Why do so many students bash Arts courses????

karaokeman

Like in UCD and NUI Maynooth.

Every thread I see about an Arts degree there are people saying "Oh Arts is a joke" or "Don't do it, its a load a......" you get the jizz.

I am considering doing Arts in either of these two colleges as I know I want to study English, Sociology and Psychology but I can't decide which of the three degrees would be best for me yet.

I really don't get it. All Arts is, is a basic degree that you can use to later pursue a masters in the subject area you specialize in, which becomes your major after getting the degree.

Coeurdepirate

People who say that either a: think they're better than everyone else or b: didn't get enough points for arts.

Chuchoter

Its mostly useless for anything other than teaching.

karaokeman

crayolastereo wrote: »

Its mostly useless for anything other than teaching.

Supposedly that is just a myth.

I had a talk with the professor of Sociology at Maynooth last week.

He told me that a lot of Arts students DO go into teaching BUT teaching is not all you can do. He says whatever you do a major in, you can go on to do a higher degree.

chicken fingers

Coeurdepirate wrote: »

People who say that either a: think they're better than everyone else or b: didn't get enough points for arts.

Not really. Arts does not give you any real productive life skills.
An engineering grad could walk into a job having 4 years or projects, programming, design, and so on under his belt. The employer knows that this guy (or girl, but really who am I kidding) CAN complete difficult tasks, bring projects to completion, has critical thinking skills etc.
Same can be said for medicine, hands on sciences, some media courses, some IT courses and so on and so forth.

However, a 3 year arts degree can be fairly easily completed with very little work. You can pass off mostly crap and get a good grade.
I went to university in Ireland, I got a 2.1 in arts(weirdly eng,soc and psy) and I worked 45 hours a week full time during that period. I attended maybe 3 lectures per semester. Got all of the notes off moodle, the whole thing took maybe 6 hours of work per week plus another 6 for assignments / studying before exams.

I should try to pretend that my degree is worth a lot and was difficult to obtain, but the truth is that if you do a bare minimum of work with little critical thinking you can just pass an arts degree. I spent more time and effort chasing women in college than doing college work.

Chuchoter

karaokeman wrote: »

Supposedly that is just a myth.

I had a talk with the professor of Sociology at Maynooth last week.

He told me that a lot of Arts students DO go into teaching BUT teaching is not all you can do. He says whatever you do a major in, you can go on to do a higher degree.

Its not. Lot of arts graduates/masters in my family. They are all making a pittance part time teaching.

Most dogs don't talk or solve crimes but there was that one dog.

minichunkies

They don't all go on to be teachers. Most might get a hdip yoke later on. If a thing did English they might end up writing for the paper, you never know. Just because the didn't do journalism doesn't mean they can't become a journalist. It's up to you what you do.

Overature

its because its not a real degree and you cant really benefit mankind out of it

randylonghorn

karaokeman wrote: »

Like in UCD and NUI Maynooth.

Every thread I see about an Arts degree there are people saying "Oh Arts is a joke" or "Don't do it, its a load a......" you get the jizz.

Mostly from people who don't understand what a degree in Arts is all about.

Unfortunately for the continuation of the stereotype, you also get people who drift into Arts because they got the points, do the bare minimum to pass, and never understand what a degree in Arts is all about either ... a phenomenon which has been rendered more common by massification at third level.

karaokeman wrote: »

I am considering doing Arts in either of these two colleges as I know I want to study English, Sociology and Psychology but I can't decide which of the three degrees would be best for me yet.

NUIM has good departments in all three, though their Psy Dept tends to be a bit Behaviourist for my taste.

I'm a bit out of touch with UCD, so I won't comment.

karaokeman wrote: »

Supposedly that is just a myth.

I had a talk with the professor of Sociology at Maynooth last week.

Seán? Such a nice guy, very pro-student and an excellent teacher.

karaokeman wrote: »

He told me that a lot of Arts students DO go into teaching BUT teaching is not all you can do. He says whatever you do a major in, you can go on to do a higher degree.

Just a few common career destinations for Arts graduates: teaching; journalism / media; civil / foreign service; EU; research (academic or otherwise); social science-based jobs: psychologists, community & youth workers, social workers, development workers; translators; web / internet; human resources; librarians; publishing; law; economics; etc. etc.

You will find Arts graduates anywhere and everywhere ... apart from the subject-specific stuff, a good Arts programme is essentially about teaching you to think and communicate ... to read / research; critically analyse and evaluate; write / communicate your findings. There are no more transferable skills, if you actually bother to learn them properly.

chicken fingers wrote: »

Not really. Arts does not give you any real productive life skills..

I have suggested above that it does. My original degree is Arts, and not alone am I (reasonably well) employed, but I have worked in three different sectors since graduation, and transferred seamlessly between them to boot.

