This discussion is now closed.
Check out other Related discussions
- Homelessness, worst crisis in life, ...
- Can I be a teacher with tattoos
- Life crisis
- Careers; Is St Andrews still a top university?
- Grant 2023 A Level grading allowances in England similar to Wales/Scotland/NI
- i have been declared unfit to study at university.
- I have no friends, no relationship, nothing, I'm rejected for my Nationality
- About University of Essex
- OCR A level History
- I seemed to have stopped caring
- Visa scholarship?
- UCAS - autism and other mental health disclosures: risk of rejection?
- Why is Exeter full of private school students?
- Will DSA affect me after i graduate?
- Social Work interview
- A Closer Look At: Kingston University’s Four Faculties!
- Graduated From Plovdiv Medical University Bulgaria & Now a doctor in Birmingham! AMA
- Equality Act 2010 does not protect disabled students enough
- Which university for computer science?
- What degree do you have no respect for?
All arts and social science students - lets fight back against this discrimination
Scroll to see replies
AfghanistanBananistan
Afterall all the raising of the tuition fee arguments going on today, there has been a remarkable number of people commenting that Arts subjects and social sciences are worthless degrees and those studying them should pay more in fees than sciences.
I am sticking up for all top arts and social science grads. I.e. those doing decent traditional subjects like history, english, politics, classics, philosophy, Geography, Law, e.t.c
What annoys me is that at most top universities all the above corses have AAA-AAB minimum entry requirements (with students often having over 450 UCAS points) and have 10-15+ applicants for every place. Therefore, these students are generally the universities most qualified and best in their peer group. However, frequently engineering and science courses have CCC-ABB offers and can notr fill their places, with many people get in through clearing. Yet for some reason these are considered better academically.
Sorry but for me that is utter tripe because their courses are not in any way harder than arts or social science courses. They are simply better at different things. Yes the world needs engineers and scientists but they also need journalists, teachers, businessmen and politicians, all of which do not need a science or engineering degree. What happened to the good old days when university was about academic fulfilment and learning, not about how you can best suit your future business employer.
P.S, yes believe it or not people have been slagging off general artsy degrees and saying those studying them should pay more because they benefit the tax payer less, not just media and performance studies students.
Rant over
I am sticking up for all top arts and social science grads. I.e. those doing decent traditional subjects like history, english, politics, classics, philosophy, Geography, Law, e.t.c
What annoys me is that at most top universities all the above corses have AAA-AAB minimum entry requirements (with students often having over 450 UCAS points) and have 10-15+ applicants for every place. Therefore, these students are generally the universities most qualified and best in their peer group. However, frequently engineering and science courses have CCC-ABB offers and can notr fill their places, with many people get in through clearing. Yet for some reason these are considered better academically.
Sorry but for me that is utter tripe because their courses are not in any way harder than arts or social science courses. They are simply better at different things. Yes the world needs engineers and scientists but they also need journalists, teachers, businessmen and politicians, all of which do not need a science or engineering degree. What happened to the good old days when university was about academic fulfilment and learning, not about how you can best suit your future business employer.
P.S, yes believe it or not people have been slagging off general artsy degrees and saying those studying them should pay more because they benefit the tax payer less, not just media and performance studies students.
Rant over
The reason Science subjects have a lower entrance requirements is because not many people choose to do it- I had so many people claim that they couldn't do Chem like me, its too hard- and its not, at least not from what other students say.
And to be fair, I always thought that good Arts degrees are well-respected, I would say a person who got into Law or History course at good uni is as intelligent as a person who got into Science subject. I also wanted to switch from my course to Modern languages, but decided i am more of a Science person
I personally study languages because I'm better at them than anything else, but also because I'm too lazy to apply myself to sciences. If I had more motivation I'd probably try and keep languages as a side project, a hobby even. It really depends why you are going to university and your motivation for study, as a means to an end or academic fulfilment
The government must like social sciences though shouldn't they? If you look in that deparment you have the area of economics and law which are a huge benefit for the country, are you sure your right OP? I could be mistaken though. 
