ATAR Notes: Forum
Uni Stuff => Faculties => Arts => Topic started by: EEEEEEP on December 14, 2014, 09:36:21 am
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I commonly hear that people say:
- Arts = job
- You learn nothing in arts
- No hard or transferable skills are learnt in arts
- Arts is useless
- Don't pick arts unless you will be a teacher
That brings me to two questions:
1. Are the above sentiments true?
2. Is it worth picking up arts as a part of a second degree? Should I do arts as a single degree?
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Obviously at Melbourne University with the 'Melbourne Model' - Arts is just a gateway degree into a post-graduate (for those interested in doing it).
An Arts degree by itself may have varying degrees of functionality. If you majored in archaeology or even gender studies (no hate! gender studies rocks!) in some instances, and don't pursue higher qualifications - the ability to use that degree to get a job over people who didn't go to University at all - is marginal.
People will tell you it is impressive to say you have gone to University regardless of what degree you choose. To some extent, that's true - but it might be more worth doing an apprenticeship over Arts or doing a diploma in an actual tangible skill.
That being said, your major is incredibly important! My friend is currently doing Arts at Melbourne - he's doing a double-major in economics and French as well as a minor in Russian and a diploma of languages in Mandarin. He wants to work as a diplomat and will do J.D. afterwards
Just try to extract some tangible skills (like speaking a foreign language) from your degree, if you're concerned about employability. If not - have fun! You have the next 60/70/80 years of your life to be old and worry about what everyone else thinks of how 'useful to society' you are.
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Honestly, I think the main reason people make fun of arts is basically because they find it funny. Of course, another reason might just be that there's an obvious place for people in most other degrees than someone who has an arts degree.
You have an engineering degree? Go be an engineer.
You have a law degree? Go be a lawyer.
You have a science degree? Go be a scientist.
You have a commerce degree? Go tell people what to do with their money.
You have an arts degree? Well... Good for you, kiddo.
But here's the thing - quite a few majors (languages, psychology, for example) in an arts degree can lead to accreditation, so it can't be a "useless" degree, now can it? And even if you don't take one of those accredited majors (say, philosophy), your arts degree could be a stepping stone to a masters or honours degree - which will put you onto the path of a doctorate degree. (not to imply that non-accredited majors are useless - there are quite a few which can definitely still lead to employment! I just don't have a handbook in front of me to find one, and can't think of one of the top of my head, hahah)
In fact, to be a scientist or a lawyer**, you HAVE* to have your doctorate degree, so really the two degrees are about as "useless" by themselves as arts is.
The big thing is, don't let what other people think decide what you're going to do for you. If you want to do an arts degree by itself, go ahead. Often, just having the degree can show that you have commitment and various skills that an employer may find useful anyway, so it won't be a waste.
*=could be wrong on the lawyer, but last I heard the JD was required. Also, scientist you may get by with just honours, but you'll be doing a lot of lacky work at first
**=as corrected by nina below, you DON'T need a JD to be a lawyer - you can become one with a bachelor of laws. However, you DO need at least honours to become a scientific researcher.
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my general perspective is that it's oversaturated so if you're doing it for a job it won't be easy like if you're not doing loads of extra-curricular stuff and you're not learning another language and getting good grades you're probably in trouble (from what I've heard). So I think the arts students who think that just getting an arts degree alone will land them the job they want is naive and it's that naivety that people are mocking.
As for students who aren't doing it for the job and just want to learn e.g. philosophy. The issue there is that there's nothing in undergrad arts that you can't learn on the internet so paying thousands of dollars for something you can get for free online seems silly to me. You get the university experience of course but I think the cost is just too high and that uni should be used primarily as an investment for the future.
There are also lots of people who don't like the idea of paying taxes for students in CSPs to get degrees which don't translate well into economic value (in comparison to STEM). Pairing this with the fact that arts students are usually quite left-wing and want more money in education and stuff, it makes people think 'you just want us to waste tax money subsidising your worthless studies'.
Lastly there is the idea that the arts is largely a circular, insular field. E.g. people might think that gender studies is a brewing pot for radical ideas with weak empirical support, and that it's just a field where the only job you can land as a result is teaching the content to other people. So in that sense people think it's a sham where students are being churned out with radical beliefs which haven't been challenged within the unis, purely because if those beliefs were allowed to be challenged, the structure would collapse and all those gender studies professors would lose their jobs.
