English not a "real" degree.

[Lunaticpoet]

I am at Unversity, and sometimes when I meet new people and they ask what degree I am studying, and I say 'English', I am then greeted with a grunt or a sneer or a sarcastic "Oh, so not a REAL degree then!".

Does anybody else experience this? Or am I just surrounded by idiots. :smile5: Perhaps they don't understand the concept and think that studying English means reading the dictionary and practising all the words.

There are some ridiculous degrees available to study these days, I could be doing a lot worse!

I do understand that with a lot of degrees, there is a promising career path that follows, yet with literature, there isn't anything quite as obvious and easy to walk in to, and I may have a struggle to find employment.

But at the end of the day, I love English literature, and I wouldn't have studied anything else.

Rant over :smilewinkgrin:

[Delta40]

I have the same response with Sociology!

[Lunaticpoet]

I have the same response with Sociology!

Quite annoying after a while isn't it!

Unless you study Mathematics or Physics etc, your degree is pointless, apparently... :rolleyes:

[OrphanPip]

When I was an undergrad and would tell people I was studying immunology, it would usually be met with blank stares. At least people know what English and sociology are.

To be honest though, over in the sciences we used to sneer at all the liberal arts.

[JuniperWoolf]

I've come across a lot of faculty-bashing at the U of A. I've heard as many arts students calling science students boring and pretentious as I have science students saying that arts students are wasting their time and that their PhD will get them a great job at a book store. It was funny for me, because I was both an arts student and a science student, so I had friends (well, really more "acquaintances") in both faculties. I was getting "so, what does somebody with an English degree actually do?" as often as I was "the thing about an arts degree is that you actually pursue what you love instead of just regurgitating facts for materialistic gain" (both, as you can see, are equally snooty).

What I noticed in my first year English course (it was about half science students, first year English is a requirement for all degrees) was that most of the science students sucked at English. Except for me and this one really cool math student, every other science student there despised English because they struggled with it. It's called "being down on what you're not up on," they hate it because they can't do it (kind of like how I hate math).

[Hurricane]

I'm a history major at a primarily engineering school so I'm pretty used to it, especially since all the dumb kids are English and history majors (mostly English).

I just wish people would stop assuming that all humanities majors used to major in something else and switched because they couldn't hack it. If I walk into one more class and get asked by the kid next to me:
"Oh, hi! This is my first history class, I used to be a MechE! What did you used to do? Aero?" I might punch him in the throat.

I enjoy history, I work very hard at it and I'm a pretty good student. I don't feel like I'm really missing out by not being up until three AM every night working on a physical chemistry problem set, because that's not enjoyable to me. If that's "up until two in the microfilm room," now we're in business.

[OrphanPip]

The one's we could all agree to hate together were the business majors. Total douche bags.

[Delta40]

To be honest though, over in the sciences we used to sneer at all the liberal arts.

lol. We sneer right back at ya!

[papayahed]

When I was an undergrad and would tell people I was studying immunology, it would usually be met with blank stares. At least people know what English and sociology are.

To be honest though, over in the sciences we used to sneer at all the liberal arts.

Yeah, we did too but in the nicest way of course.

Ir's a universal truth to poke fun at the other majors. I met a math major that liked nothing better then to put down ChemE's.

Shoot and ALL engineers dump on the civil engineers.


The one's we could all agree to hate together were the business majors. Total douche bags.

Agreed. (Except for Shal)

[Patrick_Bateman]

When i finish my History PhD I want a degree in English Literature for exactly the opposing reason, in that i believe it is the pinnacle of all undergraduate degrees and I love literature.

[Wilde woman]

Perhaps they don't understand the concept and think that studying English means reading the dictionary and practising all the words.

I can totally sympathize, since I come from an Asian-American family. In their eyes, there are only three legitimate careers: doctor, engineer, or lawyer...in that order. So when I was an undergrad and trying to decide between comparative literature and linguistics as my major, I got blank looks from everyone in my family. :rolleyes:

Now, as I pursue my doctorate in English, I'll still get random emails from uncles and cousins, asking me to proofread their essays or business letters "because you're an English major." As if that's what we do all day. But after long talks with my family, they're slightly appeased by the fact that I will be called "doctor" one day, which I find hilarious. :lol:


The one's we could all agree to hate together were the business majors. Total douche bags.

YES!! My roommate decided to major in business, after toying around with Poli Sci, and the more she hung out at the business school, the douchier she became.

[Delta40]

I am dumbstruck over sports degrees though...

[Hurricane]

We don't have a business major and the econ kids keep their heads down, so Poli Sci is the universally loathed whipping boy.

[Delta40]

I don't know about Uni's in the US but our system here in Oz the traditional tenure and educational doctrines are fast being replaced with a more corporate, business generating approach. The quality and consistency of degrees is apparent.

