What are the most useless/useful college degrees?

nkl12xtw5goz70 · 14-11-2019 1:16am

Twister2 wrote: »

I would put maths up there but you need higher than basic degree

I'd love to know the OP's view on maths. Useful or useless?

work · 14-11-2019 1:32am

Pmacv1 wrote: »

Here's my list:

1. Gender Studies
2. English
3. Classics
4. Theology/Philosophy
5. Sociology

Honourable mention to Politics

Most useful:

1. Medicine
2. Computer Science
3. Physics/Chemistry
4. Engineering
5. Nursing

You say they are useless in that they produce nothing of any value.
Without intentionally sounding like an outlier you basically saying Science GOOD and humanities BAD.
We have destroyed over 60%++ of our biodiversity in the last few decades, we have extinct more creatures in the last few decades than our known history, we multiply like a virus devouring the body/world, we genetically modify without having any idea of the effect this will have etc etc..the list is endless.......Without your usefull list none of this would be achieved, so exactly how is you list usefull other than to produce things, people and money none of which are good for the world!!
Our obsession with production, material goods and money will be the end of us without a paradigmic change in our warped ideas.

Ficheall · 14-11-2019 1:49am

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

What is never spoken of is never thought of.

It is possible to never speak of something you've thought of, though I realise this does not match with your posting style.

thecornflake · 14-11-2019 2:31am

Pmacv1 wrote: »

Nope, what I'm saying is that in the last 50 years, the 5 subjects I've outlined as most beneficial, have contributed much more than philosophy has in the past 50 years, and will most likely continue to do so.

Anybody can have a mediocre career in any field.

Absolutely, in the short term science and engineering will always provide more benefit (cash/economic/standard of living - benefits).

Imagine this, years and years into the future, humanity has developed interstellar/galactic transport. We have secured intimate and total knowledge of the workings of the universe and can utilise the full power of the basic laws of physics at a whim. What then? What do we guide us to decide what is right to do and what is wrong? What even guides us on the path to get there?

As previous posters have pointed out, philosophers evolved into natural philosophers over the millennia. Surely this can still be going on but at a rate too slow for us to see until we have enough years past to look back and notice the change?

With science/engineering we become powerful, resourceful and successful but without the humanities we might aswel be robots achieving all that we have.

I am a scientist btw.

Raconteuse · 14-11-2019 3:27am

You can study humanities anyway yourself though. You don't need a degree in them.

I did arts myself - English and geography - sometimes I wish I had done economics instead of English (despite what someone said, geography does have practical applications, like cartography and GIS and town planning modules). Or not arts at all - law or psychology. But of course too busy with the social life and dressing up to look 18 to study for those points!

There are humanities which are needed, for teaching, social work, social policy etc. But others are "hobby" degrees, which as said, lovely for a retired person but not very practical for someone starting out.

I used to be of the school of thought that it doesn't matter what you study though, so I understand both arguments.

Mad_maxx · 14-11-2019 8:47am

Pmacv1 wrote: »

Here's my list:

1. Gender Studies
2. English
3. Classics
4. Theology/Philosophy
5. Sociology

Honourable mention to Politics

Most useful:

1. Medicine
2. Computer Science
3. Physics/Chemistry
4. Engineering
5. Nursing

"gender studies" is useful if you manage to bag a semi regular spot on RTE or land yourself a gig teaching grievance studies in the likes of UCD

Mad_maxx · 14-11-2019 8:50am

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

If money is your idol then very little else is useful to you because nothing else is going to provide you with as much money as you think ....

If you want to make money ...you don't need anything else but the desire to make money and the work.

Anything else will waste your time. Doctors don't do it for the money ...and you would be wasting your time. Its too much work for too little money.

People have a terrible attitude towards money they think its evil to want lots of money or that its bad to want other things and value them as much as money or more.

Money is awesome. But the path to money is to want to make money. Its not a degree.

But you should value other things as a wise billionaire

Do you know George Soros studied philosophy?

In uni he did ...and he applied karl popper's theory to capital markets. Now don't get me started on karl popper!

But the philosopher Karl popper was actually Soros' mentor.

