Arts and humanities vs STEM degree courses(poll)...

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Reply 60

grassntai

You are a fool if you pick a pure maths degree over engineering, accountancy or economics.

Reply 61

Noble.

Original post by James222

financial mathematics is a subset of economics.
A pure mathematician doesnt have the skills or knowledge that an economist has, to either identify trends or know what raw data to input. Its people with backgrounds in economics who hire maths grad to do sums, not the other way round.

mathematics is a silly degree unless you want to be a teacher it doesnt train you for anything and you end up having to spend 3 years studying accounting to become an accountant or something.

The reason banks hire pure mathematicians, despite them not having the knowledge an economist has, is because anyone who can do commutative algebra or representation theory can learn about what an economist does, in their sleep.

Interestingly, out of the ~15 mathematicians I know at my university only one is going into teaching or accounting, and it's out of choice.

Reply 62

Xenorebrem

Original post by James222

Absolutely as a degree, it equips you with the skills you need. A Econ degree is more useful than a engineering degree.

LOL over the summer, I know people that can do complex calculations but struggle to understand basic economic concepts . If engineers want to go anywhere in life they need to learn economics if they want to go into upper management, economics grads dont need to.

CEOs of Engineering companies are mainly econ grads, few have started as engineers and moved up.

hmmm your logic would suggest the best degree is farming, how are we all eating, if it was not for the farmers of wales its a rather stupid logic to follow.

You need a degree in maths to know basic percentages and variances. You dont use complex algebra and linear mathematics ie stuff maths degree is full for a job in economics.
you can hire someone to develop better tools but that doesnt mean they are better, they are being employed by you not the other way around

Most Mathematicians don't do economics as they feel that would be a waste of their intelligence.

If you don't believe me, look here: http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/occupations.aspx

And just in case you haven't figured it out yet, Economics is classed under "Social Science" whereas Maths is classed under "Natural Science".

Reply 63

James222

Original post by Noble.

I dont know why your laughing...a maths grad who goes into banking is not really doing any maths and has waste 3 years studying a subject. People who do pure maths generally dont have the mindset and instincts necessary for a the world of finance. Maths grads who learn economics , that still means its Economists the world needs not maths grads, even maths grads have to learn economics.

Spoken like someone who is truly ignorant, learn what a economist does in their sleep ? people do PHDs in economics wow, you really are stupid.

your 15 friends are not a representative sample.

Reply 64

DylanJ96

Original post by The Right

...which is more important to society?

Are the Arts and humanities as useful as STEM or are they pointless Micky mouse degrees?

This poll is entirely dependent on how one defines "useful" and "beneficial" so, I would imagine, it would be hard to draw any justifiable conclusion.

Both are beneficial and useful in different ways which aren't really comparable.

Reply 65

Jammy Duel

Original post by James222

hmmm your logic would suggest the best degree is farming, how are we all eating, if it was not for the farmers of wales its a rather stupid logic to follow.

You need a degree in maths to know basic percentages and variances. You dont use complex algebra and linear mathematics ie stuff maths degree is full for a job in economics.
you can hire someone to develop better tools but that doesnt mean they are better, they are being employed by you not the other way around

Last I checked you could teach an idiot with 2 brain cells how to be a farmer, and I wonder how quickly development would stagnate if there was a sudden lack of maths graduates ? I wonder just how far out of the cave we would have made it out of the cave without mathematical thinkers? How complex would economics be without mathematics? How would you go about your analysis without mathematics? How would you have the economists in the first place without mathematics?
You're claiming the only thing that really matter is economics, but you wouldn't have the economics without mathematics, and the economists if they somehow did exist would have nothing to play with without mathematics.

Reply 66

Noble.

Original post by James222

You do realise employers value a maths degree not because they can explain the idea behind Jordan-Holder's theorem, but because spending 3-4 years studying rigorous mathematics tends to result in a person with a highly quantitative, analytic and logical mindset (which is precisely the kind of mindset they look for in banking, management consultancy, law etc.). Someone has only wasted 3+ years if they base their opinion of 'worthiness' on whether you use the same material post-graduation - which is a pretty odd metric for determining how well spent the years of your degree were.

The point is, if banks are hiring maths graduates over those who did economics or finance (which, often, they are) because they know the maths graduate can just learn what they need to know on the job - I think that says more for the worthlessness of an economics/finance degree than anything else.

People do PhDs in economics? People also do PhDs in Sports Science and Social Work - what's your point?

Reply 67

Xenorebrem

Original post by James222

If it comes down to what the world needs, its really quite simple.

Can the modern, "most useful" , form of Economics today exist without Mathematics ?

Can the Mathematics today exist without Economics ?

So which one does the world really need ?

I think the answer is obvious.

Reply 68

Jammy Duel

Original post by James222

Tell me, how many people do you know that did a maths degree to go on to use the maths? For the most part it's just those that go into research which is a small minority. Most people who do maths do it to prove their intelligence and prove their logical problem solving abilities, and abilities to use complex functions (being used much more generally than just actual functions) to accurately take inputs and render correct outputs. You don't seem to have much support for your position. And you bring up PhDs, but tell me, how much of that will the maths grad actually need? Oh yeah, none of it :smile:

(or at least not straight away). The existence of PhDs does not automatically define the PhD as hard or complex, the content of the PhD defines that because you could create a hypothetical subject with a hypothetical PhD that is arbitrarily easy. Since the difficulty of the PhD is arbitrary you could make it easy enough a 5 year old could understand it, but your logic would dictate that the subject is hard and complex because there is a PhD, so there is some clear logical contradiction here.

Reply 69

The Right

Original post by DylanJ96

No doubt both are beneficial and useful. I was more thinking if we were to proportionate it. Would we say 50/50, 30/70, 55/45...and so on

Reply 70

Wiggledinho

Original post by Noble.

this this this this

Reply 71

colourtheory

Original post by The Right

...which is more important to society?

Are the Arts and humanities as useful as STEM or are they pointless Micky mouse degrees?

I have an issue with the way you phrased the question of the poll. The words "useful" and "beneficial to society" almost force people to vote in favour of STEM. What this doesn't account for is the personal satisfaction and intellectual curiosity that come from studying arts subjects. The benefits are not as immediate as say a finance graduate working in IB. Instead the arts promotes social cohesion and host of skills which translate to almost all aspects of life. Without the arts we would live in a world without culture, a place which neglects a sense of shared humanity. I find STEM students to be somewhat sterile and arrogant in their perception of the arts. As if anything that isn't numerically based is a waste of time, just because it isn't as tangible as numbers or equations on a page.

Oh and btw, arts subjects produce highly employable graduates who work in a number of sections, each worth many Billions (take fashion alone, worth £5 billion+). This in itself means that the arts has a place within our society, if we are being as crude as to focus upon money.