Arts Courses ? Who does it suit ?

Take Your Pants Off

I have a few questions regarding arts courses in general, if anyone is doing them or has information about them.
Some of the questions might sound tedious and immature but thats only because of what I have read through lurking online about the, before posting here.

1. Are they for people who cant get the points and then this is an alternative route for them, hoping to do post-grad. ? What I am trying to say in a most mature manner as possible, are they for less abled students ?
There was this comment on one of the boards thread regarding art courses saying:''for arts courses pull here, pointing to toilet roll''

2. If you know what you want to do in life, are they most suited to those people who are still unsure what you want to do, as I have my heart set out for either a course in science or business, so would they do any good to me ?
But I don't want to be doing extra subjects, I just want to stick with one topic. E.g. if its a business arts degree, I only want to do business not something else thrown in there, as is that what art courses are?

3. What is the employment status for a person with an BA vs person with another degree such as BS

4. Lets say you do not want to do an arts degree, what happens when there is a course only being offered through arts.
E.g. UCD psychology, only available through arts, whereas in UL its available in arts and bachelor of science.

Again, this has nothing to do with my views on arts degree as I know much little about them, apart from reading the comments on line and some research.

Soolander

1) Not necessarily. Some students choose arts courses regardless of the points they get because that is what they want to study and all students should remember this. However of course there are some students, as you've mentioned, that use it as an alternative route. Last year the smartest guy in my school chose to study arts even though he was getting As in maths and chemistry.

2)Yes they can be good for people who are unsure of lwhat they want to do because they are so broad and the student can get a feel for many different areas.

3) People tend to think that graduates with a BA will end up working in Centra forever . Granted there are some pretty mediocre arts degrees which will make finding employment difficult but it does tend to depend on the area one has a BA in. ie a lot of people studying English may end up teaching whereas philosophy graduates may find it difficult obtaining employment. Same applies for BS in some ways.

4) This doesn't matter too much it just differs from each university. However I read in a thread once how a graduate in the UK had to explain to an employer why she had a BA in economics rather than a BS in economics and this just came down to the individual uni. Furthermore, if a course is awarded a BA it does not make it inferior to the same course in a different uni that is awarding a BS. For example Maths and Economics in TCD is a highly regarded course and graduates are awarded a BA whereas in somewhere like DIT economics and finance graduates are awarded a BS so it doesn't make much of a difference.