I dunno if you know George Soros but he has plenty of money...also has a degree and a masters in philosophy.

"doctors don't do it for the money"

https://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OGC.4c7cc15772ecc8ca9cbf3cb414653574&pid=Api&rurl=https%3a%2f%2fmedia.giphy.com%2fmedia%2fzhJ55GsXRajxm%2fgiphy.gif&ehk=4rt7GBNkqdN9MePgdgDYltoy0xt6gYZcsemQkmr0QQc%3d

sbsquarepants · 14-11-2019 9:29am

LirW wrote: »

While I believe that just about every degree has its right to exist and are useful for society in one way or another, there's one I'd like to nominate as worst contender: Geography.
Not because it's boring or wishy-washy, but I believe that the overall topics are covered better by Google maps and other academic disciplines.

I think you might be confusing geography with taxi driving:D That's were google maps has taken over.

No more 3 or 4 years spent driving around in circles to the knowledge guv, innit.:D

sbsquarepants · 14-11-2019 9:33am

Mad_maxx wrote: »

"doctors don't do it for the money"

https://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OGC.4c7cc15772ecc8ca9cbf3cb414653574&pid=Api&rurl=https%3a%2f%2fmedia.giphy.com%2fmedia%2fzhJ55GsXRajxm%2fgiphy.gif&ehk=4rt7GBNkqdN9MePgdgDYltoy0xt6gYZcsemQkmr0QQc%3d

I don't ever remember a time (i'm 45 btw) that the health service hasn't been embroiled in a row with doctors, nurses, consultants you name it.....always looking for more money and threatening to fúck off to Australia / America / Mars wherever pays best if they don't get it!!

And all the while insisting they're not in it for the money:D:D

nkl12xtw5goz70 · 14-11-2019 10:39am

Raconteuse wrote: »

You can study humanities anyway yourself though. You don't need a degree in them.

To a point, yes. Someone can read Pride and Prejudice by herself, just as she can go to an art museum by herself and look at paintings. But in both instances it helps to have guidance from an expert, who can show a young student numerous aspects of a novel or a painting that she probably would not figure out on her own.

Developing good writing skills and the ability to read long, complex texts also should not be underestimated in today's soundbite-oriented world. You write articulately and clearly — studying English may have helped with that, and it's a skill that can be put to use across numerous fields.

There are humanities which are needed, for teaching, social work, social policy etc. But others are "hobby" degrees, which as said, lovely for a retired person but not very practical for someone starting out.

I'm a fan of the US model, which combines general education across multiple fields with (usually) one or two majors. This means that the physics student will have to take some classes in literature and history, while the literature student will have to take some college-level maths and science. It produces students with a more rounded education.

I used to be of the school of thought that it doesn't matter what you study though, so I understand both arguments.

More people seem to assume that the purpose of a third-level education is to get a job in a specific field. Sadly, we are losing sight of the goal of the liberal arts —that universities should produce an educated citizenry that is highly literate, historically and culturally informed, and aesthetically appreciative. That goal is more nebulous than producing engineers and computer programmers, but it is no less vital to a healthy society.

mariaalice · 14-11-2019 10:43am

What alway spring to mind.

People in a wealthy developed country with access to third level for all, who have the luxury of staying in college till their early twenties at the least, complaining about the relevance of other people's degrees.

topper75 · 14-11-2019 10:46am

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

You do realize philosophy gave you logic.

Only in the sense that meteorology gave us weather.

I don't know why people opt to spend three or four years studying something full time (often at taxpayers' expense) when they could just read it in the evening as a hobby. It has the same 'value' doing it that way, if that is what is important.

Ficheall · 14-11-2019 11:10am

Lorenzo Some Macaroon wrote: »

But in both instances it helps to have guidance from an expert, who can show a young student numerous aspects of a novel or a painting that she probably would not figure out on her own.

"But what does the cat in the picture represent?"
"It's her pet, I guess..?"
"Perhaps. Might it not also be a metaphor for the girl's father; at times warm and affectionate, but often cold and aloof, with a tendency to disappear unannounced for days at a time without warning, eventually returning with a dead mouse by way of token apology? Or representative of her fear of dogs, and predilection for catfood?"