AfghanistanBananistan
Sorry but for me that is utter tripe because their courses are not in any way harder than arts or social science courses. They are simply better at different things. Yes the world needs engineers and scientists but they also need journalists, teachers, businessmen and politicians, all of which do not need a science or engineering degree. What happened to the good old days when university was about academic fulfilment and learning, not about how you can best suit your future business employer.
P.S, yes believe it or not people have been slagging off general artsy degrees and saying those studying them should pay more because they benefit the tax payer less, not just media and performance studies students.
Rant over
Sorry but for me that is utter tripe because their courses are not in any way harder than arts or social science courses. They are simply better at different things. Yes the world needs engineers and scientists but they also need journalists, teachers, businessmen and politicians, all of which do not need a science or engineering degree. What happened to the good old days when university was about academic fulfilment and learning, not about how you can best suit your future business employer.
P.S, yes believe it or not people have been slagging off general artsy degrees and saying those studying them should pay more because they benefit the tax payer less, not just media and performance studies students.
Rant over
I think the problem is the lack of folk doing engineering/sicence degrees, hence the perception that these types of degrees are more valuable. If there were a sudden increase in Engineering graduates, we'd have employers bemoaning the lack social sciences students.
Aditionally, many hold the view that degrees in Maths/Biology/Physics etc are significantly harder than a degree in Geography/History/Politics. This is not without basis IMO. I feel that I could put together a relatively sound History essay on topic X - not saying that I would get a top-grade, but I honestly do not think it would be completely unobtainable for me, even with my comp-sci background. If I were to try my luck for, say, a Physics assignment, I am certain that I would fail.
Haksa
Aditionally, many hold the view that degrees in Maths/Biology/Physics etc are significantly harder than a degree in Geography/History/Politics. This is not without basis IMO. I feel that I could put together a relatively sound History essay on topic X - not saying that I would get a top-grade, but I honestly do not think it would be completely unobtainable for me, even with my comp-sci background. If I were to try my luck for, say, a Physics assignment, I am certain that I would fail.
I'd say the opposite is true. One of the criticisms of the Norrington Table, which ranks Oxford colleges in order of achievement based on degree classification, is that it doesn't take into account the number of students who take science subjects versus those who take arts subjects - the colleges which have a higher proportion of science students generally get more firsts because it's easier to get a first in a science, so the colleges which have lots of arts students tend to come lower in the table.
economics is a social science. and they said slash numbers doing subjects non beneficial to society.
Law,economics and even history are highly beneficial in my opinion but all could be argued beneficial.
However studying english lit and lang at degree level to me seems pretty useless. what does it do? other than english teacher what career does it set you up for?
I have no doubt that it is a hard subject but is it a useful subject in comparrison to physics or chemistry.
Anyone with drive and imagination can write a novel a degree in english wont help or hinder that.
Law,economics and even history are highly beneficial in my opinion but all could be argued beneficial.
However studying english lit and lang at degree level to me seems pretty useless. what does it do? other than english teacher what career does it set you up for?
I have no doubt that it is a hard subject but is it a useful subject in comparrison to physics or chemistry.
Anyone with drive and imagination can write a novel a degree in english wont help or hinder that.
Deutsch_Beth
I don't care, the less popular language courses get, the more chance I have of getting in, woop!
Sorry that ^^ is a very selfish view
In all seriousness I agree that saying that arts courses are less useful than courses such as Medicine, Economics, Engineering ect is quite unfair. True we need doctors to survive and scientists to develop new technology, research fuels ect, but without arts degrees we wouldn't be able to communicate with other countries, produce new and exciting literature as well as exploring old ones or have such well designed buildings.
Sorry that ^^ is a very selfish view
In all seriousness I agree that saying that arts courses are less useful than courses such as Medicine, Economics, Engineering ect is quite unfair. True we need doctors to survive and scientists to develop new technology, research fuels ect, but without arts degrees we wouldn't be able to communicate with other countries, produce new and exciting literature as well as exploring old ones or have such well designed buildings.
Hmm i see your point but i would never have though of an architecht in the same way as an eng lit student.