[JuniperWoolf]

At my school the phys-ed students were assumed to be the "dumbest." I thought that was unfair, they had to pass some anatomy and biochem classes as well as the general science requirements, so why should a general sciences student bash someone who has more difficult classes than they do? I think that it was because of the old "dumb jock" stereotype. Really shows you how ignorant most people are, and anyone who would judge someone else based on their field of study is pretty ignorant.

[Taliesin]

Quite annoying after a while isn't it!

Unless you study Mathematics or Physics etc, your degree is pointless, apparently... :rolleyes:

Hey, I study Mathematics (of the theoretical kind) and I have been also asked "What the hell are you going to do with a Mathematics degree?"

[JuniperWoolf]

Hey, I study Mathematics (of the theoretical kind) and I have been also asked "What the hell are you going to do with a Mathematics degree?"

Haha, my friend got it with a dental hygienist degree. "A degree as a dental hygienist? What the hell are you going to do with that?" Hmm, I wonder...

[Shalot]

Yeah, we did too but in the nicest way of course.

Ir's a universal truth to poke fun at the other majors. I met a math major that liked nothing better then to put down ChemE's.

Shoot and ALL engineers dump on the civil engineers.



Agreed. (Except for Shal)

aw that's sweet :)

I agree - business majors can be total douchewads. I will say most people I work with have degrees in something other than business as well so at least we've got some well-rounded douchebags...:->

[stlukesguild]

If English is not a "real" degree I hate to think what my degree in Art is.:eek:

[Madame X]

Art? Now isn’t that ADOOOOORABLE… :grouphug:

[blazeofglory]

English is a real degree and I bet those who have a master's degree are more mature than anyone with other degrees. I have a degree in Economics and English and yet I feel English made me more mature.

This is a pity that people have lower estimates of those have masters' degree in English. Reading great classics like Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, Maupassant, Dostoevsky, Russel and the like intensify your knowledge and intellectuality manifold

[OrphanPip]

Ya, but scientist and engineers actually do something useful ;).

[blazeofglory]

So do writers, poets, novelists and at times writers are great sources of inspirations. Writers are light bearers in society and have been able to root out the evils of society.

I am interested in economics and have a fair knowledge of economics, commerce yet no faculty, no disciplines make me so much engaged in life.
Literature is a incomparable discipline

[L.M. The Third]

Just yesterday I came across a blog by a science major, who stated,
"A scientist is admired for taking optional advanced humanities courses where you rarely see humanities students in introductory science courses and only if they are filling a science requirement for their degree. You would never expect to see a humanities student in an advanced science course."

http://liberalchemistry.blogspot.com/2010/10/well-rounded-chemist.html

Obviously there are exceptions, but are they scarce enough to justify this statement?

[OrphanPip]

I took a few classes in the humanities when I did my science degree. A couple English lit courses, a couple philosophy courses, and a course in Western music history. Although, my program also had an integrated bioethics course taught in our department.

Edit: There were a handful of humanities classes that everyone took simply because they were easy As and good for padding the GPA.

[blazeofglory]

Of course we can enjoy multiple disciplines at the same time and we have capacities for different and at times diverse disciplines. And of course literature can fuel our imagination more than the sciences. The humanities look up and the sciences

[OrphanPip]

I'm not sure literature fuels our imaginations all that much.

There has long been a rhetoric in the arts surrounding the negative aspects of science, a rhetoric scientist only rarely participate in directly. Over the years there has developed a perception of science as narrow minded, conservative, stingy, and boring. When in reality, science is always at the foreground of new knowledge, of new understanding, of generating new capabilities and opportunities for everyone.

I'd wager it's the humanities that dwell on navel gazing when it's the scientist who are out there opening up new possibilities.

[Hurricane]

Just yesterday I came across a blog by a science major, who stated,
"A scientist is admired for taking optional advanced humanities courses where you rarely see humanities students in introductory science courses and only if they are filling a science requirement for their degree. You would never expect to see a humanities student in an advanced science course."

http://liberalchemistry.blogspot.com/2010/10/well-rounded-chemist.html

Obviously there are exceptions, but are they scarce enough to justify this statement?

I think that's pretty fair. Because of the nature of my school and what I want to do, I've taken or will take--as a history major--2 semesters of chemistry, 2 semesters of physics, 2 semesters of electrical engineering, 3 semesters of calculus plus an additional semester of statistics, and 2 additional engineering class (principles of aeronautics or ship design and principles of propulsion). Though the engineering classes are slightly "dumbed down" and don't go quite as fast as the engineering major versions, they're still pretty fricken' hard. (I'll add that all students, regardless of major, have to take 3 history, 2 English and several law/ethics courses as well as all of that math up there).

