Anybody appying to New College Of the Humanities?

Just got a phone call regarding the accommodation, apparently the upper scale accommodation (which sounds amazing) will be around £270/week, whilst the lower scale accommodation (which sounds quite poor) would be around £150 a week...

Just keeping you all updated

My friend applied, and got an offer. She's not going.

I'm thinking of applying for English and Philosophy and was wondering if anyone else was, I'm going to apply for one of the funding programs - not sure which one yet though.

If anyone has had an interview or additional information I would be very grateful for the additional information

do you understand the definition of what a humanities subject is? and this sort of attitude about STEM subjects which has led to the ridiculous position we're in now with the NCH in the first place. so be quiet and add up your numbers.

do you understand the definition of what a humanities subject is? and this sort of attitude about STEM subjects which has led to the ridiculous position we're in now with the NCH in the first place. so be quiet and add up your numbers.

It's a bit rich to demand a precise definition of the humanities, when you don't have a cotton-picking clue about what mathematics even vaguely concerns.

Yes it's absolutely hilarious to joke about mathematicians doing sums. Ho ho ho. Ho ho ho. Yes, that's right, that's why maths is important. Really hard sums. Yeah. You nailed it.

I understand you were baited, but it's only natural that non-STEM subjects are going to suffer a larger cut (as if STEM isn't being cut; it is).

What isn't natural is the general utilitarian threat to real academic discourse of any kind. This affects pure mathematics as much as it affects the humanities. Whilst I wouldn't go so far as to say "Live together or die alone", perhaps at least some solidarity is in order.

You say that it's only 'natural' that non-STEM subjects are cut more. I just don't agree with this position, at all. As you say, a utilitarian perspective on academia is just misplaced - and I feel just as bad for the mathematicians who just want to do complex algebra all day as the musicologists.

I wasn't demanding a definition of the humanities (not really); I was questioning why the poster would bother making such a stupid comment about NCH not doing maths, when maths is not generally considered to be a humanities subject. Obviously maths is more than number counting - i'm not a complete idiot.

As far as you comment regarding the need for solidarity, I'm completely with you on this. I have a lot of respect for science and maths subjects; in particular because my own understanding goes no further than A level maths and my brain just doesn't really think that way. But I find constantly (particularly on here, but also in the 'real' world), that those from science/maths backgrounds have a significant air of superiority over those from arts/humanities/social science disciplines, and it makes me extremely frustrated, and sad.

I should say it is important to me that something is useful, significant. It's important to me that mathematics is useful. Exactly how important, I don't know. The humanities consist in culture, past and present, and the understanding thereof. Culture is a good (essential!) thing, a healthy thing, for any society, and the humanities are useful wherever they contribute to that.

So really what I am saying is that I am against total utilitarianism. Academic value and academic significance, as well as potential and speculative applications, need to be considered as well as immediate and commercial applications. Like I often say about politics "It's easy; just choose the most balanced view, it's always the right one".

Back to the money issue, it's a question of fragility. You should consider whether it's cuts that you are angry about, or whether you are angry about science subjects receiving more funding in the first place. Fundamental science in particular is outside of both popular culture and often outside of commerce. It is also not cheap. If you took the funding away from fundamental science it would just dissappear in Britain.

And history warns against those who decide "oh well, if it's too much trouble, let's not worry our childrens' pretty little heads with fundamental science".

The trick, if you are doing to cut things, is to do both the least immediate damage, and the least long term damage. To fail to protect science and technology, particularly fundamental science and technology, is to do the most of both.

You may not be a complete idiot (I don't know) but all people see is your post. You could always just swing by wikipedia before posting. You will probably never in your life learn as much in 60 seconds, or be disavowed of as many false assumptions in 60 seconds, as if you spend 60 seconds reading the "mathematics" page of wikipedia. Wikipedia often gets a bad rap but it looks pretty good to me.

and yes, this is exactly my point. We are too keen to find the obvious 'use' for something to consider worth studying, funding, doing. I think the 'use' of things like arts and humanities subjects are harder to see, but no less important from my perspective (for the record, I'm a lawyer). I realise that we're in for a hard time over the coming years, but what is happening inside the University system makes me extremely concerned for the future of our tertiary education system. It's changed almost beyond recognition since I was an undergrad 8 years ago - goodness knows what's going to happen in the next ten. And constantly seeing the attitude on TSR of 'Oh, you're doing english lit? what, you weren't clever enough to do physics?' doesn't give me much hope. The place where we are at with the NCH is due to the constant cutting of arts and humanities funding, and if we're not careful, non-science/vocational subjects will be the domain of the privately educated and wealthy, and surely that can't be a good thing for society? That was what riled me about the original post - it might be some silly kid just being a wind-up merchant, but its closer to the truth than i'm happy seeing...

I think you misunderstood my point - I was being deliberately facetious, given the nature of the post to which I was responding. I don't think anyone read my reply and seriously thought 'gosh, doesn't she know maths is more about counting numbers'? I didn't mean to demean anyone's subject, and I didn't really think anyone would read it that way. Apologies if anyone was offended.

pretty expensive books these guys got them there

LOL, that should be book expenses per day...

pretty expensive books these guys got them there