As I said it's my personal opinion that you should only pay for an arts degree if you are willing to go and actively ensure you'll land a job when you graduate (which requires a whole lot more than good grades). I'm undecided about the prejudice against the content within arts but I still believe strongly in uni being a place to invest for your career
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People who diss arts degrees are generally idiots who think sciences are the only things worth studying. They're often highly one-dimensional characters who are too emotionally stunted to realise that an effective society is built upon both scientific and artistic foundations. Don't listen to people like that - they're not worth your time and would probably fail out of an arts degree because they can't think outside of their little STEM box :)
Whether you should do an arts degree depends on what you're looking to get out of university. What are your career aspirations?
Re your questions:
1. There are tons of career pathways stemming from an arts degree.
2. There is a great wealth of information to be gained from an arts degree, just as there is from any degree. There are also a wide variety of skills that you can gain from an arts degree. I learned things from my arts degree that I would not have learned from my law degree, and vice versa.
I can't be more specific until you let us know what areas you're interested in specifically, because there are so many different areas of study offered in arts. Here are the topics that you could study in the Monash arts degree: http://www.monash.edu.au/pubs/handbooks/aos/index-byfaculty-arts.html
3. See above
4. See above
5. There are far more options than just becoming a teacher. Also, to be a teacher you need to do a Masters of Teaching anyway, it doesn't matter what you studied for your undergrad.
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*=could be wrong on the lawyer, but last I heard the JD was required. Also, scientist you may get by with just honours, but you'll be doing a lot of lacky work at first
off-topic but i don't want future law students freak out so i have to correct this - to be admitted as a lawyer you only need a law degree (the LLB is fine, you do not have to do the JD) + the graduate diploma of legal practice/practical legal training (no, the studying doesn't end when you graduate!)
the JD is just the postgrad version of the LLB for people who already have a prior degree, much like the MD is the postgrad version of MBBS. the content is largely the same.
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off-topic but i don't want future law students freak out so i have to correct this - to be admitted as a lawyer you only need a law degree (the LLB is fine, you do not have to do the JD) + the graduate diploma of legal practice/practical legal training (no, the studying doesn't end when you graduate!)
the JD is just the postgrad version of the LLB for people who already have a prior degree, much like the MD is the postgrad version of MBBS. the content is largely the same.
Oh fruit cake... I should talk less about things I don't fully understand. :x
Thanks for the correction, nina! Will update my post.
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As for students who aren't doing it for the job and just want to learn e.g. philosophy. The issue there is that there's nothing in undergrad arts that you can't learn on the internet so paying thousands of dollars for something you can get for free online seems silly to me. You get the university experience of course but I think the cost is just too high and that uni should be used primarily as an investment for the future.
I don't mean to sound confrontational here, but I genuinely don't understand why you've singled out arts degrees in this point. Firstly, I'm sure we can all agree that there is an absurd amount of information on the internet, in all kinds of fields including arts, sciences, economics, politics, medicine, law, architecture, engineering etc. I would honestly not be surprised if in the next 10-20 years, public online courses grow substantially. It is certainly possible to find undergraduate and even postgraduate lecture notes on the internet from various universities.
I've just finished my science degree, and being the silly perennial first-year that I am, I bought textbooks for most of my subjects that I didn't end up making too much use of. But I genuinely believe that had I read and understood the content of these textbooks from front to back, I would have a knowledge base greater than that attained from attending lectures at university. From these points, I honestly think that most of the theory/information found in a degree CAN be found online or in textbooks.
Is it harder to learn material by yourself, without a leader in the field to guide you? Of course it is.
Can learning of theory be an acceptable substitute for lack of practical experience, such as running an experiment yourself, writing code, conversing with a native speaker of a language, cutting open a cadaver or speaking in front of actual lawyers? Of course not.
Is access to peer-reviewed literature important in allowing synthesis and generation of ideas? You bet!
The point of my previous paragraph is to show some of the benefits one gets by going to a university. In my opinion, these benefits apply as much to Arts students as students of other degrees.
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Regarding the original criticisms of Arts degrees mentioned by the original poster (nerd1), I would like to offer the following:
1. Some degrees are more vocationally-oriented than others. That is to say, some degrees are designed to get you accredited and registered (or certainly take the first few steps in doing so) for a job. Usually in these conversations, a Bachelor of Arts (as well as a Bachelor of Science, and indeed, a Bachelor of Biomedicine) falls under the 'less-vocationally oriented' courses.