New literature is written all the time by people without a degree. and old literature was writeen by people without english degree's.
Some of the classics were written by mathematicians.
Libtolu
Hmm i see your point but i would never have though of an architecht in the same way as an eng lit student.
New literature is written all the time by people without a degree. and old literature was writeen by people without english degree's.
Some of the classics were written by mathematicians.
New literature is written all the time by people without a degree. and old literature was writeen by people without english degree's.
Some of the classics were written by mathematicians.
Several great works were written by doctors as well - Conan Doyle is perhaps the most famous doctor-author.
The point of an arts degree isn't just the content of what you learn, but the skills of analytical reasoning and creativity and so on that it it teaches you, which are very important to employers. Many science graduates go on to pursue careers which are completely irrelevant to what they studied at university; does that mean it was a waste of their time studying it?
Bezzler
I'd say the opposite is true. One of the criticisms of the Norrington Table, which ranks Oxford colleges in order of achievement based on degree classification, is that it doesn't take into account the number of students who take science subjects versus those who take arts subjects - the colleges which have a higher proportion of science students generally get more firsts because it's easier to get a first in a science, so the colleges which have lots of arts students tend to come lower in the table.
I agree with the man you quoted.
I don't know about degree level but i used to put together an a level history essay 10 min before the lesson and get a's nd b's but if i tried the same with a science i would fail terribly.
OF the few people i know doing arts degrees i can tell you compared to my friends doing math's they spend no time whatsoever revising. a couple of them do a few days revision leading up to their exam where as my mates doing degree maths spend weeks and weeks revising.
Just saying from my limited experience it seems science/maths students spend more time revising/working than artsy students(not always the case obviously but from what i know[ limited])
AfghanistanBananistan
Afterall all the raising of the tuition fee arguments going on today, there has been a remarkable number of people commenting that Arts subjects and social sciences are worthless degrees and those studying them should pay more in fees than sciences.
I am sticking up for all top arts and social science grads. I.e. those doing decent traditional subjects like history, english, politics, classics, philosophy, Geography, Law, e.t.c
I am sticking up for all top arts and social science grads. I.e. those doing decent traditional subjects like history, english, politics, classics, philosophy, Geography, Law, e.t.c
I agree with your principle argument but I think you have completely missed the point. I hate any form of snobbery, but some arts degrees are highly valued (languages being one that isn't so popular), and arts degrees aren't worthless. Students shouldn't pay more-infact, arts students should pay less. It is far cheaper to teach a history degree than a medicine degree. So science students should have to pay higher fees (international science students do) but this is compensated in turn by a much higher graduate salary.
usainlightning
Well i unlike you do not have 20 grand to blow on university education or have the time to waste three years of my life. Therefore i want a degree with the best earning potential.
Yes, and a lot, perhaps even most arts degrees have massive earning potential. Lawyers, politicians and civil servants for example, tend to study subject like Law, Politics and History. These occupations arguably command higher salaries than engineers, physics teachers and even doctors.
Blátönn
I can't understand this either science requires memorising equations and formulae, arts actually require a high degree of personal input.
Do you do much science? An equivalent statement would be "Literature requires memorising grammar and spelling". It's true, but there is so much more to Literature than spelling and grammar, just like there is so much more to Maths or Science than simply memorising formulae. G.H. Hardy put it best: I am interested in mathematics only as a creative art.
Bezzler
Several great works were written by doctors as well - Conan Doyle is perhaps the most famous doctor-author.
The point of an arts degree isn't just the content of what you learn, but the skills of analytical reasoning and creativity and so on that it it teaches you, which are very important to employers. Many science graduates go on to pursue careers which are completely irrelevant to what they studied at university; does that mean it was a waste of their time studying it?
The point of an arts degree isn't just the content of what you learn, but the skills of analytical reasoning and creativity and so on that it it teaches you, which are very important to employers. Many science graduates go on to pursue careers which are completely irrelevant to what they studied at university; does that mean it was a waste of their time studying it?
