To think that the sciences are taken more seriously than the arts?

[toptramp]

I did love science at school. Well Chemistry and Biology but my maths was shite so decided to drop Chemistry at a-level and took Biology a language and English. I now have a degree in the arts but I think I would be taken more seriously and earn more if I had stuck with Chemistry a-level and got a science degree instead. I do love Biology but I love my degree subject so much taht I'm glad I did it.

I guess scientists and related professions do a great service to humanity(generally but not always) so they should be rewarded. But the world would be a poorer place without the arts.

"Plenty of jobs depend on the ability to digest large quantities of written material, analysing underlying causes of events and verbalising this to others."

Cory - I agree with you, but I think that those transversal skills of analysis, synthesis and evaluation are gained in many sorts of degrees (and honed in many sorts of careers) and that one often needs some specialist knowledge about the modern world (often science or mathematics based) for career purposes.

I have been weighing up this same dilemma. I have done a BA in Early Years with the Open University and I am hopefully just about to pass the final module. I have discovered that I can either claim it as a BA Early Years (which is relevent to my job), or a BSc Open (which my father says will be more respected).

Can't decide.

Possibly TheJoyful: I intended to teach but family life got in the way so people need options as well.

Having a BA and watching DH do his BSc I wouldn't say the material he has is much harder tbh but that might just be because it interests me. However am prett sure that varies between subjects anyway- the philosophy part of my degree drove me to tears frequently and I could never manage a chemistry degree (I like physics and was top girl in my year but was told to stop the GCSE and take textiles as I was a girl, thank goodness times have changed!)

HSMM talk to employers- I know my sister (manages a chain of nurseries) would want the BA Early years as she has it and would know what it entailed but long term you could have very different palns

Bonsoir, I agree that more science/maths skilled people would be a very desirable thing - I was just commenting on the fact that our undergraduates tend to do very well in the employment market.

I agree with bonsoir about lots of degrees teaching you (if they teach you well) the same sorts of skills. Bizarrely (it seems to me!) masses of people who studied Classics or English with DH work in computers now. I don't know why exactly, but they seem happy and say that their degrees taught them the right skills somehow!

No, I think its fairly obvious to the non-idiot as well.

Science degrees on the whole are harder to get into, requiring higher grades in tougher subjects. Arts degrees are easier to get into, with lower grades needed, and easier to blag ones way through. Some Arts degrees are difficult and of high quality, but a lot are not. This is not a comment on the intelligence or ability of those doing either though, so be careful of assuming too much.
I've done both, and I am an academic, so not entirely idiotic.

That is not true, though, is it?

At the highest levels, the grades you need for, say, English at Cambridge and Natural Sciences at Cambridge look to me to be the same. So too down through the Russell group. Sure, Media-Studies with Arabic Poetry (BA) courses at Little Watting University probably dn't ask high grades, but nor do Agricultural Sciences and Estate Management (BSc) at Little Watting. I don't believe it's an Arts/Sciences divide.

I admit, I am arguing this as a polemicist!

It's just always struck me as so silly when people say they 'know' because they've done both - well, duh! We all did both at some level, didn't we? And then we either dropped the ones we found too hard and couldn't do, or the ones we found too easy and boring. In short, we are self-selected Arts or Sciences students. It'd only be in a system where people are assigned to subjects according to the need for people educated in that subject (People's Republic of China?) that you'd begin to get a sense of which is really 'harder'.

The whole notion that science grads save the world is also pretty silly really: some do. My ExP, otoh, who ahs a maths degree from York, is doubtless s till filing in the basement of a law ofice for an 'easy life'. He took Maths over Spanish becuase it was easier to him, he actually prefferd Spanish but had to work at it and that was unthinkable seemingly.

Unless you know what a degree constitutes it is hard to value it correctly. DHs has been sneered at on here becuase of it's title (though BSc) but actually it's a complex form of electrical engineering. My first degree otoh hassome people looking at me as if I am a future Nietzsche- er no, I mainly studied Buddhism and slavery (my own choice). Found it annoyingly easy tbh. The MA not so much, class word fine but have a research study to conduct, even if it does have a A suffix I still have to deal with the dreaded uni stats package.

