Which degrees are most useful? Is this article true?

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-most-usefull-graduate-degrees-2013-10#1-biology-10

10th place: Philsophy and relious studies
1st place: Biology

Wtf???
I'm not saying the education is poor or that philsophy graduates are jobless, but there is simply nothing from a philosophy degree that's demanded by any employer anywhere. Most philosophy students will probably agree they're

Original post by grey12

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-most-usefull-graduate-degrees-2013-10#1-biology-10

10th place: Philsophy and relious studies
1st place: Biology

Wtf???
I'm not saying the education is poor or that philsophy graduates are jobless, but there is simply nothing from a philosophy degree that's demanded by any employer anywhere.

No, you simply do not understand what a degree is about and what skills most employers are looking for.

When you are educated at school, by and large they are simply cramming you with facts, you are being taught specific facts, be that where to put an apostrophe or how to use Pythagoras' theorem. As you advance from GCSEs to A levels there is a small change, a little more self-study and a little more about thinking and applying knowledge between subjects. But School is mainly about being crammed with the basic facts to function in life.

That changes considerably at University - higher education. There are still some traditional fact based subjects, medicine, veterinary science, maths etc where you are simply learning facts and get tested on the regurgitation of those facts. But there is also, even in those subject (plus law, economics etc) a wider area of more conceptual thinking required. In the Arts and Humanities this is even more pronounced such that the subject is just the medium through which higher level thinking skills are learnt and practiced.

What you are getting from these A&H degrees are skills such as being able to absorb large amounts of information and draw out specific facts and ideas. To create a coherent, compelling argument. To think clearly and logically. To manage your own time without a school type syllabus. To research. To compare and contrast, not just facts but paradigms, perceptions, schools of thought etc. You get practice doing this to a much higher level than engineers, medics etc, the fact-crammers do.

That's why contact hours in these subjects are 'so low', because they aren't a matter of just being crammed with facts and equations. They are about being given a few ideas and examples, and then going away and practicing the more diverse application of those ideas through wider reading, essays etc.

You can choose to learn those skills through the medium of History of Art and depth perception in Giotto, or History and the practices of Cromwell's Army, or English and the work of the romance poets, or Philosophy and the works of Hume. Employers don't care because they want the conceptual skills. This is what employers are buying from graduates with Arts and Humanities degrees. Any employer who doesn't need employees to join with a specific qualification and set of learned facts (such as medicine of law require) will employ anyone who has demonstrated the intellectual capacity for higher level thinking. The subject the graduate practiced those techniques in doesn't matter at all, because the company teaches the job specific facts. What the employer is buying is the skill set, they are going to change the fact base into publishing, cake making, farming, business, consultancy, HR, accounting, PR, retail, marketing, whatever they want from inside the business.

If you can't understand the benefit of studying Arts and Humanities subjects then you really should question whether you have the intellect to participate in higher education at all because you clearly don't get what it is all about.

Reply 2

cambio wechsel

20

Neither the OP nor the person responding first has understood the article and the survey it reports on.

No-one is suggesting that these are in some important sense the skills employers do or don't want. They or may not be. The survey examines a very narrow question - in which fields does having a graduate degree in the same field bear most heavily on salary and employment prospects?

Edit: this can most obviously be understood in the context of the degrees in Special Needs Education.

Consider, Jenny and Simon both get BAs in this. Jenny then tops up with a postgraduate qualification which is likely a qualifying degree, either in teaching or counselling. Simon now has a BA in a subject with precious few carry-over skills and is of no use in an industry with strict gatekeeping. But Jenny has a career.

Compare then with Megan and Ben, who graduate together with the BSc in Finance. Megan stays for a masters while Ben goes straight into a bank. Here Megan's further qualification might confer negligible advantages in hiring and indeed Ben's year of experience might be preferred.

(edited 10 years ago)

The survey is American. But why wouldn't it be correct though?

Reply 4

grey12

OP

Original post by threeportdrift

If you can't understand the benefit of studying Arts and Humanities subjects then you really should question whether you have the intellect to participate in higher education at all because you clearly don't get what it is all about.

Lol, arts and humanities are completely USELESS. Most of them don't even get a job related to their degree :lol:

Reply 5

Davelittle

13

Arts/Humanities subjects have worse graduate employment rates compared to science/maths/engineering courses from the same unis (just look at unistats)..... It's just a well known fact that having great numerical skills beats essay writing in almost every aspect of business (that's what employers tell us at school anyway) :smile:

Reply 6

Doc.Daneeka

12

Original post by grey12

Lol, arts and humanities are completely USELESS. Most of them don't even get a job related to their degree :lol:

A job related to my degree (philosophy) would most obviously be as a lecturer. To become a lecturer you need to do a masters and then a PhD; do you realise how improbable it is to get funding for that in the humanities? It's very improbable. Why? Because there are relatively few positions for these sorts of lecturer and even less funding for PhD students.

So, unless you want me to sponge off of the government then yes, I will be moving into another area. Besides, it is not only humanities graduates that do this- everyone does.

Reply 7

Robbie242

where is mathematics

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Reply 8

Blob2491

12

Go Biology! :biggrin:

Reply 9

2007PSanHa

19

Yay! I have biology as a first choice! If not environmental science or ecology!

Reply 10

cambio wechsel

20

Original post by Blob2491

Go Biology! :biggrin:

Original post by 2007PSanHa

Yay! I have biology as a first choice! If not environmental science or ecology!

why would you be pleased at this? Does no-one understand the report?

A lot of people aren't reading the survey correctly or are not understanding it properly. It measures the premium in terms of salary and employment that a masters degree gives over a bachelors degree in the same area. If anything it could be that mere bachelors degrees in these areas aren't much use and that postgraduate study is required for a career. That doesn't sound something particularly good to me. I'd rather have my degree listed in the most useless list list if it means that my bachelors degree has the same prospects and salary as the masters degree...

Reply 12

grey12

OP

Original post by Smack

A lot of people aren't reading the survey correctly or are not understanding it properly. It measures the premium in terms of salary and employment that a masters degree gives over a bachelors degree in the same area. If anything it could be that mere bachelors degrees in these areas aren't much use and that postgraduate study is required for a career. That doesn't sound something particularly good to me. I'd rather have my degree listed in the most useless list list if it means that my bachelors degree has the same prospects and salary as the masters degree...

Wouldn't the masters also be useless then? trolololololololol

Which degrees are most useful? Is this article true?

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