Pmacv1 · 14-11-2019 11:11am

Ficheall wrote: »

"But what does the cat in the picture represent?"
"It's her pet, I guess..?"
"Perhaps. Might it not also be a metaphor for the girl's father; at times warm and affectionate, but often cold and aloof, with a tendency to disappear unannounced for days at a time without warning, eventually returning with a dead mouse by way of token apology? Or representative of her fear of dogs, and predilection for catfood?"

Wow. So useful.

Pmacv1 · 14-11-2019 11:14am

Better Than Christ wrote: »

Nope, you're saying that the college degrees themselves are useless/useful. By the standards you've outlined, almost all degrees are 'useless' on the grounds that the vast majority of people who successfully complete them will not make any groundbreaking contributions. Which, incidentally, does not make their career 'mediocre'.

Of course college degrees are useful and useless. And no, I didn't say that you have to make a groundbreaking contribution to be considered useful, but in today's world a programmer, scientist, engineer or doctor will provide more value to society than a philosopher.

mariaalice · 14-11-2019 11:20am

Pmacv1 wrote: »

Of course college degrees are useful and useless. And no, I didn't say that you have to make a groundbreaking contribution to be considered useful, but in today's world a programmer, scientist, engineer or doctor will provide more value to society than a philosopher.

So your argument is that it changes over time, for example, was their any computer science or information technology degrees before the 1960s.

I saw a really interesting documentary arguing that the post office engineer who built the enigma machine which helped Alan Turing should be as equally well know.

nkl12xtw5goz70 · 14-11-2019 11:23am

Pmacv1 wrote: »

Of course college degrees are useful and useless. And no, I didn't say that you have to make a groundbreaking contribution to be considered useful, but in today's world a programmer, scientist, engineer or doctor will provide more value to society than a philosopher.

James Joyce was once a medical student, but abandoned medicine to pursue a literary career instead. Would he have provided more value to society had he become a GP rather than writing Ulysses?

Sunny Disposition · 14-11-2019 11:25am

Some of the things on the OPs list like English, Sociology or Philosophy are routinely undervalued, even by people with degrees in them.

I spent a lot of my life working with poorly educated people, many of them quite wealthy through sheer hard work and also very intelligent, but there was a lot missed out on by not having an education in such areas.

It's possibly hard understand this if you have the ability to do it, but not everyone is able to read the Irish Times of a Saturday for example, and take real value from it. They may not be able to read a book like Grapes of Wrath and take the value from it. Despite being intelligent they would find it hard to express themselves as clearly as they need to.

I was lucky to have a lot of success in business long before I had any education, but the idea that the humanities are not valuable is ridiculous.

I'd suggest that anyone who gets an honours degree in English is very likely to be successful in the future. It takes a high degree of intelligence and a capacity for diligence. People might like to think otherwise, but all the young people I know with such degrees have done quite well for themselves and are very capable.

Pmacv1 · 14-11-2019 11:26am

mariaalice wrote: »

So your argument is that it changes over time, for example, was their any computer science or information technology degrees before the 1960s.

I saw a really interesting documentary arguing that the post office engineer who built the enigma machine which helped Alan Turing should be as equally well know.

Of course it changes overtime, however tech/sciences will be in the lead for the next few lifetimes.

The only way English/Philosophy will become useful is if all technology is destroyed and we end up in a post apocalyptic world with no electricity.

Pmacv1 · 14-11-2019 11:30am

Sunny Disposition wrote: »

Some of the things on the OPs list like English, Sociology or Philosophy are routinely undervalued, even by people with degrees in them.

I spent a lot of my life working with poorly educated people, many of them quite wealthy through sheer hard work and also very intelligent, but there was a lot missed out on by not having an education in such areas.

It's possibly hard understand this if you have the ability to do it, but not everyone is able to read the Irish Times of a Saturday for example, and take real value from it. They may not be able to read a book like Grapes of Wrath and take the value from it. Despite being intelligent they would find it hard to express themselves as clearly as they need to.

I was lucky to have a lot of success in business long before I had any education, but the idea that the humanities are not valuable is ridiculous.

