Micky Mouse Degrees
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I was looking at university applications and I found a course at Stanford (Yes, THE Stanford) whch had a course in Anesthesia. ANESTHESIA
So you would happily go to one of the best colleges in the country and decide to get a degree in how to use and apply morphine? Complete horseshit
So you would happily go to one of the best colleges in the country and decide to get a degree in how to use and apply morphine? Complete horseshit
You sort of made the argument against your argument on your own here, though I understand how the subject can be seen as patronizing. The primary reason for Women's Studies to exist is because of the repression of women in history and our current time. Women's Studies is an effort from the academic field to reveal the oppression of women in our past and present, which is especially important to the study of history as nearly all history was recorded by affluent males on the winning side of whatever war or takeover they were recounting. Women's Studies aims to get beyond history's truly reprehensible role in many schools, secondary and collegiate, of simply being a memorization and recitation of facts.Miss_M said:
This brings us to the problem I have with people who take issue with history majors. History is, by and large, taught incorrectly. We are given textbooks in secondary school and told they contain the "truth" and "facts" when in reality history is almost always based in opinion and inference. "History is written by the victors" is one of the most accurate sayings in the world, but few people stop to consider precisely what that means. If you really want to start educating people on history and get them thinking about it the right way have them start by reading "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen or "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn (I realize these are American texts I am citing, there are probably excellent equivalents in other countries... it's not my fault I was born here!).
The point is, history has incredible value as an important lesson in human nature. There is a reason it is considered a social science (though it is arguably hardly scientific) and that is because it studies the nature of the human condition. Does a history major provide any value to an IT professional or an engineer? Well sure, some, but I certainly don't believe they need a massive amount in it after secondary school. And, if it were taught correctly in secondary school, they wouldn't need to take it in college!
Look, the point is you should study what you love and what you have strong interest in. Got tech skills? That should be your major. Me, I was a literature and history guy and I'm working as a teacher's aide while getting my masters in education. Do I expect to land a job making big bucks? Not bloody likely! But I am doing what I like, and that is a good reason to have studied what I did. That, and as I have said, history has a great deal of value. It's more important to understand WHY something happened than WHEN it happened, even if you can't definitively say why trying to discern the answer is important.
Consider this, wouldn't you rather have people in positions of political power that knew their history inside out? Wouldn't that make them more adept at handling volatile international and domestic situations? After all, history repeats itself, and if that's the case we should probably have people in charge who know what to expect.
No, no, no, you're getting confused here. The reason Loughborough has a high entry requirement for sports science is because it is (as someone else mentioned) a national centre for sporting excellence, and as such is VERY popular for people wanting to do sports. The grades are that high through competition, not because the course is difficult. As by the same token you can go do Engineering at a rank #250+ uni, and it'll only have EDD as an entry requirement, even though it's supposidly a difficult course.Daveman said:
And i admit to being a bit of an academic snob too, and since attending university it's only gotten worse, as i've spoken to people doing sports science and geography degrees, who somehow have gotten it into their mind it's as difficult as an Engineering degree and feel the need to correct my misconceptions. From the way i've heard two annoying geography students i ended up sitting through a meal with, go on about their courses, i clearly overlooked the minor's in brainsurgery, advanced physics, engineering & economics. Of course the amusing part was when they got their coursework and it was "colour in this map correctly" for 30% of a module. What a joke.
I actually think the problem is too many universities not too many stupid courses, as if people want to piss away 3 years of their life so be it. However there are 300something universities all drinking from the same financial cup (minus tuition fees and private investment), and if we just sliced the number of universities by half and turned them back into the technology colleges and such they originally were, then it would mean alot more funding for ACTUAL universities. It would also decrease the number of students who just use their degree as an excuse to get drunk for three years, and hopefully could even remove tuition fees.
I'm also of the opinion they should remove grants from useless degrees like sociology, or paying off a drama students 10's of thousands of british pounds in debt because "wow they're going to teach children to act poorly so they can do the same thing". I think the grants should go to people doing engineering, science and other degrees where they will actually CONTRIBUTE to the country. As while we're eating up taxes at the moment, an engineer will usually get a 30k+ salary (not straight after graduate but a few years down the line). But if a sociology student gets paid 2k a year in grants on top of the amount the government pays for them to go to uni, then goes and works in Mcdonalds how will that help the country?
Anywho, this turned into an impressive rant, so i'll leave it at that
Then still it's more a matter of prestige, rather than content. True, when you have a college education you're automatically more attractive to employers since it's an indicator of intelligence and dedication. But some courses are way better than others in relation to the job market - which was the point I was trying to make. But, you're right: you could do a lot worse than history or philosophy. I have seen it with my own two eyes.UpcountryGecko said:
Question: would you believe that there's a full time three year course called TOURISM overhere? Well, believe it.Mind you, you mentioned a multidisciplinarian course: politics, philosophy AND economics. More importantly: you neglected to mention where british MP's attained their degrees - which is often a much more important indicator than what they studied when it comes to prestige, and by extention, future career development.
Business Studies. One of my flatmates does that and it's apparently pretty tough, but very useful. She organised a club night with friends as part of her course, and made money in the process, so it's good fun tooCpt_Oblivious said:
As for me, I want to go into the gaming industry, and I do Mathematics. I could have chosen a course in gaming, or game development, but I decided not to, since Maths is more diverse so I can always go into another industry if necessary, and the gaming industry is crying out for mathematicians anyway. However, I wanted to do electives (extra modules) in Performance Arts or Film Studies, because those are my hobbies. Sadly the university I go to doesn't allow electives to be taken for those subjects.