But, that's really unusual. I'm not complaining because frankly I think I'm getting a more well-rounded and better education, but I'm really the only person out of my group of friends from high school doing a program like that. It's possible to go to very prestigious colleges, major in the humanities, and never take anything much harder in the maths/sciences than the courses the author of that blog was talking about..."science and society." Really??
A lot of my friends also validated out of the math or science requirement because of Advanced Placement tests taken in high school, which is kind of crap...having taken chemistry/physics at both the high school and college levels, there's a big difference between the two.

I wouldn't have taken all those classes above without being forced to, and my GPA would sure be a lot higher if I hadn't, but I feel like I got a better education because I had to step outside of my comfort zone and learn new kinds of problem solving and thinking.

Also: What OrphanPip said.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I'm not sure literature fuels our imaginations all that much.

There has long been a rhetoric in the arts surrounding the negative aspects of science, a rhetoric scientist only rarely participate in directly. Over the years there has developed a perception of science as narrow minded, conservative, stingy, and boring. When in reality, science is always at the foreground of new knowledge, of new understanding, of generating new capabilities and opportunities for everyone.

I'd wager it's the humanities that dwell on navel gazing when it's the scientist who are out there opening up new possibilities.

Ha.


What profit if this scientific age
Burst through our gates with all its retinue
Of modern miracles! Can it assuage
One lover's breaking heart? what can it do
To make one life more beautiful, one day
More godlike in its period?

:prrr: :ciappa:

Now that's enough intellectualism for me today!

[OrphanPip]

Now that's enough intellectualism for me today!

Yet, I would venture, the poetry of Wilde has never cured any child of leprosy. ;)

[JuniperWoolf]

I can see this conversation teetering on the edge of the dreaded faculty war.


What profit if this scientific age
Burst through our gates with all its retinue
Of modern miracles! Can it assuage
One lover's breaking heart? what can it do
To make one life more beautiful, one day
More godlike in its period?

I can think of more than a couple of drugs that scientists have cooked up which can do all of these things and more. :p

[stlukesguild]

Yet, I would venture, the poetry of Wilde has never cured any child of leprosy.

Nor vaporized 100,000 through the practical application of nuclear physics.

[OrphanPip]

Yet, I would venture, the poetry of Wilde has never cured any child of leprosy.

Nor vaporized 100,000 through the practical application of nuclear physics.

Hmm, but I don't think any nuclear physics text book ever put the notion into anyone's head that there was a need for large scale global conflict. Science is the greatest tool for giving humanity the opportunities to do great good, and a good deal of harm as well. Yet, the persistent attempt by critics of science to place blame for negative uses of technology at the feet of scientist is rather weak. Where did the will to drop the bomb come from? When we as a society value humanity, science is the greatest tool we have to improve the lives of people, and it has benefited far more people than it has harmed. Even with the massive casualties of WWII, it is a mere fraction, per capita, of the death toll the plague caused regularly. Merely a fraction of a fraction of neonatal deaths that used to occur before modern medicine.

What good has poetry really done on a tangible level? I love poetry, but I hardly accept the claims of Blaze that it is a great shaker and mover, or really all that great a tool of progress. It was forever a pass time of that small handful of people who made up the leisurely classes, now it's a pass time for a handful of the bourgeoisie.

[The Comedian]

If English is not a "real" degree I hate to think what my degree in Art is.:eek:

Yep. . . your degree is just painted on. ;) Couldn't help it. . . .

And for the record. English is very much a real degree. I have a degree in it. Two degrees in it actually. And I have a job. And I still read literature. And write about it. And chat about it with other geekily inclined people on the internet.

It's psychology that's not a real degree, by the way. . . ;)

[stlukesguild]

Hmm, but I don't think any nuclear physics text book ever put the notion into anyone's head that there was a need for large scale global conflict. Science is the greatest tool for giving humanity the opportunities to do great good, and a good deal of harm as well. Yet, the persistent attempt by critics of science to place blame for negative uses of technology at the feet of scientist is rather weak. Where did the will to drop the bomb come from? When we as a society value humanity, science is the greatest tool we have to improve the lives of people, and it has benefited far more people than it has harmed. Even with the massive casualties of WWII, it is a mere fraction, per capita, of the death toll the plague caused regularly. Merely a fraction of a fraction of neonatal deaths that used to occur before modern medicine.

Sounds like an apologist for the NRA: "Guns don't kill people, People kill people."

[LitNetIsGreat]

I can see this conversation teetering on the edge of the dreaded faculty war.

No, I'm not going there. I stated my full philosophical and intellectual position yesterday with a cheeky bum smiley. That's about as far as I am going to go. I am not going to get drawn into this one...

[Taliesin]

What profit if this scientific age
Burst through our gates with all its retinue
Of modern miracles! Can it assuage
One lover's breaking heart? what can it do
To make one life more beautiful, one day
More godlike in its period?


This. For example.

