How would you improve "soft" subjects to make them "respected"?

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I would just like to ask those who are so against 'soft' subjects, and are at a top 10 uni doing medicine or some 'respected' subject, did you go to a state school or a private school? I wasn't as lucky as you lot, being uninterested in Maths and Science because I enjoyed English instead. Nobody at my school told me there were 'less respected' degrees at uni. I was never told the career path I wanted to take was 'worthless'. I was told to study what I enjoy. Some might say "well you should've done the research". Well I'm sorry, but being the 15-16 year old angsty teenager, I was more interested in getting drunk/laid and playing football in the park and Xbox Live. To expect someone so young to plan out their entire life is frankly, ludicrous.

I also really dislike the word 'respected' in regards to a degree. Who are you looking for respect from, your accomplices at Oxford? Personally I think the word should be 'employable' or something. 'Respected' just reeks of insecurity. If you have such a massive problem with someone doing English or Media or Psychology, then keep it to yourself. Your taxes are being spent on a lot worse than the average Joe's favourite subject which doesn't happen to come under your list of 'respected' subjects.

Reply 21

PBTimmeh

I'd get rid of the haters and let people get on with their degrees, which are valuable to them. That's the only problem.

Hate haters.

Reply 22

Lord_Farquad

skunky x

Am I the only one who finds it ironic you spelt 'further' wrong?

It was a typo. :hat:

Reply 23

Lovefoxxx_93

In my opinion the "soft" subjects are the ones that are purely or mainly coursework.

Reply 24

skunky x

Lord_Farquad

It was a typo. :hat:

Regardless, it made me giggle =]

Reply 25

x-pixie-lottie-x

your list is dodgy ...
sociology aint on it!
and psychology is...

and anyway... its not the subjects that are "soft" changing the subject wouldnt help you need to change peoples attitude and how they view the subject = impossible :smile:

Reply 26

Zinfandel

tikkitak

Oh my days, psychology was so much harder! I completely agree. I had loads more work in psychology than in chemistry or biology!

No I do as well, but because it bores the ******* ******** **** out of me.

Yes that was a lot of foul language, thus is the contempt with which I hold psychology, sociology, criminology, and every other social science.

Reply 27

Marisa_Grace

Tzarchasm

Am I the only person on the planet who is finding psychology harder than chemistry, physics and biology?

Strangely I often find it's the 'soft' subjects which are harder. When I was doing my GCSE's, I found that subjects such as Maths and Latin required little revision in comparison to the time I needed to spend revising for Tech and learning all those damn thermoplastics. :s

Reply 28

holmes221

lets look at what all the respected subjects require, analysis and in essay based subjects - argument. So you would need to make it so its not just a memory quiz and add these AOs.

Reply 29

DMV

Tzarchasm

Am I the only person on the planet who is finding psychology harder than chemistry, physics and biology?

Alot of people in my school did. It as the hardest subjct I took.

Reply 30

Memo100

I failed psychology, its well hard

Reply 31

BeanofJelly

I did psychology at AS level, so I can't comment on A2 (maybe it is radically different).

I did feel of my subjects it was the "soft" one. That's not to say it was always easy. It did require hard work, but the work seemed (to me) to be in endless memorising and being able to write fast - not in actual content or understanding.

Which is such a shame (I think) because there is no need for psychology to be that way. It is a vast topic, with lots of very interesting content to include, and the potential for lots of thought/application/understanding.

But actually doing the AS I was frustrated because the content was so minimal. We were babied through the course taking two weeks or something to try and grasp some idea that was really pretty graspable. It felt almost as though they had got a decent, vigorous science subject and for reasons unknown, dumbed it down so that a lot of kids who weren't really so good at science could take it.

That's not to say that someone who has psychology is stupid, obviously. I mean it was quite interesting, and requires a skill-set different to say chemistry or biology (I can see how someone might be good at these and bad at psychology).. I can see why you might take it for the interest... I dunno this post is gonna sound really snobby and terrible and it's not meant to be.

Maybe it's better that psychology is taught more as an essay subject than as a science, so that people who don't like science so much can take it. I just felt it missed out on the content/understanding that comes with a science, but also on the analytical/writing skills and flair that come with an essay subject. It's good points left over being that it did have some interesting points to learn (but not enough of them and they were often simple kind of ideas).

That's just the impression I got from studying it for a short period of time (only a year) at the particular sixth form I attended with one exam board, so maybe it is entirely different for other people, or maybe it just doesn't suit me. Maybe it's changed entirely or I've forgotten what it was like in the two years since I studied it. Who knows.. I do not intend to insult people who take Psychology, that's just my critique of the subject (at AS level).