I'd suggest that anyone who gets an honours degree in English is very likely to be successful in the future. It takes a high degree of intelligence and a capacity for diligence. People might like to think otherwise, but all the young people I know with such degrees have done quite well for themselves and are very capable.

I studied English to a master's level and got first in it (Post-Colonial and World Lit.). Outside of the confines of a comfy couch, it produces absolutely nothing of value.

I ended up working crappy jobs, saved up and went back to study STEM

mariaalice · 14-11-2019 11:32am

Pmacv1 wrote: »

Of course it changes overtime, however tech/sciences will be in the lead for the next few lifetimes.

The only way English/Philosophy will become useful is if all technology is destroyed and we end up in a post apocalyptic world with no electricity.

So there is not a connection between philosophy, logic and set theory one of the foundations of computer programing languages.

valoren · 14-11-2019 11:36am

Even with the benefits of his classical education, Hans Gruber still resolved to steal millions in bearer bonds just so he could sit on a beach earning 20%. Even he had a lifestyle he needed money to fund and working as an honest tailor in a John Phillip's store to pay for it was never his style.

Pmacv1 · 14-11-2019 11:38am

mariaalice wrote: »

So there is not a connection between philosophy, logic and set theory one of the foundations of computer programing languages.

Boolean logic yes, which is mathematical.

Set theory is used for structuring data, it's not used in the actual languages themselves. And set theory is again more mathematical than anything.

Just because something may or may not have been the precursor, doesn't make it equally as valuable in this day and age.

LirW · 14-11-2019 11:39am

Lorenzo Some Macaroon wrote: »

To a point, yes. Someone can read Pride and Prejudice by herself, just as she can go to an art museum by herself and look at paintings. But in both instances it helps to have guidance from an expert, who can show a young student numerous aspects of a novel or a painting that she probably would not figure out on her own.

This is so so so important. Without people having in-depth knowledge (not Wikipedia research anyway) we would lose the sight of value in any humanities discipline. Why certain things were created, what did they say about the time, society and social movements, why did they became so big and how are they relevant today.
I feel a lot if people think humanities are just stories about funny anecdotes and pen strokes.

A lot of people can't relate and only try to see the beauty in it when it often has a lot more to say. But it's exactly these people that spend a lifetime working with it that are able to determine what's important to preserve and in what context. Without these people an awful lot of important literature, art and architecture would be lost that tells a lot about who we are and what we went through.
It's fine to not see this as economically viable but it serves another purpose. Just like IT is a commitment to life long learning, a serious pursue in an art/humanities discipline with a suitable gig is a lifelong commitment to protect and embrace things from being devalued and destroyed.
Just think about the Uyghurs in China, they're being wiped out in a grand scale and their culture and heritage is about to be lost. Without humanities and art studies there wouldn't even be an attempt to try and preserve any of it for later generations to understand them as a society and what they went through.

Sunny Disposition · 14-11-2019 11:39am

Pmacv1 wrote: »

I studied English to a master's level and got first in it (Post-Colonial and World Lit.). Outside of the confines of a comfy couch, it produces absolutely nothing of value.

I ended up working crappy jobs, saved up and went back to study STEM

I'll bet you're doing well in it? But you could have worked as an academic or a teacher with what you had done before going back?

LirW · 14-11-2019 11:41am

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I think you might be confusing geography with taxi driving:D That's were google maps has taken over.

No more 3 or 4 years spent driving around in circles to the knowledge guv, innit.:D

Okay where can I do my Bachelor on "Transportation management"

Pmacv1 · 14-11-2019 11:43am

Sunny Disposition wrote: »

I'll bet you're doing well in it? But you could have worked as an academic or a teacher with what you had done before going back?

Yeah, but the point is that everything I learned, I could have learned as a hobby, as opposed to causing expense to the tax payer. I mean I stopped going to lectures after 2nd year because they were pointless.

Pmacv1 · 14-11-2019 11:45am

LirW wrote: »

Okay where can I do my Bachelor on "Transportation management"

https://www.cit.ie/course/CRTTMGT8

You're welcome!