In 1925 Werner Heisenberg was working in Göttingen on the problem of calculating the spectral lines of hydrogen. By May 1925 he began trying to describe atomic systems by observables only. On June 7, to escape the effects of a bad attack of hay fever, Heisenberg left for the pollen free North Sea island of Heligoland. While there, in between climbing and learning by heart poems from Goethe's West-östlicher Diwan, he continued to ponder the spectral issue and eventually realised that adopting non-commuting observables might solve the problem, and he later wrote[1]
"It was about three o' clock at night when the final result of the calculation lay before me. At first I was deeply shaken. I was so excited that I could not think of sleep. So I left the house and awaited the sunrise on the top of a rock."


from here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_mechanics)
I have always found this little story amazingly beautiful.

[Hurricane]

Sounds like an apologist for the NRA: "Guns don't kill people, People kill people."

Well...yeah....

[OrphanPip]

Sounds like an apologist for the NRA: "Guns don't kill people, People kill people."

Pssh, that's rather trite. A good way to hand wave away not actually acknowledging the fact that science does good, and tangible good at that. As if humans have no responsibility for the way they use things.

My initial goal in starting this was to attack the myth of the humanities as some special privileged root towards achieving contentedness or doing good in the world. It's nonsense, it's a self-aggrandizing motto people in the humanities repeat to themselves without any real critical assessment. Just as their attacks on science stand on a weak foundation of presumptions about, and misunderstandings of, science.

Science is a tool, and it is the greatest tool humanity has at its disposal to really understand the world around us. To achieve real improvements of quality of life.

It is not cold and impassionate, a la Star Trek Vulcans, as can be seen in Tal's example, or even in the words of biologist J.B.S. Haldane: "I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." Scientist are filled with a passion for understanding, for the work they do.

It is not inherently inhumane, as the foundations of humanitarian science has been around as far back as the writings of Francis Bacon.

It is not the root of all evil, as for every bad use of technology we can come up with twice as many positive uses.

Anyway, I'll extend the olive branch, art and science need not be in contention. Here are Robert Hooke's illustrations of some of the earliest observations made by human beings with microscopes.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15491/15491-h/images/scheme-12.png

http://www.she-philosopher.com/images/gallery/exhibits/fly%28900x1387%29.jpg

http://www.she-philosopher.com/images/gallery/exhibits/spider%28910x1422%29.gif

[Gladys]

I say 'English', I am then greeted with a grunt or a sneer or a sarcastic "Oh, so not a REAL degree then!

The discipline would benefit from a strict application of scientific method. The reputation of English Literature qualifications has suffered from decades of self-absorbed nonsense about Freud and an ongoing fetish with Marxist and feminist readings.

How about a more empirical, evidence-based approach to English Literature?

[blazeofglory]

I like all disciplines of literature and everything in it intrigues me. Literature helps me understand life better and it make me complete in life and no other disciplines can surrogates it

[LitNetIsGreat]

The discipline would benefit from a strict application of scientific method. The reputation of English Literature qualifications has suffered from decades of self-absorbed nonsense about Freud and an ongoing fetish with Marxist and feminist readings.

How about a more empirical, evidence-based approach to English Literature?

There has been a leaning towards the likes of Marx, Freud and feminist reading in recentish years and despite some readings perhaps going too far, you can't say the whole approach is free from textual evidence. I have only ever seen theory as opening up new possibilities and not closing them down. What is annoying is the amount of hatred which seems to exist towards biographical detail. At times it can be very difficult to bring biographical detail into an argument without getting your fingers a little slapped.

In terms of science Vs art, personally I think that you need to be studying something that interests you, something that you feel passionate about. If that is art, science, IT or whatever then you should follow that through. I started life as a teen "studying" science, but came away from it with little more than a lot of extended hangovers. I certainly lost interest in science pretty quickly. Perhaps that was the age as much as the subject, but I think it was more the case that learning facts and labels given to plant structure etc, did little for me. Thank goodness I found a few books laying around.

[Petrarch's Love]

The discipline would benefit from a strict application of scientific method. The reputation of English Literature qualifications has suffered from decades of self-absorbed nonsense about Freud and an ongoing fetish with Marxist and feminist readings.

How about a more empirical, evidence-based approach to English Literature?

I'll start here. To begin with, Gladys, I do agree with you that literary studies across the past several decades has become so scattered and theoretical that it has lost a sense of center and a clear and cohesive sense of how we as literary scholars and enthusiasts contribute to the world. That said, I emphatically disagree with those that suggest that therefore what we need is to make literary study more "empirical and evidence-based" in the sense that it should emulate the scientific approach.

