use words in such a way that they evoke exactly the same concepts in those who hear them as they do in those who speak them.”
It is a fitting reminder of the power of language to connect people, ideas and cultures — and of why studying languages continues to matter.
A wonderful choice of words, Alexander! We look forward to following your journey at Durham.
Alexander Mort's article, Ignore your AI job prospects and study your passion at university, was published in The Telegraph on 19 September 2026.
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