Mezzotint · 14-11-2019 11:45am

It depends on what you do with it. I know a very well employed person who did a masters in gender studies and someone who has a degree in physics and is working in retail most of the time stacking shelves.

Degrees don't necessarily make careers. They are just a good starting off point.

We're still very bad with career as advice and life coaching. A lot of very skilled and talented people do find the right niches. If you'd a well organised system you'd have excellent career advice services at all stages in life

Pmacv1 · 14-11-2019 11:47am

Mezzotint wrote: »

It depends on what you do with it. I know a very well employed person who did a masters in gender studies and someone who has a degree in physics and is working in retail most of the time stacking shelves.

Degrees don't necessarily make careers. They are just a good starting off point.

There will always be exceptions to the rule.

Mezzotint · 14-11-2019 11:48am

Pmacv1 wrote: »

There will always be exceptions to the rule.

What rule? Nobody's supplied stats to back up any of the allegations about certain degrees.

Mad_maxx · 14-11-2019 11:52am

Sunny Disposition wrote: »

Some of the things on the OPs list like English, Sociology or Philosophy are routinely undervalued, even by people with degrees in them.

I spent a lot of my life working with poorly educated people, many of them quite wealthy through sheer hard work and also very intelligent, but there was a lot missed out on by not having an education in such areas.

It's possibly hard understand this if you have the ability to do it, but not everyone is able to read the Irish Times of a Saturday for example, and take real value from it. They may not be able to read a book like Grapes of Wrath and take the value from it. Despite being intelligent they would find it hard to express themselves as clearly as they need to.

I was lucky to have a lot of success in business long before I had any education, but the idea that the humanities are not valuable is ridiculous.

I'd suggest that anyone who gets an honours degree in English is very likely to be successful in the future. It takes a high degree of intelligence and a capacity for diligence. People might like to think otherwise, but all the young people I know with such degrees have done quite well for themselves and are very capable.

Those ( common sense practically minded) people were probably better off, they hadn't time to pause, stroke their chin and ponder existential matters

Happier for it, thinking too much is very bad for your mental health

Mad_maxx · 14-11-2019 11:54am

Mezzotint wrote: »

It depends on what you do with it. I know a very well employed person who did a masters in gender studies and someone who has a degree in physics and is working in retail most of the time stacking shelves.

Degrees don't necessarily make careers. They are just a good starting off point.

We're still very bad with career as advice and life coaching. A lot of very skilled and talented people do find the right niches. If you'd a well organised system you'd have excellent career advice services at all stages in life

"gender studies" should not be taught in state subsidised institutions, nor should any other political ideologies

Pmacv1 · 14-11-2019 11:55am

Mezzotint wrote: »

What rule? Nobody's supplied stats to back up any of the allegations about certain degrees.

Try using Google.

EDit · 14-11-2019 12:02pm

When I was at university (over 25 years ago now) anyone who didn’t have a clue what to do as a career and was looking for an easy 3 years did a degree called American Studies. Never quite understood that one, always seemed a bit useless to me.

nkl12xtw5goz70 · 14-11-2019 12:02pm

LirW wrote: »

This is so so so important. Without people having in-depth knowledge (not Wikipedia research anyway) we would lose the sight of value in any humanities discipline. Why certain things were created, what did they say about the time, society and social movements, why did they became so big and how are they relevant today.
I feel a lot if people think humanities are just stories about funny anecdotes and pen strokes.

A lot of people can't relate and only try to see the beauty in it when it often has a lot more to say. But it's exactly these people that spend a lifetime working with it that are able to determine what's important to preserve and in what context. Without these people an awful lot of important literature, art and architecture would be lost that tells a lot about who we are and what we went through.
It's fine to not see this as economically viable but it serves another purpose. Just like IT is a commitment to life long learning, a serious pursue in an art/humanities discipline with a suitable gig is a lifelong commitment to protect and embrace things from being devalued and destroyed.
Just think about the Uyghurs in China, they're being wiped out in a grand scale and their culture and heritage is about to be lost. Without humanities and art studies there wouldn't even be an attempt to try and preserve any of it for later generations to understand them as a society and what they went through.

I completely agree with all of the above.