This does NOT mean that there aren't jobs for people who do take these courses. Firstly, there are jobs for people whose highest educational qualification is Year 12. Doing a university degree does not automatically exclude you from these. Secondly, there is the 'general job market', for all kinds of university graduates. Yes, you'll have to compete with lots of people, but jobs exist here too. These might not be the kinds of jobs people think of at first, but I feel it is important to mention these as they exist, and having a degree can be beneficial (or necessary) to get into them.
Now, for other jobs (perhaps those more closely related to what you studied at university), there may be further study/training/competition required in order to enter these jobs. I honestly do not know much as I did not do an Arts degree, but I imagine academia in arts requires further study. In that sense, a BA on its own might not get you a job straight up. My personal view on this is that it's important to be aware of this before you start your degree. If you really know the risks involved, but still decide to go for something that you have a true passion in, I don't think anyone can fault you for that.
2. Regarding the other criticisms about arts degrees, I certainly do not think that "you learn nothing in arts" or "no hard or transferable skills are learnt in arts". Surviving university is not easy for everyone - consider the number of people who drop out, fail, suffer hardships, or take longer in their degree for whatever reason. Despite how cheesy it sounds, having a certificate showing that you qualified for a degree DOES mean that you have some measure of resilience, independence, original thought and synthesis, teamwork, work ethic, communication/presentation skills and an ability to apply what you have learnt. I certainly think arts degrees show this much in terms of transferable skills (and I'm sure there are more that I have not listed).
I would also like to raise a point that I know has been mentioned in the past. I would argue that it takes a different style of thinking and learning to do well in Arts compared to other degrees. While it's obviously NOT as simple as saying "different thought = good thought", I do believe that fostering these "Arts-oriented" ways of thought in capable students will lead to individuals who can bring their own views to the table, complementing the views of graduates from other degrees. I certainly would struggle in an Arts degree - but there are times when I wonder if taking one would lead to me being less confused about the world at large, as I mostly look at it with a 'formal logic' lens, which is not ideal in most cases.
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In summary, I believe that it is very important to have some idea of employment prospects and pathways, and the likelihood of success of these, before committing to any degree. Regardless, I believe that ALL degrees confer benefits, and completion of a degree does say something about you as a person. While statistics show that on average, graduates from certain degrees 'repay' the government money invested in them better than others, I think there should always be a place for development of ideas and skills, and I think that the world needs people proficient in the skills developed in an Arts degree.
In response to the issue of market saturation, I think there should be greater regulation of the number of university places (but perhaps that's a conversation for a different thread). I personally see undertaking any degree as a calculated risk - who can guarantee that you're not going to fail and end up with debt to pay and no degree? On the other hand, who is to say that you can't be in the top X% that manage to make it into the career that they really like? That's why I say it's a calculated risk - I think you have to consider the various outcomes and their likelihoods (well, I'm a sciencey guy, I'm bound to say that :P), and then decide if its worth the risk for you.
Honestly, I think people poke fun at every degree, and I don't think some good-natured ribbing is particularly harmful. It's not like engineers can't be in relationships, doctors can't have a good time, lawyers are all Lionel Hutz stereotypes etc. However, I would tend to disagree with the overall view that arts degrees are 'worthless', for the reasons mentioned above.
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Nerdgasm, your post brought a tear to my eye. Flawless.
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don't get me wrong I wasn't meaning to single out arts, I was meaning to single out people who spent heaps of money purely to learn from a university. If a computer science degree wasn't considered so important I would be learning straight off the internet. I mentioned philosophy because it's an area where there afaik it doesn't translate well into a career and if you're learning about it, it's purely for the enjoyment of learning it/ becoming a more insightful person.
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Fair enough; I'm sorry for misinterpreting your post. I suppose this leads more to a discussion on how pragmatic one should be when considering university courses or further study in general. I completely agree that employment prospects upon completion of study will be an important factor for most people - they certainly have played a part in my decision to undertake postgraduate study. Universities definitely are great places to invest in a career - but they are still places of education and learning too. It's idealistic, but I don't think learning 'for the sake of learning' should ever be discouraged. At the very least, these people are trying to improve themselves. I suppose the question is, does this have to involve taxpayer-funded university study?
On the side of the student, I'd argue that some people need more structured learning environments in order to learn skills and knowledge. It sounds like you don't - and that's really good self-discipline on your part. But for others, they might not learn nearly as much from self-learning, even if they don't strictly 'need' another qualification.
So, I guess this eventually comes back to net benefit to society from going to uni. My knowledge of economics is quite poor, so I'll ask a question here: To what extent is government/society disadvantaged from subsidising university higher education study?
