Taking a degree in a 'soft subject' doesn't mean you aren't clever

I'm not sure if you've written what you meant to here.

They probably require less work to get any particular grade than some other subjects. I don't think that's really what's in discussion though. There are serious, thoughtful history students and there are maths students who will scrape through just doing what's needed. Between those subjects there are 'clever' students and less clever ones. That's what the OP was about and that's all I'm claiming.

It's a little cliché but I'd also point out that different degrees require different skills. If you're studying philosophy you'll need to be good at thinking in the abstract. I did a legal philosophy paper during my law degree. A lot of the law students who took it found it really tough, because the content was much more abstract than they were used to.

I am not sure what you think I meant to say, so I cannot really comment.

Than some other subjects. You could say that only the hardest subject is a hard subject if you use such logic. Naturally, some things are not the hardest but are hard subjects. Other people in this thread have regarded law as a hard subject, so accept that as axiomatic. Is law less hard than the hardest, in other words less hard than some other subjects? Yes. Does that mean it is not hard? No. The cheetah is faster than Usain Bolt. Does that mean Usain Bolt isn't fast? No.

Well, yes, Denning said jurisprudence was the only thing he didn't get a first in for it was too abstract, and as you say many law students struggle with the module when they take it or avoid taking it altogether. That implies that philosophy is rather a challenging degree if students with humanities foundation (law students) find it difficult. I think for the purposes of the discussion we're having, philosophy is not a soft subject; I think OP was talking more about golf management and the likes. If they weren't and were including philosophy into the soft category, then they are wrong.

As I said, how hard a particular subject is will depend upon the person studying it. When I started out by saying 'easier than other subjects' I meant purely in terms of volume of content and hours of study.

If you use the words 'hard' or 'easy' to describe a degree and you don't mean in relation to other degrees I think your comment is close to meaningless. Obviously those terms are relative.

I think it kind of implies you lack common sense if you pick something "soft" full knowing you'll struggle to get employment at the end due to it being a low demand field and a field thats overcrowded with other graduates.

I am not saying difficulty isn't relative, just that difficulty is not possessed only by the superlative hardest, as the quality of being fast isn't possessed only by the fastest. Holding history to maths (what many would consider the hardest) is therefore not satisfactory. You have to be able to look at the wide range of academic degrees and then come to a conclusion.

I accept the first paragraph.

What a load of nonsense. There absolutely is a difference, for if one course is taking in bright but average students with ABB and one course is taking in bright and above average students with AAA, the course with AAA is going to set higher academic standards—whether explicitly or implicitly. You probably say that there is no difference in grades amongst different unis as well.

Also if markers on the film studies and history course both reject the same essay and give it a fail grade (for the essay is ****), that does not mean there is a reflection in how each marker would offer grades for higher than fail. That's like saying that under gravitational pull 100 times stronger than the earth's, you and I could not jump. Therefore, where gravitational pull is equal to earth's, we have equal jumping power. No, I could be Stephen Hawking and you could be Usain Bolt. Just because you share a baseline does not mean you share characteristics beyond that.

Well done; we all have read them. If you looked at them in sufficient detail, you'd see that at each stage of further and higher education, they stay pretty much the same. For example, the assessment criteria for my L3 qualification is absolutely identical to the assessment criteria my assignments are held against for my undergraduate degree. By your logic, we would have to assume that because nominally those criteria are the same, the quality of work which meets the same criteria would be the same. Basically, if I were set a piece of work for my L3 and I was set the same work for my LLB, and I receive top marks for the work as assessed by L3 standards then by LLB standards I should receive 80%. Naturally this is not the case. Even at degree level, the criteria as set throughout level of study (1, 2 and 3) stay the same, but obviously a third-year assignment is going to graded much more harshly than a first-year assignment. I think your saying "well, I have looked at the marking schemes and they are the same across history and media studies, so they are equally difficult" is something which superficially appears persuasive, but when you look at it more closely it's a rather weak argument.

The first part of my rebuttal there is conjecture, but I can base it on some experience of seeing an essay produced by know who studies business management at my uni. That person had to produce some coursework for a business law module on their course. Law being my specialty, I had a look over due to natural curiosity and gave some insight into various legal instruments. That piece of work got a 65%. It was measured up against the same criteria I as an LLB student am assessed, and it would not have been awarded a 65% if it were submitted as part of the full LLB programme. That's for obvious reasons: someone who has studied law full-time is expected to work harder for a 65% than a part-time law student, and know more than them about law.

I was implying there was a positive correlation with grades and intelligence of students, and again a positive correlation with intelligence of students and higher grading assessment standards. This comes down to how people as humans assess quality: we compare. What do you prefer, Pepsi or Coke? You make that assessment by having a sip of Pepsi and then having a sip of Coke. With academic assessment where there is a large body of work, an assessor will have essay X and essay Y. Essay X is slightly better than essay Y; essay Y was given a 67% and so essay X was given a higher grade of 73%. Therefore, the quality of work provided by learners directly affects the quality the assessor assigns to the work. If you have smarter students, then essay Y and essay X are going to be an even higher quality. Assessors and module convenors have meetings where this very thing is discussed, "Well, I thought this work is only a third because it's nowhere near as good as all the rest." "Well, Sue, I think you're talking a load of ****e and I run this module, so pipe down. Give me the deference I deserve. I am your superior and for good reason. Know what, Sue, you're sacked. Get the **** out of this room before I make you rue the day you were born." Etc.

The same problem exists in that it creates a situation where because each course in its assessment of work meets at one grade interval, both courses must share grading conventions pervasively. That's not true. Whilst both courses might have 5% of students whose work is ****, that doesn't mean the 95% of work which is good is of a similar standard. For one course 25% of the good work might be exceptional, whereas for the other course only 15% of the good work might be exceptional. This is merely a philosophical point and it's barely worth discussing because, as you say, it was a throwaway comment. I do want to note that it's not a satisfactory basis to form an argument that all courses must have significant amount of difficulty, or a variant thereof which you would say you were espousing.

This comes down to how people as humans assess quality: we compare. What do you prefer, Pepsi or Coke? You make that assessment by having a sip of Pepsi and then having a sip of Coke

this (the Pepsi challenge) is a now-textbook example of a badly designed experiment, one failing to demonstrate what it sets out to.

If you run the Pepsi challenge, Pepsi always wins. Pepsi famously claimed "8 out 10" and when an enraged Coke ran the experiment at its headquarters what they found was that this was conservative.

Because between 8 and 9 people out of 10 prefer a sip of Pepsi to a sip of Coke. But still a majority of people prefer Coke, neither drink being sold as a sip but in a smallest size of 330ml, in which quantity most find Pepsi too sweet.

I think people are making the mistake that everyone wants a high paid job in their field and people are stupid for not going where the money is. I'm hopefully going to be doing a Wildlife Conservation degree. I'm not expecting to get rich, but hopefully I can get a paid job in a field I enjoy.

So, you're comparing an apple (a business law module) to an orange (law). That's like expecting a PhD candidate to come up with original psychology research to support an illustrative point in a biology thesis. Not sure we're comparing the same things here.

Of course, there'll be differences between courses, between academics, between modules, between students, between years and probably within colleges at different universities. There are certainly differences even within modules if you have more than one marker. But on the whole, there's no discernible difference between two subjects at the same level, at the same university, when we use the only available criteria we have to compare them. To say otherwise, and (in the context of this thread) to use perjorative terms about particular subjects, seems to me quite a morally poor route to take as well as an ill-evidenced one. I think if someone wants to say "x is inferior to y", it should be evidenced.

I think it kind of implies you lack common sense if you pick something "soft" full knowing you'll struggle to get employment at the end due to it being a low demand field and a field thats overcrowded with other graduates.

It doesn't lack common sense if you choose to study something you're passionate about. With experience, training and perhaps further study, any degree can lead to a well paid job. Aside from vocational courses, you cannot leave university and expect to walk into a 50k salary job. How are you defining a 'low demand field' ?

According to your logic, nobody should do 'soft' subjects which I assume you define as psychology/English/sociology/criminology/biology/economics etc and instead everyone should opt for stem courses. If that were to happen, wouldn't we have and I quote you.. 'A field that's overcrowded with other graduates?' In addition, as other people have mentioned, you're far more likely to do well in a subject you enjoy. Some people are better suited for subjective and essay based subjects whereas otherwise excel at quantitative and scientific subjects. Both types of people are important. Would you rather a 1st in history or a 2:2 in physics?


I've noticed that it's usually the STEM enthusiasts that constantly demean essay based subjects. Rarely is it the other way round. Why is that?