While Notre Dame was on fire earlier this year, it was remarkable to see allegedly educated people saying "Who cares? It's just an old building." Zero appreciation of its historical, cultural, artistic, or architectural value.

Engineering, science, and so on, are valuable pursuits. But if we value only those disciplines, and regard literature, philosophy, and art as frivolous or pointless, we are headed down an anti-intellectual and nihilistic path.

Mezzotint · 14-11-2019 12:02pm

Pmacv1 wrote: »

Try using Google.

Try supporting your arguments with references.

(I just thought I'd try joining in with a bit of condescending sarcasm, since that seems to be the tone we're going for.)

LirW · 14-11-2019 12:09pm

Mad_maxx wrote: »

"gender studies" should not be taught in state subsidised institutions, nor should any other political ideologies

Controversial question: why not?
Because people have the picture it is full of 4th wave feminists that are building some resistance to wipe out men once and for all?
I had a compulsory gender studies module in course when I had my first attempt in college and it's a lot less "exciting" than you think.
It's a lot of history and sociology, analyses the role of women in the past and present, the role of men, how they changed and shifted, what problem each of them faces in different societies, it's a lot of sociology and some psychology and all of it quite centered on the 2 different sexes.
Of course it talks about LGBT too because this is a big part of it since these people face unique challenges because they're very much the opposition of societal norms we use for a long time, with no fault of their own (you hardly choose to be gay).

It's probably not how you imagine it and while it attracts a share of bollixes, it's a lot more unexciting than you'd think.
People with gender study degrees would for example be quite employable in the wider HR field because diversity is a big thing for a lot of companies.

tylercheribini · 14-11-2019 12:12pm

Pmacv1 wrote: »

Here's my list:

1. Gender Studies
2. English
3. Classics
4. Theology/Philosophy
5. Sociology

Honourable mention to Politics

Most useful:

1. Medicine
2. Computer Science
3. Physics/Chemistry
4. Engineering
5. Nursing

“Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.”
― Charles Dickens, Hard Times

Funny this was written around the time of our last Industrial Revolution.

nkl12xtw5goz70 · 14-11-2019 12:12pm

Pmacv1 wrote: »

The only way English/Philosophy will become useful is if all technology is destroyed and we end up in a post apocalyptic world with no electricity.

Should people study only things that are "useful"?

Should we teach "useless" subjects like English, history, and art in secondary school? Or just scrap the whole thing and focus exclusively on "useful" subjects?

Mezzotint · 14-11-2019 12:25pm

Well you've got the people who see university education as something that should be entirely utilitarian - a degree sausage factory that churns out obedient employees than are moulded to fit multinational companies' needs Vs those who see it as something far more fundamental to society, culture and knowledge development.

Generally, you'll never settle the argument.

Ficheall · 14-11-2019 12:26pm

Lorenzo Some Macaroon wrote: »

While Notre Dame was on fire earlier this year, it was remarkable to see allegedly educated people saying "Who cares? It's just an old building." Zero appreciation of its historical, cultural, artistic, or architectural value.

Interesting one. I was sad to see it on fire, but are our learned philosophers better placed than STEM students to speculate as to whether the ~billion raised for its restoration would have been better directed to the Amazon fires or the homeless?

tylercheribini · 14-11-2019 12:28pm

Mezzotint wrote: »

Well you've got the people who see university education as something that should be entirely utilitarian - a degree sausage factory that churns out obedient employees than are moulded to fit multinational companies' needs Vs those who see it as something far more fundamental to society, culture and knowledge development.

Generally, you'll never settle the argument.

Preach.

Cordell · 14-11-2019 12:31pm

LirW · 14-11-2019 12:31pm

Mezzotint wrote: »

Well you've got the people who see university education as something that should be entirely utilitarian - a degree sausage factory that churns out obedient employees than are moulded to fit multinational companies' needs Vs those who see it as something far more fundamental to society, culture and knowledge development.

Generally, you'll never settle the argument.

Correct, and it's that a lot of people are happy with being utilitarian and be trained in a way that directly translates into an industry job. Nothing wrong with it, it ensures financial security early on. They'll struggle to understand how people can't do it this way because all you have to do is grinding it out and you'll be grand.