Regardless of the answer to that question, I can understand that people might be annoyed with those who take taxpayer-funded loans from the government, and then don't end up paying them off. However, in the case of HECS, I imagine that if your income is low enough that you don't end up paying off your HECS over the course of your working life, your life might not be all that easy either. For example, according to the current figures at https://www.ato.gov.au/Rates/HELP-repayment-thresholds-and-rates/, it seems that the minimum non-zero repayment would be approximately $2133.80 per year. That appears to be enough to pay off most of a CSP debt (which range from $6000 to $10000 a year). It's probably not enough to pay off a FEE-HELP debt (for FFP places) - but FEE-HELP loan amounts are currently capped, and quite a number of FEE-HELP courses end up costing more than this cap anyway - so you'd still have to be able to fork out a fair amount of money to study them (though this may yet change; http://studyassist.gov.au/sites/studyassist/helpfulresources/pages/studentoverview_budget2014).
As a final point, I imagine that most people who are currently unemployed don't really want to be. Yes, there are some people who are content to get through life doing as little as possible, even if it means burdening the current welfare system. There are also people who will probably not be able to sustainably hold a job (e.g. medical reasons, caring for others). However, I think that outside these two categories, most people would want a job. It pays more than receiving handouts, and there's probably some degree of personal satisfaction in that too.
(this is probably somewhat off-topic, so meh if this gets moved.)
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don't get me wrong I wasn't meaning to single out arts, I was meaning to single out people who spent heaps of money purely to learn from a university. If a computer science degree wasn't considered so important I would be learning straight off the internet. I mentioned philosophy because it's an area where there afaik it doesn't translate well into a career and if you're learning about it, it's purely for the enjoyment of learning it/ becoming a more insightful person.
I've found Philosophy to translate pretty well into literally anything I do for anyone considering taking up the study at uni.
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You know come to think of it I can see how philosophy has helped my logic and debating skills, and that's surely marketable stuff but I probably should have said that a degree in something like philosophy isn't necessarily as impressive as a degree in something more vocationally directed (to an employer). That's why I'm talking about the internet and how if all you're getting out of a degree is skills/knowledge then the internet is a free and better than pretty much any uni. Obviously if you feel you can't just do it from the internet and wish to spend the money, it needs to be an informed decision.
I'm not really fussed about the tax-payer thing, I just had that in my original comment cos some friends said it. I'm more concerned about the individuals themselves who feel like they need to go to uni because there's a stigma behind just starting work, and they study something like philosophy without a game plan on how they'll utilise the degree to get a job afterwards. If you're intelligent and active enough you can get lots out of an arts degree but in my opinion if you think degree = job and you're studying philosophy and just getting high grades (let alone just passing) then you should save your money.
edit: as a clarification of what I've said so far, if you do philosophy at a uni it should be either because you cannot learn from the internet (which is perfectly fine) or because you believe that the degree will be good for your career, and that's also perfectly fine but you will be dependent on employers seeing the worth of the degree before you can actually apply those skills you learnt.
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You know come to think of it I can see how philosophy has helped my logic and debating skills, and that's surely marketable stuff but I probably should have said that a degree in something like philosophy isn't necessarily as impressive as a degree in something more vocationally directed (to an employer). That's why I'm talking about the internet and how if all you're getting out of a degree is skills/knowledge then the internet is a free and better than pretty much any uni. Obviously if you feel you can't just do it from the internet and wish to spend the money, it needs to be an informed decision.
I'm not really fussed about the tax-payer thing, I just had that in my original comment cos some friends said it. I'm more concerned about the individuals themselves who feel like they need to go to uni because there's a stigma behind just starting work, and they study something like philosophy without a game plan on how they'll utilise the degree to get a job afterwards. If you're intelligent and active enough you can get lots out of an arts degree but in my opinion if you think degree = job and you're studying philosophy and just getting high grades (let alone just passing) then you should save your money.
edit: as a clarification of what I've said so far, if you do philosophy at a uni it should be either because you cannot learn from the internet (which is perfectly fine) or because you believe that the degree will be good for your career, and that's also perfectly fine but you will be dependent on employers seeing the worth of the degree before you can actually apply those skills you learnt.
