Bachelor of...

[Beny]

Originally Posted by Leafy Seadragon 49425

I'm a believer that, other than providing you with the basic training and getting you in the door of your career, degrees are generally overrated in their value. There's several staff in my group with Ph.Ds and another finishing one off, but easily the best of the lot has simply an honours degree. Neither he nor I have had any limits in our professions through not having doctorates. The problem translates much more to recognition from the general public than from those in the field. Because the field I deal with is scientific/technical, the media are generally keen to deal with someone who sounds credible and admittedly 'Dr' at the front of your name does that. In general I've found that, provided you've got the basic training needed for whatever you're doing, people within your profession will judge you on your abilities rather than your degrees.
Note to self: step down off soapbox...

From a humanities perspective, an arts degree is the most underated availble. As my teacher points out, an arts degree is the only one around that teaches you how to think.
Personaly I think we should grab all the naive people around and force them to complete a philosophy or History major.

The thing is that in our capatilist world we foucus far too much on how much money we can make, not realising that there is something more important... Understanding and knowlage. Learing and understanding the likes of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, mesopatamians and also our more recent history is invaluble. Learning and understanding the likes of the existentalists, epistimologists and metaphysicans can change a persons entire understanding of the world.

Frankly, I dont care if I die poor, just so long as I dont die naive.

[imaginarydiva]

Im hoping for a B.A in english and a B.Sc in Physics or Astronomy.

[Lemming]

Originally Posted by imaginarydiva

Im hoping for a B.A in english and a B.Sc in Physics or Astronomy.

Skip the English and concentrate on Physics! That's my advice to you.

[Lemming]

Originally Posted by Statto

Ive got my GCSEs, am in the middle of my ASs now (first year A-Level) and hope to go on to do Maths at Cambridge.

Yeah, Maths at Cambridge is possibly the best degree you can get. (In my opinion of course).

[Lemming]

Originally Posted by Beny

From a humanities perspective, an arts degree is the most underated availble. As my teacher points out, an arts degree is the only one around that teaches you how to think.
Personaly I think we should grab all the naive people around and force them to complete a philosophy or History major.

The thing is that in our capatilist world we foucus far too much on how much money we can make, not realising that there is something more important... Understanding and knowlage. Learing and understanding the likes of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, mesopatamians and also our more recent history is invaluble. Learning and understanding the likes of the existentalists, epistimologists and metaphysicans can change a persons entire understanding of the world.

Frankly, I dont care if I die poor, just so long as I dont die naive.

Beny, I agree that making money is not at all important, I wouldn't be a physicist if i did. But I disagree that only arts degrees can make you think. Of course a good arts degree would teach you to think, but in my opinion not as much as a degree such a physics which heavily relies on analysis and consideration of "reality" if you like.

Understanding is important to everybody. Knowledge of ancient civilisations, on the other hand, although very interesting will probably only get you far on a quiz show. (Of course I'm very biassed, not being an artist)

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Beny

Personaly I think we should grab all the naive people around and force them to complete a philosophy or History major.

Hmmm. Try visiting your local history department or English Lit department and you'll find it's already happening. More seriously, go into any walk of local government or national government that doesn't actually work / achieve anything and you'll probably find ample evidence that this theory's already been tested to destruction!

If you're willing to think then go do some reading... great... but don't expect an undergraduate programme in the humanities to teach anyone to think: those who can be bothered to think would have thought anyway.. and the rest will learn to jump through the requisite hoops like thousands before them and will emerge no more inclined to think than they would have done from a vocational course.

I'm not trying to discourage you.. as I've spent the majority of the last 20 years attached to some institution or another and immersed in history, philosophy and related fields... but I'd not single out the humanities for any priviliged position: the evidence to the contrary is just too strong!

[Beny]

Originally Posted by Lemming 49682

Understanding is important to everybody. Knowledge of ancient civilisations, on the other hand, although very interesting will probably only get you far on a quiz show. (Of course I'm very biassed, not being an artist)

Ahhh. Hence the problem. We asume that wrote learning is the only form of learning.
Everything comes from somewhere Lemming. We can trace human civilization back 10,000 years, yet when things happen today most people assume that the're happening for the first time- generaly they are wrong. Once you understand how it's happened before, things start to gain a degree of predictability... There are patterns in human beheviour, mainly because people rarely learn from the past.(I'm not a marxsist by the way).

The understanding that you get from a physics degree is very different to what you get from an arts degree. physics will tell you what we're made of, philosophy, history e.t.c will tell you how we work, or even if we are really here. In fact often it wont tell you anything, it will ask you to consider questions, but those questions constitute knowlage in themselves. Science and philosophy once used to coencide together and many of the greatest thinkers of history- Aristotle, Plato, Decarts... were scientists as well. I still think that it is impossible to understand without a certain amount of knowlage from both.

Hmmm. Try visiting your local history department or English Lit department and you'll find it's already happening.

Point taken, how many of those people come into the course with pre-concived ideas though?? Or else they sit there and label the professer as loopy for asking them to think outside themselves. It's almost an 'Aristotle's cave' situation.

If you're willing to think then go do some reading... great... but don't expect an undergraduate programme in the humanities to teach anyone to think:

I'm not suggesting Rach, that people who go into an arts degree will all magicly come out intelligent. I'm suggesting though, that if people give it the chance it will.

[Paoli]

Unlike Beny, however, I'd rather die the dumbest guy in the world who made a heap of money!

[Occasional Fan]

How many graduates out there wish they'd studied something else in their university years? Count me as number one. I have a BSc in Economics and Accounting from the Universtiy of Bristol. Virtually all of the accounting element of that degree course was repeated as part of my professional exam training within three years after my graduation date. The mistake I made - well, let's be fair, one of many! - was that in my late teens I saw a university degree as a stepping stone to a professional career, so I picked one which I thought would provide a foundation for my career. Now I really wish I had done something completely different - in hindsight, a BA in German and Czech would have been pretty handy (I speak both these languages to some extent, but I'm still a long way off understanding the Germans or Czechs in a cultural/traditional sense).

And broadening things out somewhat - this career stuff is for the birds as well! (Warning to the young 'uns here: you might want to try it for a while before coming to my conclusion!) In my mid forties, and therefore far too late, I am now absolutely sure that a career is the last thing I want: a job or a series of jobs will do just fine! Careers take too much out of the rest of your life - always apparently investing for a better tomorrow, but actually none of us really knows how many tomorrows we have available to us. My philosophy on life over the three years since I was made redundant after 20 years with one firm has become much more a "make the most of every day" philosophy. My income is a tenth of what it was, and I'm as happy now as I have ever been.

[Occasional Fan]

Originally Posted by Paoli69

Unlike Beny, however, I'd rather die the dumbest guy in the world who made a heap of money!

We all measure our own success in our own way, Paoli69, but I've never seen the point in being the richest guy in the cemetery!