Are you saying something like Maths doesn't teach you analytical reason/creativity/etc? You haven't given a reason why 'arts' subjects should be studied over 'science' subjects
(i'm not denigrating the importance of studying History/whatever. i'm just tired of hearing this half-baked 'excuse' that 'arts' subjects teaches you 'transferable skills' (whatever the **** they are) and that's why they should be studied)
Blátönn
I can't understand this either science requires memorising equations and formulae, arts actually require a high degree of personal input.
Very good, would read troll again. 10/10.
around
Are you saying something like Maths doesn't teach you analytical reason/creativity/etc? You haven't given a reason why 'arts' subjects should be studied over 'science' subjects
(i'm not denigrating the importance of studying History/whatever. i'm just tired of hearing this half-baked 'excuse' that 'arts' subjects teaches you 'transferable skills' (whatever the **** they are) and that's why they should be studied)
(i'm not denigrating the importance of studying History/whatever. i'm just tired of hearing this half-baked 'excuse' that 'arts' subjects teaches you 'transferable skills' (whatever the **** they are) and that's why they should be studied)
I didn't once suggest they should be studied over science subjects! I'm not arguing that arts subjects should be placed on a higher level than science subjects at all! I'm suggesting that both provide important skills, and so neither should be considered inferior. I think you've missed my point somewhat, which is that arts degrees are of equal worth to science degrees, and not lesser.
AfghanistanBananistan
What annoys me is that at most top universities all the above corses have AAA-AAB minimum entry requirements (with students often having over 450 UCAS points) and have 10-15+ applicants for every place. Therefore, these students are generally the universities most qualified and best in their peer group. However, frequently engineering and science courses have CCC-ABB offers and can notr fill their places, with many people get in through clearing. Yet for some reason these are considered better academically.
Rant over
What annoys me is that at most top universities all the above corses have AAA-AAB minimum entry requirements (with students often having over 450 UCAS points) and have 10-15+ applicants for every place. Therefore, these students are generally the universities most qualified and best in their peer group. However, frequently engineering and science courses have CCC-ABB offers and can notr fill their places, with many people get in through clearing. Yet for some reason these are considered better academically.
Rant over
Agree with you on the whole, but I don't see what you're basing this on? What kind of top universities struggle to fill their science and engineering places? And how frequently is frequently? Just as frequently as "average" universities with arts courses frequently? Also, consider that maybe universities cater more for science courses in the first place, so have more spaces available...
Your figures are biased
Higgy90
ROFL arts students thinking logically about stuff 
Considering my arts degree incorporates logic as a mandatory element, I rather want to dispute your claim with this very literal counterexample.
Perhaps you should actually learn something about the subjects you're mocking?
Related discussions
- Homelessness, worst crisis in life, ...
- Can I be a teacher with tattoos
- Life crisis
- Careers; Is St Andrews still a top university?
- Grant 2023 A Level grading allowances in England similar to Wales/Scotland/NI
- i have been declared unfit to study at university.
- I have no friends, no relationship, nothing, I'm rejected for my Nationality
- About University of Essex
- OCR A level History
- I seemed to have stopped caring
- Visa scholarship?
- UCAS - autism and other mental health disclosures: risk of rejection?
- Why is Exeter full of private school students?
- Will DSA affect me after i graduate?
- Social Work interview
- A Closer Look At: Kingston University’s Four Faculties!
- Graduated From Plovdiv Medical University Bulgaria & Now a doctor in Birmingham! AMA
- Equality Act 2010 does not protect disabled students enough
- Which university for computer science?
- What degree do you have no respect for?
Latest
Trending
Last reply 4 days ago
Is it true that British unis are prejudiced towards degrees from Scottish unis?Last reply 4 days ago
If the Russell Group was now a fair representation of what it still claims to beLast reply 1 month ago
Is University of Birmingham prestigious and respected well enough in UK ?Trending
Last reply 4 days ago
Is it true that British unis are prejudiced towards degrees from Scottish unis?Last reply 4 days ago
If the Russell Group was now a fair representation of what it still claims to beLast reply 1 month ago
Is University of Birmingham prestigious and respected well enough in UK ?