I agree that a degree in philosophy may not be as appealing to a potential employer as a degree in commerce, but I'd just like to say, at the risk of sounding like a hackneyed spiritual dilettante, that life is not just about money. Philosophy teaches people more than simply how to reason well. It teaches people how to live. Many people these days graduate from leading universities with degrees that people would generally consider useful and go on to acquire a job with a six-figure salary, but have absolutely no idea of what it means to live a 'good' life or to be a 'good' person. They may have all the money in the world, all the fame that they ever coveted, and yet remain empty on the inside. I think it is an indictment of society that people do not see the value in studying philosophy. So focused are we on things that are external (e.g. money, fame, reputation, etc.) that we are beginning to lose sight of the things that truly matter. A clear manifestation of this is Rupert Murdoch's recent tweet about the siege that took place in Sydney, wherein, instead of offering his condolences to the victims, he congratulated Daily Telegraph for their coverage of the incident. Philosophy helps us to put things back into perspective, and to see what it is that is truly important to us. What you learn in philosophy is not a skill that can get you a job, but something more profound - a mentality, a mindset, a Weltanschauung, that will ultimately help you to make better decisions, and live a more fulfilling life.
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I agree that a degree in philosophy may not be as appealing to a potential employer as a degree in commerce, but I'd just like to say, at the risk of sounding like a hackneyed spiritual dilettante, that life is not just about money. Philosophy teaches people more than simply how to reason well. It teaches people how to live. Many people these days graduate from leading universities with degrees that people would generally consider useful and go on to acquire a job with a six-figure salary, but have absolutely no idea of what it means to live a 'good' life or to be a 'good' person. They may have all the money in the world, all the fame that they ever coveted, and yet remain empty on the inside. I think it is an indictment of society that people do not see the value in studying philosophy. So focused are we on things that are external (e.g. money, fame, reputation, etc.) that we are beginning to lose sight of the things that truly matter. A clear manifestation of this is Rupert Murdoch's recent tweet about the siege that took place in Sydney, wherein, instead of offering his condolences to the victims, he congratulated Daily Telegraph for their coverage of the incident. Philosophy helps us to put things back into perspective, and to see what it is that is truly important to us. What you learn in philosophy is not a skill that can get you a job, but something more profound - a mentality, a mindset, a Weltanschauung, that will ultimately help you to make better decisions, and live a more fulfilling life.
You are so well read that I got off to this.
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What you learn in philosophy is not a skill that can get you a job, but something more profound - a mentality, a mindset, a Weltanschauung, that will ultimately help you to make better decisions, and live a more fulfilling life.
I would argue that philosophy does teach you skills, though. (plus everything else you wrote. A++)
As well insight, philosophy teaches logic and it helps one see both sides to the coin. I've learned more about problem solving, logic and the world simply from my discussions with friends studying philosophy than I have from any formal education I have received. I honestly can't think of a single employer who wouldn't see these as incredibly valuable skills, and it's just up to the philosophy graduate to show their employer that philosophy gave them those skills to seem vocationally capable.
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May us well include a little anecdote from Diogenes Laertius here:
'A man once said to Aristippus, "In what respect will my son be the better for being instructed [in philosophy]?" "At least," replied Aristippus, " he will gain this advantage, that he will not sit in the theatre as a stone upon a stone"'
Education ought to be an environment of learning rather than an environment of pathetic 'I'm doing a superior degree because it will get me a job in which I will earn more cash money on average in my opinion' games.
Here's another quip from Aristippus I might as well add:
'Aristippus, being asked what he had gained by the study of philosophy, replied, "To be able to converse readily with all people."'
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From my experience, and this is just my experience, there are people who feel like there are important questions and life that need to be answered, and they go and explore those questions and get into philosophy, and there are people who don't think it's important and go without the feeling of emptiness. I don't think I've ever heard of somebody feeling empty due to not having explored philosophy in their late lives (I have heard of people feeling empty and finding religions which are largely anti-intellectual in my opinion) but again this is just my experience.
With regards to the idea of philosophy fixing emptiness, I don't think there's much of a guarantee. It sure is enjoyable for the mind to chew away at philosophical ideas and apply them to social issues, but my journey has been pretty quickly towards nihilism and I don't know if that was for the better. It was going to happen one way or another and it's sure better than believing in something like hell but what I'm saying is that some people go the route of 'you make up your own meaning of life' and 'the finiteness of life makes it all the more precious' but I can't really get around those ideas and I don't think that's an intellectual thing but more of a reflection of personality. What I'm trying to say is that if you're looking to philosophy as a cure to feeling empty, be aware of where you might end up. Just because it's intellectually fulfilling doesn't mean it will necessarily be emotionally or spiritually fulfilling.
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Obviously at Melbourne University with the 'Melbourne Model' - Arts is just a gateway degree into a post-graduate (for those interested in doing it).
