The whole "study what you love" thing is stupid and unrealistic

as they charge £9k a year for a history degree as well as charging £9k a year for a engineering degree?

Well, I actually think history has useful applications, you acquire a lot of analytical skills. When you look at a degree such as art/art history, witchcraft or photography (not meaning to offend anyone), you'll find that a lot of equipment is expensive. Granted engineering equipment is going to cost more but in the long run more people get the use out of it. For example, equipment to learn how to design planes... there are a lot of people using planes either for travel or for transport. Or take engine design, everyone is dependent on engines, if there weren't any engines we would not have the luxery of an easy life. Now take art, that is mostly for the individuals who enjoy art and come together as a group. So take the educational equipment needed for engineering and divide it by the millions who will use it directly or indirectly and find the price per user, do the same with art.... art becomes more expensive. Maybe a few people here will not take a tuition fee loan or grant, but the majority will be using tax payers money for a degree which may or may not be paid back later.

I never said history doesn't have useful applications, my point is that it costs a university less to teach a history degree than an engineering degree, but they charge the same.

In my view people, who don't study what they want to, give their dreams up and the freedom to decide their livelihood. If it is possible to study what you want, do it! what is a well paid job, if you don' like it, if you do it without a passion? you are working a lifetime to earn money, but without enthusiasm. That's why I would advice everyone to begin a study which make fun, which make fun in later working life. The life is too short to give up the dreams and interests.

Call me a dreamer or utopian, but in my opinion we need people with inspirations in a rational thinking world in which people are just exist to earn money as much as possible.

But you don't need a degree to have rational thinking or to follow your dreams, unless your dream is to spend three/four years studying something you could read about in your own time

Whenever anyone asks for advice on what degree to choose, whether online or from careers departments etc, the typical advice given now is "study the subject you find interesting" as if that's the only important thing.

Now whilst it's true that studying something you actively dislike would be a bad move, I think this whole line of thinking (which seems to be quite recent) is giving people seriously unrealistic expectations of university and the benefits that come from it, and to be honest, is massively misleading students

Firstly, university exists to increase your employment prospects, I don't know why so many people dispute that. I find many subjects interesting, and love reading about them, watching debates about them, etc. But I'm not going to dish out £9000 a year plus living costs to study something "cause its interesting" when there is a massive amount of information you can learn by yourself, through the internet, books etc. The reason people go to university is to be able to "officially" say that they have studied a certain subject, ie. get a recognised degree, and the only possible motive for that would be to improve their position in the eyes of an employer, not to "learn interesting things".

Secondly, a lot of people who decide to just "study what they like" and subsequently choose degrees with little employment prospects eventually find that the job they end up in (if they even get a job) won't have anything to do with their degree anyway. So many people who studied easy, soft subjects at university and now are working in bars or retail or something or perhaps can't even find work at all. So it's not like this "subject they love" is even a part of their career

Finally, I think its fair to say that most average students don't really have huge amounts of passion for a particular subject. Every student hates exams, dislikes doing long sessions of work and would probably rather be doing 100 things over sitting at a desk revising or writing essays. So with all this in mind, would it not make so much more sense to advise prospective university students to make employment prospects the number 1 priority when it comes to choosing a degree?

I think anyone who thinks you can give yourself an education similar in progression and detail to that which you may learn on a degree has a very strange way of learning.


Posted from TSR Mobile

Why not? Apart from a vocational course like Medicine or something where you obviously need actual experience working in hospitals and with patients, for the majority of subjects you simply learn from textbooks or lecture slides (where the content would be found in any major textbook anyway). You really think you couldn't teach yourself pretty much all the ins and outs of a subject if you wanted to?

I don't, no. It isn't just about 'what you learn'. It's about how you learn it. It's about the formulation of understanding and an appreciation of why you understand something in that way and what things affect your perception.

Good luck learning that on your own.


Posted from TSR Mobile

Um yeah, you can learn all of that on your own, if you were interested enough.

Finally, I think its fair to say that most average students don't really have huge amounts of passion for a particular subject. Every student hates exams, dislikes doing long sessions of work and would probably rather be doing 100 things over sitting at a desk revising or writing essays.

Whenever anyone asks for advice on what degree to choose, whether online or from careers departments etc, the typical advice given now is "study the subject you find interesting" as if that's the only important thing.

Now whilst it's true that studying something you actively dislike would be a bad move, I think this whole line of thinking (which seems to be quite recent) is giving people seriously unrealistic expectations of university and the benefits that come from it, and to be honest, is massively misleading students

Firstly, university exists to increase your employment prospects, I don't know why so many people dispute that. I find many subjects interesting, and love reading about them, watching debates about them, etc. But I'm not going to dish out £9000 a year plus living costs to study something "cause its interesting" when there is a massive amount of information you can learn by yourself, through the internet, books etc. The reason people go to university is to be able to "officially" say that they have studied a certain subject, ie. get a recognised degree, and the only possible motive for that would be to improve their position in the eyes of an employer, not to "learn interesting things".

Secondly, a lot of people who decide to just "study what they like" and subsequently choose degrees with little employment prospects eventually find that the job they end up in (if they even get a job) won't have anything to do with their degree anyway. So many people who studied easy, soft subjects at university and now are working in bars or retail or something or perhaps can't even find work at all. So it's not like this "subject they love" is even a part of their career

Finally, I think its fair to say that most average students don't really have huge amounts of passion for a particular subject. Every student hates exams, dislikes doing long sessions of work and would probably rather be doing 100 things over sitting at a desk revising or writing essays. So with all this in mind, would it not make so much more sense to advise prospective university students to make employment prospects the number 1 priority when it comes to choosing a degree?