Now, I have absolutely nothing against the scientific approach (see my response to OrphanPip below). Indeed, I think that it is vital and important for people to develop the sort of skills and thinking that courses in the sciences provide for them. This is, in fact, part of the reason that I disagree that the humanities should move explicitly in an empirical direction. The sciences already provide students with rich empirically based studies. Our society already values, praises and (when they fund education at all) funds empirical and evidence based study. This is not something our educational system lacks. What it would lack, what it is in danger of lacking, without the study of the humanities, is an approach that takes the human factor into serious consideration. The humanities serves an important purpose in giving students a space in which to wrestle with the messy, non-empirical side of life. It provides a space in which people are encouraged, even demanded to reflect upon and question themselves, others, the culture they come from and the cultures they interact with.

As Orphan Pip rightly pointed out, scientific education will teach someone how to develop a new technology or make a discovery that can change the way we see the world. A scientific education on its own will not address the human minds and hearts that are producing and using that new discovery or technology. It will never make people, including the scientists themselves, stop to reflect on what science has done in the past and how this has affected human lives, or make them think through different possible scenarios as to how this discovery will be received by people, how they will react to it, what they will do with it, what it will mean on an emotional or irrational level in the world of human beings. That process of reflecting, imagining, questioning how people act is not something that science as a study does for us. It is something that the humanities do for us. This is not to say, as a few rather desperate defenders of the humanities may claim, that the study of literature and art is the great answer to peace on earth and a perfectly functioning society, any more than science is. What it does mean is that it serves a valuable purpose in that it makes people think about people and the way they think and feel and act in a very serious and intensive way, something that is incredibly important to any society. When people stop even attempting to recognize and contemplate the non-empirical component of our lives, this leaves them just as vulnerably ignorant as they would be without some understanding of logic and hard evidence.

This does not, of course, mean that scientists are not people who think about moral or human issues. It does mean that these issues are not the main focus and center of their work. Scientific pursuit may produce things that touch the human spirit, and the impetus to begin and continue such pursuit may be (almost certainly is) driven by the passions and emotions of a very human scientist, but the understanding of these passions (at least in a non biological or neurological sense) is not the goal of that scientist. Nor should it be. There are many situations and applications for which it is absolutely essential that the method and focus for inquiry should be as empirical and objective as possible. That is why we need a space for that kind of inquiry, and we also need a space in which those parts of us and of our experience that are not well served or well explained by an approach that strives to be purely quantitative and objective can benefit from a different approach.

I am also not suggesting that students should just sit around and contemplate what they feel, that any willy nilly theory about what a text means should be held up as gospel etc. Certainly literary study (or the study of art or history or any other humanities related field) needs to have some sort of structure in place, some logical boundaries, some critical thinking skills for looking at textual evidence, rhetoric and so on. The ability, not just to understand or feel something from what we read, but to process and analyze it is another important part of what the humanities have to offer. But this is a very different sort of analysis, a different sort of evidence, a different set of conclusions than the empiricism of the sciences, which is the very reason that it is important to keep it in place.

I agree that the humanities has dropped the ball in the last few decades. We have been guilty to a large extent of being distracted by internal debates and of not promoting and articulating what the valuable things humanities fields have to offer. This will change if I have anything to say about it. :D


Pssh, that's rather trite. A good way to hand wave away not actually acknowledging the fact that science does good, and tangible good at that. As if humans have no responsibility for the way they use things.

My initial goal in starting this was to attack the myth of the humanities as some special privileged root towards achieving contentedness or doing good in the world. It's nonsense, it's a self-aggrandizing motto people in the humanities repeat to themselves without any real critical assessment. Just as their attacks on science stand on a weak foundation of presumptions about, and misunderstandings of, science.

Science is a tool, and it is the greatest tool humanity has at its disposal to really understand the world around us. To achieve real improvements of quality of life.

It is not cold and impassionate, a la Star Trek Vulcans, as can be seen in Tal's example, or even in the words of biologist J.B.S. Haldane: "I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." Scientist are filled with a passion for understanding, for the work they do.

It is not inherently inhumane, as the foundations of humanitarian science has been around as far back as the writings of Francis Bacon.

It is not the root of all evil, as for every bad use of technology we can come up with twice as many positive uses.

Anyway, I'll extend the olive branch, art and science need not be in contention. Here are Robert Hooke's illustrations of some of the earliest observations made by human beings with microscopes.


OrphanPip--I think I've responded to part of your post in my response to Gladys above. Thanks for the Hooke illustrations. I think that they are where we need to begin (I don't reproduce them in my quote only for reasons of space). In the period I study and that Hooke emerged from the term "science" was the term for knowledge of all kinds--study of people, of politics, of the natural world--and I think that people in the modern academy would do well to remember that and to remember that both what we now term the sciences and the humanities have a lot more in common than people often suggest. There is a lot of creativity and imagination at work in the best mathematics and scientific work, just as really good humanistic study, as I briefly suggested in my response above, does require a certain degree of logical analysis and dispassionate distance to succeed. Frankly, I think both sides are being amazingly stupid when they attack one another. It keeps us so busy picking at one another that we are less apt to notice when the results of such infighting are that education in general takes a hit and less likely to band together to fight for our common goals in promoting well rounded education that will help our society continue to innovate and prosper. In the process of trying to sort out who is better we may eventually find this to be a case of "divided we fall."