Exactly. I couldn't have said it better myself, many people including myself are simply doing it because it is a gateway into law, medicine or other things. Don't get me wrong, Arts has offered me things that will significantly contribute to my Juris Doctor but in some aspects, I do perceive it as an obstacle. Or rather, something that "I just have to do" (had a great convo with my professor about this). The JD at UniMelb is my dream and it offers me the perfect pathway into Oxford (an even bigger dream), with other elite universities at hand. Going to another University wouldn't have provided me with such an opportunity so going to UniMelb was necessary and completing the BA was complementary. Now, I could've thrown myself into Law at some other University but the reality is clear, UniMelb has a fantastic reputation and sadly in this day and age that means a lot. To demonstrate, I recently visited Slater and Gorden, a law firm near my house. I asked them whether completing the JD at UniMelb was really worth the undergrad stress and they told me that if two lawyers approached them with the exact same resume, except one completed law at some uni and the other studied at UniMelb, they would take the second candidate in "a heartbeat." This seems to be the general consensus with those I've spoken to so I realized that undertaking the JD at UniMelb WAS worth it, which consequently meant that completing a Bachelor of Arts there was as well. Sometimes in order to accomplish your dreams you have drag yourself through the unpleasantries that will prepare you for success. This reinforces the notion that it's simply a gateway for many students. Then again, I can only speak from personal experiences. I feel that it's provided so many students with practical and functional skills, I can't imagine it ever being called "useless."
I really don't know why people shit on it but I have to say, I've only encountered this hatred on AN. Never have I ever met anyone whose bagged Arts on campus and I have a lot of friends from biomed and commerce who are very fond of BA :/
Funnily enough I have met a lot of people who have completed Arts and now have extremely wonderful jobs so again...I have no idea where this prejudice is coming from.
In regards to philosophy. I really think the subject is more...foundational in a sense? By that I mean, while it doesn't necessarily look good on your resume ALONE, it can certainly be used to 'bump' up your other skills. For example, and I hate to use law again but, many law firms look fondly upon lawyers who have completed philosophy because it is a subject designed to strengthen your analytical and reasoning abilities, which is critical in law and in many other disciplines. I'm not sure if this is making sense, but it's what I mean by foundational so I don't even believe philosophy is "useless" - don't know why it's getting so much attention in this topic.
Not doing philosophy as a major or minor, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
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I'm still really confused as to what I should do :(.
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I'm still really confused as to what I should do
You don't whether you want to do it as part of a double degree or just a single one. May I ask what EXACTLY you want to do, in terms of a possible career or pathway? Philosophy, English Lit, Psych etc???
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From my experience, and this is just my experience, there are people who feel like there are important questions and life that need to be answered, and they go and explore those questions and get into philosophy, and there are people who don't think it's important and go without the feeling of emptiness. I don't think I've ever heard of somebody feeling empty due to not having explored philosophy in their late lives (I have heard of people feeling empty and finding religions which are largely anti-intellectual in my opinion) but again this is just my experience.
With regards to the idea of philosophy fixing emptiness, I don't think there's much of a guarantee. It sure is enjoyable for the mind to chew away at philosophical ideas and apply them to social issues, but my journey has been pretty quickly towards nihilism and I don't know if that was for the better. It was going to happen one way or another and it's sure better than believing in something like hell but what I'm saying is that some people go the route of 'you make up your own meaning of life' and 'the finiteness of life makes it all the more precious' but I can't really get around those ideas and I don't think that's an intellectual thing but more of a reflection of personality. What I'm trying to say is that if you're looking to philosophy as a cure to feeling empty, be aware of where you might end up. Just because it's intellectually fulfilling doesn't mean it will necessarily be emotionally or spiritually fulfilling.
The first paragraph above reminds me of Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which, although rather elitist in the way that it puts philosophers on a pedestal, still has some merit. Of course, prior to exposure to questions such as 'How should one live?', 'Does induction secure truth?', 'Are moral properties objective?', and 'What is the relationship between the mind and the body?', no one would think that there is any need to ponder them. Such is the relevance of the aforementioned questions to life, however, that I believe no one would be uninterested in discovering the answers to them once they have been properly introduced to the questions. For example, many students these days go through high school under the impression that the science is moving closer and closer towards the truth. Students who have studied the scientific method would know that science is based on inductive reasoning. Prior to their exposure to the problems of induction, no student would think to question science. However, as soon as they are exposed to David Hume's critique of induction, it is impossible for students not to re-evaluate their views; if induction is flawed, then the whole institution of science would come crashing down. Clearly, a lot is at stake, which is why I think that questions such as 'Does induction secure truth?' cannot be properly ignored. Of course, there are those who have been exposed to such questions but are content to proceed through life with their heads in the clouds. I would argue that such people do experience bouts of intellectual hunger every now and then; they simply ignore these feelings by sticking their head back up into the clouds. By 'empty', I meant 'intellectual empty' rather than 'emotionally empty'. While religions such as Christianity usually do a pretty good job of mitigating emotional emptiness, for a host of reasons, I do not believe that they hold the key to alleviating intellectual emptiness, as you mentioned yourself.