Anyway, basically I could have chosen a so-called 'Mickey Mouse' degree but instead did something worthwhile that's much more useful and diverse. So I don't really see the point of offering these stupid degrees. I mean, somewhere offered a course in making tea and coffee. I've done that since I was ten years old. Oooh, does that mean my Phd diploma is in the post?
I don't think anyone actually claimed history was a 'mickey mouse' degree, or philosophy. I think the point that was being made was that unlike engineering (sorry to keep using it as an example), it doesn't have a very "fixed" job that'll come after it. As it's pretty much history teacher or go do something completely unrelated. The same with psychology and english. The sciences boil down to "research or teacher" or something completely unrelated. Ironically the "something unrelated" is nearly always retraining as IT, which does to an extent kinda make me wonder why anyone takes itvultureX21 said:
Not that it isn't useful, just that everyone does it and you could do something else and then retrain.
I met a teacher who was applying to work at my wonderfully elitest private school to teach buisiness and a bit of biology who did sports science at loughborough. She told me that the course was challenging as you learn a bit about biology, a bit about material science (for equipment etc) and also a bit about the economics of sport etc and physician stuff. So I don't think that it's really a complete joke as some people say it is. At least you learn some minorly useful technical stuff.Elivercury said:
And of course I know it's based on popularity, but some things also require some background learning like I have to do maths and physics a level to get into my engineering course.
To be honest, everyone says history repeats itself but it's quite unlikely that people will actually do anything about it, or be able to. Also I'd much rather they were trained in economics or something than history or bloody politics. After all, what is politics if not a massive popularity contest? And like we need that in our modern society.vultureX21 said:
Oh I agree 100%. I took history knowing it was what I wanted to study and knowing what I wanted to do with it, unlike the twenty baseball and basketball history majors who took it thinking it was an easy major. Didn't work out so well when they got to seminars and colloquiums, I ended up tutoring a bunch of them. More painful for me I assure you.Elivercury said:I don't think anyone actually claimed history was a 'mickey mouse' degree, or philosophy. I think the point that was being made was that unlike engineering (sorry to keep using it as an example), it doesn't have a very "fixed" job that'll come after it. As it's pretty much history teacher or go do something completely unrelated. The same with psychology and english. The sciences boil down to "research or teacher" or something completely unrelated. Ironically the "something unrelated" is nearly always retraining as IT, which does to an extent kinda make me wonder why anyone takes it
Yes, a lot of people use it as a "token" major sadly and often they are the athletes at the university. I'm not saying every student-athlete is trying to grab an easy ride, but a lot do. Almost makes me hope that they do retrain as IT somewhere rigorous to punish them for their attempt at slacking through school.
Those are like 2-3 modules though. 9 modules are running around on a field, doing PE. 3 modules are doing the basics of the basics of materials and biology. Their hardest modules i will admit do come from a much harder degree (sports technology), but those modules are the easy "free marks" modules for the sports tech guys. They're also commonly refered to as sports monkey'sDaveman said:
Besides which, the Loughborough course is probably the toughest sports science course out there, and even looking at that it's not that challenging.
Most people I know with psychology degrees work in fields that have absolutely nothing to do with the topic. Though many will argue the point that working an office job where you sell widgets over the phone it helps to have knowledge of human behavior. I have like 6 friends who have such a degree because I befriended them in college as I have a criminal justice and sociology degrees so we took the same classes. Psychology is one of the THE most popular degrees I think.
Don't get one unless you want to do one of the following: Go on to get a doctorate. Social Worker, Detective, Advertising, be a professor (good luck).
Oh and Philosophy unless you're going to write a book I really don't know what to do with that.
Don't get one unless you want to do one of the following: Go on to get a doctorate. Social Worker, Detective, Advertising, be a professor (good luck).
Oh and Philosophy unless you're going to write a book I really don't know what to do with that.
Some employers see certain degrees as proof that you can think logically and work through problems. For example most mathematics is purely theoretical, especially at higher levels but anyone who calls mathematics mickey mouse is seriously wrong.avykins said:
Although i think philosophy as a whole is pretty pointless, it probably shows your good in debates, forming an opinion backed up by information and present it in a coherent manner. Which could be very useful in a Law scenario or politics
I wish there was a Mickey Mouse degree. You learn about Mickey Mouse. I'd take that class. It'd be fun.
Just to chip in on the sports science topic. I know a guy, the laziest bastard on earth, who did this degree. He even failed his dissertation. But that's not the joke. The joke is that I saw his 'coursework' involving choreographing a dance for a song. His group basically danced like drunk chavs and even thrusted their pelvises at each other. We actually watched all the entries for a laugh and they were all total farces. Even better than that - he was allowed to redo his final work so he could pass.Daveman said:
At my uni, in my degree, if you fail that's it. You are gone.
I did a degree in physics and it was a complete waste of time. Hardest course ever and at the end 7 people in my year got a 2:1 or higher. Employers never look at my CV and say "Well, physics is actually really hard and add in the fact you were at a really rigorous and prestigious university, you did really well to get a 2:2" They just look at the 2:2 and dismiss me as a lazy get, when there are guys doing agricultural studies running HBOS. Ridiculous.
Rant over. Apologies.
If an employer doesn't see the value in your degree then it's not the right employer for you! If and employer asks you why you didn't do a little better but knows the value of your work thats a bit more like it! (I wonder where you got your degree from...) Anyway grads from my uni have the same problem sometimes.aaronmcc said: