SPS or PPE

I'm sure that a similar thread has been written before, because I'm assuming its a pretty common topic amongst humanities-inclined AS students (such as myself). anyway, to make things clearer, here's a comprehensive summary of my personal pros and cons:

pros of sps and cons of ppe:
- this course is fascinating and i think the three subjects complement eachother better than the PPE course
- its in cambridge, and although i've never been to oxford, and cannot therefore make a valid comparison, from what i've heard, oxford is more urban than cam, which would put me off slightly. besides, cambridge seems like the perfect studious environment (apart from the not walking on the grass thing.. thats just bizarre)
- its more based on 'people' studies- (i have no more articulate way of describing it)- how people's minds work (psy), how they interact/behave with others (socio) and the relationship between the individual and the state (pol). whereas PPE seems to be less of an analysis of the individual and more about the collective society, which puts me off somewhat.

cons of sps and pros of ppe :
- its not as academically-renown as PPE (although i dont really care about that, just like to put the point up for discussion)
- i'd love do to philosophy and am extremely interested in political philosophy, although its the economics which deters me.

thats about it i think!

ps- i know the process of grouping pros and cons of the two subjects is defective, as you can have a pro of sps, which isnt necessarily a con of ppe- so i'd rather not have any pedantics criticising the self-professed flaw in my system :smile:

just tried to make the whole thing as clear as possible :yy:

Reply 1

tenjon

8

Liking the course is what is important, so I would advise for you to go for SPS. Although it might be less 'renowned' than PPE, in reality they are not really comparable, and it is still a Cambridge degree.

I would have thought you would, at some point, be able to do a bit of political philosophy as part of the politics branch of the Camb course?

Reply 2

Rembrandt

Are you sure you can't do political philosophy in the SPS course? I know a few first years who have been writing essays on Hobbes and Marx.

Reply 3

CamSPSer

I think the comment about political philosophy was aimed at PPE?

Anyway, I can't really talk for PPE or compare them or anything. But what I particularly like about the course is the high level of synopticity - questions on the role of the state for instance are covered in politics anthropology and sociology but all from very different directions and via a number of thinkers. For instance you do Marx in all three disciplines and look at his impact and how the different departments think about Marx.

2nd, next year although you specalise in one (you can do pretty much nothing but political philosophy btw and the first year in the first term is pretty much just philosophy in all three of the disciplines) there are a number of synoptic modules. For instance you can end up getting supervised with and going to lectures with geographers, anthropoligists, historians, economists, oriental studies, NatScis. This exposes you to a huge range of different ways of thinking and exposes you to awhole host of other ideas. I don't know if you get that in PPE.

Within parts of the course there are bits of economics without it being too mathsish and there is plenty of philosophy which personally I find more enjoyable than I would find 'purer' philosophy. But if you are looking for more statistical stuff I would go for PPE.

On the debate over which is more prestigious - SPS is fairly new (about 30 years old) I don't think its all that long before you hear of good people becoming top civil servants and cabinet ministers from SPS as well as the more common PPE/Law/History degrees. The degree is highly respected in political parties and thinktanks for a start. Don't worry about the prestige factor too much.

I think thats all I've got to say really but am happy to answer any questions you have on the course at cambridge

Reply 4

Queen_A

10

Personally, I found it difficult to choose between PPE and SPS, mainly because I wasn't sure about the maths, and my teacher really wanted me to do SPS (and I loved Cam).
Have you sat in an lectures? I sat in on an SPS social anthropology lecture, and realised that although it was interesting, it wasn't what I wanted to be learning about for three years.
Obviously, I don't do PPE at Ox, but I feel I must defend it somewhat. I would dispute the claim that the subjects in SPS complement one another more than PPE -Phil is the foundations from which the other two subjects stem, and Economic and Political issues have become inexticably linked in today's world. You can't have a full picture of the EU without understanding the Economic and Political impact of such an IGO!
PPE has the rep (Ox's 'flagship course', arguably) and the subjects covered are more easily converted into jobs, IMO. I considered that future employers would see SPS as the easier option - statistically easier to get into (I know, facetious arguments), and not as academically rigorous.
These are the reasons why I chose PPE (but to be honest, it just boiled down to interest in phil and econ, and a hatred of psychology and social anthropology).
(and you can't walk on the grass at almost all Ox colleges!)

Reply 5

**noooni**

3

It all depends on what you are interested in really. I looked at both courses before applying and the main advantage that SPS had for me was its flexible nature. It should be easy to decide between these courses as they have some very different module, for example psych/economics-
I also liked that the SPS course had a little of philosophy and i little of economics, as well as (what i found more appealing) the social anthropology, sociology and psychology. And because I have no idea about what career I want and all i knew was that i was interested in the social sciences, and because SPS is so broad it can cater to a broad range of careers, ones that in my opinion are more 'people' related, whereas PPE seemed more business like. This is just my opinion and the feelings I got from both courses- best thing to do is to go to the website and look at the course structure and see what you prefer studying.
ps- the tripose system at Cambridge will probably allow you broaden your degree even more if you like to take modules from oher subjects- although i dont know how it works :redface:

Reply 6

**noooni**

3

Oh, one last thing :biggrin:

My whole Personal Statement was based on political philosophy and most of the questions at my interview were on it to because they saw that i was interested in it. So it must play a significant part in the SPS course structure

Reply 7

sjuthani

6

They are very different courses, linked by the politics bits, and though they can be tailored to nearly the same thing, the possibilities for the degrees to be totally incomparable exists.

I think some people are missing the point of the economics part of PPE. As Queen_A mentioned before, you can't study the EU without appreciating its economic aspects. In the same way, I don't think you can study any country or institution without appreciating it. Economics allows you to see tangible effects on people's lives of decisions made, in a way that I don't think psychology or whatever does.

Maybe I'm biased, but I don't see how SPS compares to PPE in terms of studying politics in its entirety.

Reply 8

kizer

15

Sociology is recognised as a specialisation within the PPE course, so you can get into it in the second and third years.

But your first year will be 1/3 economics, 1/3 politics (which as I understand it is analysing the democratic ideal) and 1/3 philosophy, which for first years is logic, and morality or something like that.

http://www.admissions.ox.ac.uk/courses/ppec.shtml

Doesn't really sound like your kind of thing - go with SPS if you are interested in sociology and anthropology.

SPS all the way

-x- Lici

SPS all the way

www.sps.cam.ac.uk
Just look at the course structure and first year topics... it speaks for itself :p:

Reply 11

Manellowzworth

1

Whilst similar, the courses are not equivalent so dont base your decision on that assumption. Figure out which one you like more, prestige etc. doesnt matter, its oxbridge!! From what I hear though if you make it through the first year of PPE, you can cut out the economics basically.

Reply 12

Manellowzworth

1

Also, SPS and PPE are basically funny oxbridge courses. There are some equivalents at some places, but have you thought about your other uni choices as well, and what equivalents exist?

Reply 13

**noooni**

3

Manellowzworth

Also, SPS and PPE are basically funny oxbridge courses. There are some equivalents at some places, but have you thought about your other uni choices as well, and what equivalents exist?

While there are PPE courses at other universities - SPS is pretty unique, i think the closest thing is combined social sciences at Durham..Or you can do Politics and Sociology-- but that leaves out the psych. So yea make sure you think about your choices for other universities as well.

Reply 14

CamSPSer

Most people who apply for PPE apply for PPE elsewhere - Durham, Manchester, York etc or often two of the three constituent courses (Pol/Phil for instance)
SPS you have combined social sciences at durham and SPS in a european context at UCL. Most people I know applied for Politics elsewhere. I appled for Politics and Sociology. The majority of people certainly come expecting to do politics in their second year (i did) but a lot do take the other courses

Reply 15

CamSPSer

The other thing to note is that they don't expect you to be equally interested in all 4 areas of SPS

Reply 16

**noooni**

3

Queen_A

Have you sat in an lectures? I sat in on an SPS social anthropology lecture, and realised that although it was interesting, it wasn't what I wanted to be learning about for three years.
!)

I sat in a social anthropology lecture duirng the shadowing scheme last year and i thought it was really interesting and the hour seriosly seemed like 10 minutes it when so fast, however social anthropology is only taken in the first year, so you wouldnt have three years of it anyway.

Reply 17

kizer

15

Manellowzworth

Whilst similar, the courses are not equivalent so dont base your decision on that assumption. Figure out which one you like more, prestige etc. doesnt matter, its oxbridge!! From what I hear though if you make it through the first year of PPE, you can cut out the economics basically.

You can cut out any of the three disciplines after one year, making you 'bi-partite' - and most people do.

Reply 18

naelse

15

**noooni**

I sat in a social anthropology lecture duirng the shadowing scheme last year and i thought it was really interesting and the hour seriosly seemed like 10 minutes it when so fast, however social anthropology is only taken in the first year, so you wouldnt have three years of it anyway.

I was just about to make that point... You can choose to do social anthropology for Part 2 but that technically involves switching tripos. A few SPSers do it every year, just like Archeology and Anthropologists have the option of switching onto SPS in order to do sociology.

I don't really think PPE and SPS are particularly comparable.

Reply 19

Manellowzworth

1

If you hate the economics which is what put me off PPE perhaps you could look at Modern History and Politics (assuming you enjoy history its a nice combo)

SPS or PPE

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