I think that philosophy, if done properly, is guaranteed to make an individual intellectually 'fuller'. To me, philosophy is more a mode of thinking, rather than an exercise involving the selection of, and subsequent subscription to, a doctrine that 'sounds about right'. To many, determinism seems to be the ultimate implication of science; since science operates on the principle of induction, it also necessarily operates on the principle of cause and effect. It seems then, from the outside, that if we are to take the word of science as gospel, then we must accept that event in the world is caused by another event, and that we do not have any ability to break this causal chance. Quickly, people develop a nihilistic perspective on life; if everything I do, I do not of my own conscious volition, but rather under influence of some previous event that has already taken place, then what meaning is there to life? It seems then that life has no real meaning. Many people don't like this conclusion, and so choose to ignore the question entirely out of utility. But ignoring the question does nothing to 'fill' an individual up, intellectually speaking. Deep inside, the individual is still unsatisfied and hungry for answers. Philosophy helps to alleviate this hunger, and involves, not the mindless acceptance but the critical assessment of the doctrine of determinism. How much truth is contained within the doctrine? What are the alternatives? Which doctrine seems to reflect reality more on the basis of my experience? Until such questions are answered, the individual will remain empty, unless he chooses to stick his head back up into the clouds.
It is also important to understand that philosophy is not about finding the view that is most useful for an individual to hold. It is about finding that one view which agrees entirely with one's observations of reality. To use a hackneyed analogy, philosophy is all about choosing the red pill, rather than the blue pill. Of course, the truth might not be convenient, but denying the truth is never the way to go. It may be the case that determinism is true, and that we have no control over our own actions. Such a truth might initially be emotionally scarring, but no good can come out of actively denying this truth. Of course, if such a doctrine does not agree with everyday experience, then something may be wrong with the doctrine itself. But if one is convinced that the doctrine reflects reality as it is, then it is potentially dangerous to simply ignore it. Just like Neo had to learn to come to terms with the fact that he lives in a Matrix, one must then learn to embrace this inconvenient truth, for only then does one have any hope of obtaining true intellectual and emotional fulfilment.
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Thought I'd also take the opportunity to point out that a Science degree is about as employable as an Arts degree, but lots of people don't realise this (or seem to care once it's pointed out to them) because bandwagons.
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A science degree has plenty of jobs that it directly leads into though, an arts degree is much more abstract. Do Science, major in geology, get job in WA. Major in a lab-based subject, get job as lab technician.
Arts doesn't have the clear cut link/direction for graduates, although I guess it might be as employable if you looked at numbers.
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Thought I'd also take the opportunity to point out that a Science degree is about as employable as an Arts degree, but lots of people don't realise this (or seem to care once it's pointed out to them) because bandwagons.
Yep. I'd wager that there's an oversupply of people with generic 'biomed' majors at the moment, so getting a biomed degree or a BSc with a 'biomed' major is less employable then many arts majors (which at least set you up with generic reading/writing/research skills.)
Lab technician jobs do exist, but they're difficult to get into with just a pass degree.
I really don't know why people shit on it but I have to say, I've only encountered this hatred on AN. Never have I ever met anyone whose bagged Arts on campus and I have a lot of friends from biomed and commerce who are very fond of BA :/
Funnily enough I have met a lot of people who have completed Arts and now have extremely wonderful jobs so again...I have no idea where this prejudice is coming from.
Eh, I see it a lot in the popular media, making jokes out of 'useless' degrees (arts is literally the same as underwater basket weaving.) That said, a lot of more theoretical science isn't immune to this either.
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Just following on from the last few posts.
I think the key is not so much the degree you do but how well you do in it. No doubt there are heaps of Biomed students who got low 50s marks who didn't get into med and are struggling to work out what to do. And no doubt it is the same with all other degree types.
Doing well is what counts more than the undergrad degree type.
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A science degree has plenty of jobs that it directly leads into though, an arts degree is much more abstract. Do Science, major in geology, get job in WA. Major in a lab-based subject, get job as lab technician.