Additionally, we are missing out on a lot when we don't talk to one another across the sciences and the humanities. The modern day undergraduate who either does nothing but bury herself in bio-chem classes or does nothing but take courses with titles like "Art in Abstraction" or "Deconstructing Paintings with Foucoult" will never become a Robert Hooke by remaining exclusively in either of those worlds. Many of the brightest people, the best inventions, tend to come from some sort of middle ground between strictly quantitative and strictly artistic grounds. To deprive our students, our people of either of these essential components is to deprive them of the potential to invent and create the things that we most need and desire.

[Petrarch's Love]

I am at Unversity, and sometimes when I meet new people and they ask what degree I am studying, and I say 'English', I am then greeted with a grunt or a sneer or a sarcastic "Oh, so not a REAL degree then!".

Does anybody else experience this? Or am I just surrounded by idiots. :smile5: Perhaps they don't understand the concept and think that studying English means reading the dictionary and practising all the words.

There are some ridiculous degrees available to study these days, I could be doing a lot worse!

I do understand that with a lot of degrees, there is a promising career path that follows, yet with literature, there isn't anything quite as obvious and easy to walk in to, and I may have a struggle to find employment.

But at the end of the day, I love English literature, and I wouldn't have studied anything else.

Rant over :smilewinkgrin:

To return to the OP. Next time you get told your major isn't real, try one of these:

1) "Doesn't get much more real than sex and death in this life. That's what my major covers. How about yours?" (Say this with both conviction and passionate intensity. Extra points for looking and sounding slightly mad while putting a gleeful emphasis on the terms "sex and death." One way or another they'll leave you alone.)

2) "Yes, I've enrolled in the imaginary faculty of the university and it's the best decision I ever made. Now that I'm not a real person, I worry much less about being hit by motor vehicles."

3) (When the person is unusually egregious and/or has the gall to suggest that the pursuit of economic study is in some way more down to earth and connected to reality than the study of fiction.) "Want to come down to the basement? I hear there's a big keg of this great wine, a nice Amontillado, down there." (If you haven't read Bradbury's "Usher II", it will give you some comfort...and some ideas.)

4) Immediately commence reciting Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (This will do nothing to make your tormentors stop, but might make you feel better. You can do the intro. to Paradise Lost or any excerpt from Hamlet you have memorized to equal effect).

5) "Yes, you're so right. My major is so cool, it's unreal." (Extra points for saying this with such naive seeming misinterpretation that the person is ashamed to correct you.)

6) (When you really want everyone, including your fellow lit. majors, to clear the room). "What is real? Isn't reality just a product of our own perception? What would Nietzsche say?" Then begin spewing quotes from increasingly dense philosophers, preferably, when applicable, in the original French, German or Russian.

7) Smile indulgently at your interlocutor and make a small note of his or her name and some essential features about his or her person and personality for later use when you write your best selling novel, a modern interpretation of Dante's Inferno.

[drago]

Where would any other degree be if not for English?

[Silas Thorne]

Huh? I thought there were other languages too, other literary traditions.;)
3 hours sleep today, excuse me if I don't get the point. It has since left the page.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

At my school the phys-ed students were assumed to be the "dumbest." I thought that was unfair, they had to pass some anatomy and biochem classes as well as the general science requirements, so why should a general sciences student bash someone who has more difficult classes than they do? I think that it was because of the old "dumb jock" stereotype. Really shows you how ignorant most people are, and anyone who would judge someone else based on their field of study is pretty ignorant.

Maybe it's different at your school, but the phys-ed majors at mine were the loudest, most arrogant group of a-holes of all education fields. I don't believe in the old joke, "Those who can't do teach, and those who can't teach teach P.E." but the ones at my school didn't help their case.

And what's with this science or literature argument? I've always thought of the two as closely entwined. Those who seem to reject science (I won't name groups) will also reject literature, often on moral grounds.

[Gladys]

The humanities serves an important purpose in giving students a space in which to wrestle with the messy, non-empirical side of life. It provides a space in which people are encouraged, even demanded to reflect upon and question themselves, others, the culture they come from and the cultures they interact with.

Is the best approach to this side of life really non-empirical? That the humanities have tended to adopt this approach is merely indicative of pervasive and unfortunate prejudice. Reflection is fundamental to both scientific research and literary studies but the products of such reflection, if gainful, need to rest squarely on demonstrable empirical evidence rather than self-indulgent and untestable theory.