And the other way around there are people in arts that are aware of the way they choose and content with it not being straight forward. They don't understand how the first group does it the way it does.

And in between you have people in all nuances adapting their own way out of it just the way it suits them. Some have no bother with arts but couldn't do it themselves.
There'll also always be people that completely jump ship because they didn't get what they wanted out of their initial chosen path.

Markcheese · 14-11-2019 12:38pm

Lorenzo Some Macaroon wrote: »

Should people study only things that are "useful"?

Should we teach "useless" subjects like English, history, and art in secondary school? Or just scrap the whole thing and focus exclusively on "useful" subjects?

Well there are degrees that lead directly down a path (I know usually to a masters), so the engineering, medicinal, sciences Ect....
And there are degrees that show you know get along... So you've picked your subjects, turned up for lectures, passed your exams, for 3 or 4 years and either done another subject that makes you employable or a masters that shows what you can do elsewhere, and are now provably employable... That's no bad thing..

tylercheribini · 14-11-2019 12:38pm

LirW wrote: »

Correct, and it's that a lot of people are happy with being utilitarian and be trained in a way that directly translates into an industry job. Nothing wrong with it, it ensures financial security early on. They'll struggle to understand how people can't do it this way because all you have to do is grinding it out and you'll be grand.

And the other way around there are people in arts that are aware of the way they choose and content with it not being straight forward. They don't understand how the first group does it the way it does.

And in between you have people in all nuances adapting their own way out of it just the way it suits them. Some have no bother with arts but couldn't do it themselves.
There'll also always be people that completely jump ship because they didn't get what they wanted out of their initial chosen path.

Begs the question though why private industry are being allowed to influence publicly funded third-level institutions into tailoring courses to their employment needs. Surely apprenticeship programmes in these fields would be far more advantageous for all?

Cordell · 14-11-2019 12:43pm

Mezzotint wrote: »

Well you've got the people who see university education as something that should be entirely utilitarian - a degree sausage factory that churns out obedient employees than are moulded to fit multinational companies' needs Vs those who see it as something far more fundamental to society, culture and knowledge development.

Generally, you'll never settle the argument.

Actually the OP question (which degree is the most useful) is quite easy to settle: the degrees that gives you good employment opportunities. All the other degrees are only useful to be hung over the fireplace (no danger of them being burned, fuel costs money).
If you want to study philosophy, you do it for your self improvement, the degree itself is quite useless.

Sunny Disposition · 14-11-2019 12:47pm

Pmacv1 wrote: »

Yeah, but the point is that everything I learned, I could have learned as a hobby, as opposed to causing expense to the tax payer. I mean I stopped going to lectures after 2nd year because they were pointless.

You can learn anything as a hobby is you want to, doesn't make it more or less valuable. Very hard believe the lectures were pointless, that they were not designed to increase students knowledge.

CrankyHaus · 14-11-2019 12:49pm

Both the blinkered STEMmers declaring that all other subjects have no value and those defending the liberal arts are a little bit right and a little bit wrong.

Liberal Arts and Humanities have considerable value. However there are simply not as many employment positions that require an education in them. Therefore in publicly funded education it is wasteful to have so many degrees and courses in them. It devalues the subjects themselves down to "something for people who don't know what they want to do but think they're supposed to go to college anyway". It shakes down the public purse for the benefit of a bloated further education industry (increasingly modelled on the grasping American example) and hoodwinks those young people by taking years of their most precious asset, time, and dumping them back out in the street with poor recompense. Less courses in these subjects would see them become more valued and in demand, with better career prospects for their less numerous graduates.

Education has a value beyond the utilitarian but the public funds have limits and are better directed first towards education of direct application. Leisurely pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake is more the preserve of the well off and subsidising their livestyle is a perverse inversion of the state's role in progressive redistribution of wealth.

Free education only exists because since the industrial revolution nations have needed an increasingly educated workforce. When 90% of people were farmers, hedge schools were good enough. Therefore public education was based on a utilitarian rationale, which should not be abandoned or disregarded.

What are the most useless/useful college degrees?

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