Doesn't quite work that way... I dare you to find a geology job that requires anything less than honours. You'll be searching for a while. And to be a lab technician, you're honestly better off getting a diploma at a TAFE - the person with the TAFE diploma and relevant experience will always be picked over the BSc student.
No - I reckon arts degrees are, if anything, MORE employable than someone with a science degree. If you really want to take your science degree anywhere, you HAVE to have honours - and by the end of the degree, a lot of science graduates don't want to keep that up, and so end up with a degree that can basically only land them a job in science communication. (and guess what - there's so few of those jobs around, your best bet is to do honours or masters to get there~)
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I generally classify honours as part of the undergrad degree. It's an extension of what you learned, not an entirely new degree with new qualifications. What part of the job market does an arts degree streamline your entry into? You're trying to leverage the skills you learned into various different settings rather than a clearcut process.
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I generally classify honours as part of the undergrad degree. It's an extension of what you learned, not an entirely new degree with new qualifications. What part of the job market does an arts degree streamline your entry into? You're trying to leverage the skills you learned into various different settings rather than a clearcut process.
Lol seriously?
Anthropology major -> anthropologist
(Applied) linguistics major -> linguist
Art history, general history major -> historian, curator, etc.
Behavioural studies -> part of psychology -> psychologist, counsellor, etc.
Languages -> translator, interpreter, teaching, linguistics
Communications/media/film major -> marketing, journalism, film/TV, etc.
Criminology major -> criminologist, criminal justice (I know a crim major currently working in the prison system)
International relations/studies major -> government e.g. DFAT
Journalism major -> bleeding obvious
Music major -> musicology, music therapy, etc.
Psychology major -> bleeding obvious
Sociology -> my manager majored in sociology. yes she is my age. yes she is the superior to a bunch of people with law degrees.
Theatre/performance major -> bleeding obvious
Translation studies major -> bleeding obvious
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There are two categories of people at work here. (1) Those who take shots at arts just as a random situational joke, they probably don't really give a shit. They'll make jokes about say ice-skating too if the topic comes up. (2) Those who actually think the arts are totally useless and really do care about it, a more asshole infested but thankfully way smaller slice of people. I like how many people are talking in third person here because they're too afraid to put their neck on the line as well.
What i see here is what i believe is a problem with the wider mindset of this community. It's all too focused on the results, the prestige, the money. We've seen here time and time again students who only ultimately care about the results and the ATAR score. They don't really give a massive toss about the subject or learning for the joy of learning, they want the best way to get the best results. Now, there is nothing necessarily wrong with that but it is a single-minded focus.
What people are doing here is translating a complex thing into a mere economic transaction. If it cant be used to make you money, then of course, it is totally useless. People have studied the humanities for centuries and i can guarantee you they didn't do it to make money, even now its fairly acknowledged its not the most likely path to become extremely wealthy (which i call greed). Learning for the sake of learning is a beautiful thing, learning is a great pleasure in life. People should be allowed to further their knowledge.
As for the CSP argument, do you know how little money is spent on each students degree? Especially in light of the fact that arts is a rather cheap degree to administer (you dont need labs, workforce more casualised, etc). It probably comes to maybe $30,000 max, if not less. That's chump change, its peanuts for a one off expense. Do you know how much in taxes someone will pay over an entire lifetime? I wouldn't be surprised that if over a working life it would approach something like $1,000,000 for some people. If you are targeting waste of tax money and government expense, boy have you really, really picked the wrong battle here.
I totally disagree with those who say that you could learn it over the internet, its total bullshit. You could probably kind of learn engineering over the internet as well but it wouldn't really be the same. I know many here are young and grew up with the internet (a good internet) being omnipresent but honestly, the internet doesn't contain everything in academia or even a slice of it. There is so much that simply isn't easily accessible on the internet for your average person, it just isn't there. It's in journals, its in the mind of professors, its in academic libraries. Having studied both arts and science i can confidently say so much knowledge resides within the walls of the universities and the minds of professors which i never, ever would have otherwise came across or had access to.
I've pretty much finished the science portion of my degree and its not much more employable than arts to be totally honest. In my first year, even then still, when asked, kids wanted to be "a scientist". Here's the problem though, there is no "scientist" job, there's no neat path. You've got slim chances at anything good with just an undergrad. Only about 40-60% of science graduates end up in science in some capacity as well (they only told us just before we were going to finish as well). All generalist undergraduate degrees are fairly useless for neatly slotting you into an easy career path.