A scientific education on its own will not address the human minds and hearts that are producing and using that new discovery or technology. It will never make people, including the scientists themselves, stop to reflect on what science has done in the past…

I am not advocating a scientific education for Arts practitioners but more of a scientific approach to the humanities, and literary studies in particular. Much of my inspiration in these matters comes from the awesome rigour of the Danish philosopher/psychologist/theologian, Soren Kierkegaard.


When people stop even attempting to recognize and contemplate the non-empirical component of our lives, this leaves them just as vulnerably ignorant as they would be without some understanding of logic and hard evidence.

I see no dichotomy between human passions and emotions and logic and hard evidence. Why speculate idly on any matter where evidence is lacking?


The ability, not just to understand or feel something from what we read, but to process and analyze it is another important part of what the humanities have to offer. But this is a very different sort of analysis, a different sort of evidence, a different set of conclusions than the empiricism of the sciences, which is the very reason that it is important to keep it in place.

The humanities have indeed carried out a very different sort of analysis based on different sort of evidence to reach a different set of conclusions, conclusions that are often idiotically speculative. Literary criticism, for instance, would do well to set itself more limited and achievable goals and, in so doing, restrict itself to analyses of the evidence akin to those favoured by scientists.

In practice, of course, even in science, we see frequent failure to conform to the rigours of scientific method. Were the humanities to do better, English may one day be perceived as a "real" degree.

[LitNetIsGreat]

The humanities have indeed carried out a very different sort of analysis based on different sort of evidence to reach a different set of conclusions, conclusions that are often idiotically speculative. Literary criticism, for instance, would do well to set itself more limited and achievable goals and, in so doing, restrict itself to analyses of the evidence akin to those favoured by scientists.

In practice, of course, even in science, we see frequent failure to conform to the rigours of scientific method. Were the humanities to do better, English may one day be perceived as a "real" degree.

I can’t agree. You can’t impose the “rigours of the scientific method” to literature because it is not a science. With art and literature we are in the realm of opinion and feeling, not hard, factual evidence. Yes, arguments are developed from evidence from the text, but, as ever, this is often open to interpretation on whatever level and it is often feeling/instinct which is at the root of any interpretation anyway.

In terms of English being perceived as a “real” degree; I don’t for much care what others perceive English to be or not to be, it’s what it means to me that matters. Certainly, I wouldn’t care to alter the whole approach to literature just to suit the odd voice from a differing faculty.

[ReadAll]

That's utter rubbish. We're just artistic and cultured and value the works of geniuses as if they were gold nuggets (http://www.postalgold.ie/gold-ingots). So there.

[JuniperWoolf]

The humanities have indeed carried out a very different sort of analysis based on different sort of evidence to reach a different set of conclusions, conclusions that are often idiotically speculative. Literary criticism, for instance, would do well to set itself more limited and achievable goals and, in so doing, restrict itself to analyses of the evidence akin to those favoured by scientists.

In practice, of course, even in science, we see frequent failure to conform to the rigours of scientific method. Were the humanities to do better, English may one day be perceived as a "real" degree.

:( Stop that now, putting down other faculties is just a pathetic way to boost your own self-esteem. There are great things being done in all faculties by very bright individuals, all of which deserve your respect rather than ridicule based on nothing more than their area of study.

[1n50mn14]

I think English is a real degree- for those who are pursuing it as a passion and a way of life and future career. But there are people out there who will pursue an English major just because it is an 'easy' degree to get, and they want a University degree.

[1n50mn14]

Also, Petrarch- fantastic response! I literally laughed out loud ;)

[Gladys]

You can’t impose the “rigours of the scientific method” to literature because it is not a science.

It should evolve to become one.


With art and literature we are in the realm of opinion and feeling, not hard, factual evidence ... it is often feeling/instinct which is at the root of any interpretation anyway.

So also with much of science, at least, until its better interpretations accumulate the evidence of many decades. For instance, 75% of medical research, published in the best journals and implemented in medical practice, is discredited in subsequent decades.


There are great things being done in all faculties by very bright individuals

Of course. :smile5:

[kelby_lake]

People should study what they enjoy and what they're good at. Anybody who thinks they're superior because of what course they study is deluded.

Drama gets a worse rep. This course-bashing occurs because there are very few people who are adept at both science and the arts.

[a4et2n]

People should study what they enjoy and what they're good at. Anybody who thinks they're superior because of what course they study is deluded.

Drama gets a worse rep. This course-bashing occurs because there are very few people who are adept at both science and the arts.

Key word there is should. Unfortunately, some careers do tend to make more money than others or are perceived as more prestigious.

I hear stories about violinists on the East Coast (USA) who are practically worshiped, whereas on my side of the country, the only talent worth praising is brilliance at math and (if you're lucky) physics.