Anyway in tese times of vocational degrees it's somewhat a redundant debate- I have flatly refused to allow DS1 to take on 'soft' subjects or drop 'hard' ones (he is in a specialist school so can drop 2 GCSEs if he chooses, we only agreed on Welsh) but his career aim is very specific and requires an Arts degree, a science one would be useless to gim.

peachy - 'I mainly studied Buddhism and slavery' - that sounds like a wonderful combination!

I'm not having a down on scientists, honestly I'm not. I just think they do deserve recognition that there's a whole lot of subjects come under the (arbitary) categorisation of 'science' and doesn't all have immediate practical relevance. Nor should it.

Well actually I meant I have an arts degree and a science degree, seperately, but thats neither here nor there. And most people don't go to Cambridge, so its little use having that as your main example.

Its not at all that science is objectively better, or arts inherently soft, not at all. IT is true though that if you are talking generally about degree courses, that most science requires more than most arts subjects. More points, more qualifications, more work. This is not a secret.

Bizarrely (it seems to me!) masses of people who studied Classics or English with DH work in computers now

My undergrad was in history. I then became a Chartered Accountant/ The Big 4 firms don't care what your degree is in, providing its a proper subject, although bizarrely they're really not keen on accounting degrees

Yes, I assumed that was what you meant. It's quite normal, isn't it? My mate did English and is now doing Medicine, and most of his classmates on the course (a special one for people who've already done one undergraduate degree) are mostly Arts students.

Cambridge wasn't my main example, sorry if it came across that way. I was saying that I think the differences in grades required have much more to do with the university and the specific subject, than the broad Arts-Sciences divide. It's not a 'secret' sciences require more - it's just plain wrong.

Ella LMAO

(did independent module on Buddhism as thought about Buddhism MA, still might do it one day but for fun; salvery was dissertation)

A few courses at my old university were both BSc/BA. You chose which one you were awarded at the end, even though the course content was the same.

Most chose BSc because they felt it looked better to employers.

Perhaps in your experience, not in mine. In my country we use a points system that makes it far more transparent than yours. Sciences need more points than Arts, it really is that simple.

YABU... science is not taken more seriously but there is a shortage in the marketplace for people with science qualifications, so there are more opportunities and the pay tends to be higher. There's also a shortage of talented footballers... neither arts nor science... and they get paid more than everyone else put together.

Btw, something I find very telling is that, if you do transfer to Medicine as a postgraduate, they will let you sit an exam intended to check if you have the appropriate science knowledge, in lieu of A Levels. My mate struggled with sciences at school, and didn't do Chemistry or Physics at GCSE (it is Chemistry, not Biology, that is the essential A Level for those applying directly from school). To his surprise, he found studying at night for this exam, with no tutor, very easy, and passed the exam with no trouble. It's possible being motivated had something to do with it, but I think it is more to do with the fact he had simply learned how to think during his undergraduate course.

Certainly, something happened that he caught up four years of science teaching at school, and got to the standard of those school-levavers who get good enough grades to do medicine, in just a few months. If sciences were really so radically different from arts, I don't see how his degree in English would have prepared him for this.

Ah, sorry - I didn't realize you weren't in the UK! It sounds as if perhaps science teaching is not so good, maybe?

Supply and demand innit.

More arty-farty humanities types about, than people with hard degrees.

BTW I am an arty-farty humanities type But I am working in IT now and regretting that I didn't study sciences.

I'm afraid that a lot of children do what you did op, and find sciences/maths too hard or that they are 'shite' at them, and drop out. Then do humanities by default. Only the seriously committed and hard working kids carry on with science and maths and the like.

But I think there is an absurd situation where sciences are seen as being in direct oppostion to the arts. As if you can only be interested in one or the other. The most interesting and intelligent people IME are those who have a passion for both areas.

Well I did my first degree in the UK, my second elsewhere, and now teach in the sciences, so I don't think I'm going to agree with you there! Science teaching is excellent here, we rate higher than the UK in international league tables.

I think people who are top of their game in the arts are more respected than their scientist counterparts, it is seen as having some natural genius as well as having worked hard. However, the next rung down is less reliable than the scientist as you have less idea what you are getting. As an undergraduate, I thought that it was easier to get a 2.1 in the arts than sciences but harder to get a first, in science there is a clearer relationship between your preparation and your results but arts require something special to stand out.

I also think that the relative cheapness of the arts courses to run, means there are too many places and the standard goes down. I don't think we need less arts, far from it, but I would rather nurture the better and more interested students than spread the resources so thin.