EDIT: If I get lots abuse for this I will just delete it.. crawl back into the dark recess from whence I came, and keep my opinions to myself.

EDIT EDIT: Referring to the OP if I was gonna improve psychology.. I would:

-Double the content. It does not take 9 hours of classroom study to learn the basics of attachment, for example (may have just been my exam board or maybe it was just bad organisation/teaching at my sixth form). At uni that kind of stuff takes one lecture.
-Have more difficult content/concepts, expand on them.
-More focus on principles less focus on studies.
-Ask students only to recognise study names, not to recall them (thus reducing the emphasis on endless, boring memorisation)
-Have questions which focused on genuine application/analysis (perhaps using made-up cases?) rather than just the recall of memorised pros and cons for various studies.
-Integrate different modules/topics. As I recall in the exam you only ever had to look at one thing at a time, and real-life psychology is surely not like that at all.

I can't think of anything else :p:

Reply 32

SunOfABeach

Lord_Farquad

Get rid of them all.

The only real subjects are:

Chemistry
Biology
Physics
Maths
Futher Maths
History

edit: I just realised this was an A-Level thread.

MAJOR Fail.

Reply 33

DMV

x-pixie-lottie-x

and politcs isn't.

Reply 34

BumperBo

Lord_Farquad

Get rid of them all.

The only real subjects are:

Chemistry
Biology
Physics
Maths
Futher Maths
History

Chemistry and Biology would be unnecessary/redundant if we had perfected our understanding of Physics. If we know they'll become redundant some day, can we say that they are "true" subjects?

Further Maths? What?

Reply 35

username129099

BumperBo

Our knowledge of physics is pretty much good enough for biology and chemistry purposes. Chemistry is arguable just a specialist branch of physics, and biology as specialist branch of chemistry. Knowing all there is to know is an almost impossible goal, and even so they are still no where near redundant.

Back to the question, the only way to make subjects more respected is to make them more 'pure' which I would say changes the subject. Psychology in a more pure sense, is more scientific and heads towards medicine or biology, which is all just chemistry, which is just the application of physics, which is represented,explained and proved with maths.

Reply 36

geminibubblegum

Lord_Farquad

Get rid of them all.

The only real subjects are:

Chemistry
Biology
Physics
Maths
Futher Maths
History

Classics are pretty damn hard

and sexy too

Reply 37

MJlover

Lord_Farquad

Get rid of them all.

The only real subjects are:

Chemistry
Biology
Physics
Maths
Futher Maths
History

Languages? English Lit? Politics?

Reply 38

llys

Just wondering. :h:

Some people call these subjects 'soft':

Media Studies/Film Studies
Drama & Theatre Studies
English Language
Business Studies
Geography
Psychology
Sport Science
ICT/Computing
DT/Engineering

I don't care if you agree with this list or not - that is not the point. My question is:

What changes to the syllabus of a subject YOU, personally, consider 'soft' would be needed to make YOU 'respect' it?

Constructive comments, please, or I will have to assume you don't actually know what you are talking about.

Why do some people not understand what this post is about? It's not that hard to understand what I'm getting at, is it?

Reply 39

llys

Nahdrav

Possibly less subjective marking across them?

For subjects like ICT/Computing more application of logical thought, more maths based.
For sports science make it more like biology and less "life plans" and other useless coursework.
For business studies make it less than Unit 3 of economics :P

Thank you, and

holmes221

lets look at what all the respected subjects require, analysis and in essay based subjects - argument. So you would need to make it so its not just a memory quiz and add these AOs.

thank you, and

BeanofJelly

EDIT EDIT: Referring to the OP if I was gonna improve psychology.. I would:

-Double the content. It does not take 9 hours of classroom study to learn the basics of attachment, for example (may have just been my exam board or maybe it was just bad organisation/teaching at my sixth form). At uni that kind of stuff takes one lecture.
-Have more difficult content/concepts, expand on them.
-More focus on principles less focus on studies.
-Ask students only to recognise study names, not to recall them (thus reducing the emphasis on endless, boring memorisation)
-Have questions which focused on genuine application/analysis (perhaps using made-up cases?) rather than just the recall of memorised pros and cons for various studies.
-Integrate different modules/topics. As I recall in the exam you only ever had to look at one thing at a time, and real-life psychology is surely not like that at all.

I can't think of anything else