[tonywalt]

I think if you major/choose a career in something you do not like you will be "real" sorry. Best to stick to what you have a passion for and the hell with everyone else:wink5:

[DocHeart]

Okay, I'm going to be the voice of neo-liberalism here and, in true corporate communications fashion, offer the following two bullets:

- No degree is a non-degree. Whatever you study, if you do it properly, you learn research and analysis; you experience understanding, and you practise execution in a disciplined manner. All of this, by the way, is up to you personally. You can be an MIT tosser, and you can be a genius at the University of Nothingtown.

- No degree is a degree that will get you a career. A job, maybe. For a while. But to have an actual career, to do well in what you do and to add value to an employer's business, you have to have professionalism. In my advanced years I have come to think that professionalism is a talent rather than a taught craft, and you either have it or you don't.

Regards,
DH

[faithosaurus]

I am at Unversity, and sometimes when I meet new people and they ask what degree I am studying, and I say 'English', I am then greeted with a grunt or a sneer or a sarcastic "Oh, so not a REAL degree then!".

Does anybody else experience this? Or am I just surrounded by idiots. :smile5: Perhaps they don't understand the concept and think that studying English means reading the dictionary and practising all the words.

There are some ridiculous degrees available to study these days, I could be doing a lot worse!

I do understand that with a lot of degrees, there is a promising career path that follows, yet with literature, there isn't anything quite as obvious and easy to walk in to, and I may have a struggle to find employment.

But at the end of the day, I love English literature, and I wouldn't have studied anything else.

Rant over :smilewinkgrin:

I think English is a great degree. I know I'd never be able to do it.

[Shalot]

I am an English major and I think that English is a fine degree. The school I attended offered different concentrations in technical writing, creative writing, literature, and linguistics and each concentration required a specified number of hours in each course. My university wasn't the most distinguised liberal arts college in any region that I'm aware of, but it was close to home, and was affordable I guess, and I am a better person for having attended. I am grateful for the professors I was blessed to have with their interesting and thought-provoking lectures. I do not have a job directly related to the coursework I completed, (I am an "accountant") but I do have something to offer to my employer as a direct result of having completed the coursework required of an English major. My immediate supervisor called it an organizational skill, and he emphasized the word "skill" in his assessment of my performance on the job.

If you've read some of my other posts, you might come to the conclusion that I am a bad respresentative of that degree. I am an admittedly lazy student and that comes through in a lot of my posts here on litnet and I am not the most sophisticated English major in the current workforce, but I am employed. My job title is "accountant" and I work with many people who could use a few English courses, and not just because they weren't too sure about where that apostrophe should have gone (or "should have went" as they would have said :p).

As an accountant, I have witnessed dollars lost as a direct result of poor communication. Specifically, it was an email, or a series of emails, sent without an appropriate subject line. It sounds silly, but an English major would know the importance of this. I have also seen dollars lost as a direct result of poor document design and layout. Any English major who pursued a concrentation in technical communication, could envision this, and would have taken the steps beforehand to prevent the loss of those dollars. Those are just two examples of why English is a degree worthy of study that I can think of right now, but I know there are more, and those reasons go beyond the dollars-and-cents reasons I gave. My concentration was in technical communication, so my examples are related to the topics I focused on the most in school.

Now, one last thing. A lot of people assume that I know how to spell every word that ever was because I have an English degree. I just want to state that I was not required to memorize the dictionary as a requirement for my degree so I don't know how to spell every word that ever was. An accounting major is not required to memorize Title 26 of the US Code before he/she gets his/her CPA license so why should an English major memorize the dictionary, which changes year to year, almost the way the tax code changes, (but maybe not as much). Just sayin.

I feel like I need to wrap up this little essay, but Family Guy is on and I've missed some so I need to go. :)

[Darcy88]

Philosophy gets even tougher treatment than english. When I was planning on majoring in philosophy I'd get countless blank stares and baffled questions. Some people didn't even know what philosophy was. They'd say with a tone of sheer incredulity "so what then, you want to be a philosopher?" Now that I've switched to english I still get it but much less. Whatever anyone has to say about the humanities, its certain that a degree in philosophy or english or history will help you to acquire three priceless skills - the ability to read and to think and to write.

[stlukesguild]

Philosophy gets even tougher treatment than english. When I was planning on majoring in philosophy I'd get countless blank stares and baffled questions. Some people didn't even know what philosophy was. They'd say with a tone of sheer incredulity "so what then, you want to be a philosopher?" Now that I've switched to english I still get it but much less. Whatever anyone has to say about the humanities, its certain that a degree in philosophy or english or history will help you to acquire three priceless skills - the ability to read and to think and to write.

Yep. I can see convincing others (or even yourself) of the practical value of a degree in philosophy might be even more challenging than selling others on a degree in art.

[ralfyman]

A degree is usually any major that requires research, preferably leading to a senior paper and/or a licensure exam.