I have often wished, though, that some of the science and engineering graduates I have worked with, and in some cases had reporting to me, had taken some Arts subjects (properly, not just "ah sure it will be an easy 5 credits"). They might have discovered that the world may be made up of atoms, but knowing all there is to know about atoms won't actually help you much in interacting with colleagues and the public.

crayolastereo wrote: »

Its not. Lot of arts graduates/masters in my family. They are all making a pittance part time teaching.

Lots of engineering graduates on the dole at the moment, mostly without even that option available to them.

crayolastereo wrote: »

Most dogs don't talk or solve crimes but there was that one dog.

I find that the stats for dogs generally don't correlate that well with humans.

Monty Burnz

crayolastereo wrote: »

Its mostly useless for anything other than teaching.

Bull****. I've a BA. I worked in IT straight out of college, now I'm doing a PhD in Economics.

I think the joke is a bit of a lazy one - it's because it's a meme (like Irishman jokes in Britain) and it's also because a lot of folks have no idea what an Arts degree actually comprises (of course it can be a combination of anything from pure maths to archaeology to music to English Lit etc. etc.).

I think it actually may have originated from jokes in Britain about students going to art colleges (studying painting, sculpture etc) and basically was misunderstood on this side of the water to refer to BA degrees.

You will note that in the best universities in the US, top students will typically take a liberal arts degree (not exactly the same, but similar) before focusing on a specific area like law, medicine or whatever in graduate school. They don't have jokes about BAs there.

Edit: I should mention that of those folks I'm still in contact with from my year, not a single one is a teacher.

randylonghorn

Overature wrote: »

its because its not a real degree and you cant really benefit mankind out of it

I really wouldn't suggest trolling; my patience with arts-bashing threads / posts in this forum is rapidly running out.

Monty Burnz wrote: »

You will note that in the best universities in the US, top students will typically take a liberal arts degree (not exactly the same, but similar) before focusing on a specific area like law, medicine or whatever in graduate school. They don't have jokes about BAs there.

And tbh we would have far more rounded graduates if we did the same here.

unknown13

First off. The LC forum pretty much bashes the shíte out of Arts degrees despite the majority of posters being clueless on the subject.

If you want to hear more about Arts degrees go to either NUIM forum and start a thread there or go to this thread The UCD Arts Thread

unknown13

What people don't realise is that you have little hours mainly because there are no labs with Arts degrees but you do have to work bloody hard in them. Seminars have a fair bit of work attached to them and there are regular essays and readings.

TrollHammaren

What you're talking about is a Bacherlor of Arts: Arts, which is different to, say, a Bacherlor of Arts: Psychology, or a Bachelor of Arts: English.

A lot of people take the piss out of BAs in general because of some sort sense of superiority, but a lot of people also have a problem with BA: Arts because a number of students who study it claim, after they graduate, to have a BA in English, Psychology, or whatever. The truth is that they simply have a BA in Arts.

I do know a girl who did a BA: Arts in UCD and she's now doing a Master's, but I'm not sure how useful the Master's is.

If you do Psychology as part of your Arts degree, it won't be recognised by the Psychological Society of Ireland. The only way for it to be recognised is if you do a BA: Psychology.

I understand this is confusing; it's the reason some people can claim to have several degrees after they finish their BA: Arts

randylonghorn

No, the vast majority of people graduate with a BA in 2 subjects e.g. History and English or French and German or whatever, and they are perfectly correct in stating that they have a BA in English and History or whatever it is.

Nobody actually has a Bachelor of Arts in Arts.

There are also a small number of very specialised BA degrees (often referred to as Single Honours degrees) in one subject only. Psychology is one of these, and you *are* right in saying that the British Psychological Society and its sister organisation in Ireland set restrictions on the proportion of psychology in your degree, and will normally only recognise Single Hons. degrees. However, the same is true for those who study psychology though science.

There are also a small number of interdisciplinary BAs which focus on a *theme* rather than a *discipline* e.g. a BA in Community Development may have input from sociology, anthropology, geography and other departments, but it's still a BA in Community Development, not a BA in sociology, anthropology, geography, etc. This practice is mirrored in interdisciplinary BScs as well, by the way; e.g. "Earth Sciences" isn't actually a discipline in and of itself, it's a crosscutting thematic approach.

And I've never heard anyone claim to have several degrees after finishing their BA; for that matter, if they did, who would take them seriously apart, perhaps, from their doting granny?! :pac:

unknown13

randylonghorn wrote: »

And I've never heard anyone claim to have several degrees after finishing their BA; for that matter, if they did, who would take them seriously apart, perhaps, from their doting granny?! :pac:

Members of An Garda Siochana that did a degree before joining the force are the only people that come to my mind. They could have a BA in German and Sociology and then after Graduation at Garda College they are given a BA in Policing Studies.

randylonghorn

They're still 2 separate courses though ... just taken consecutively.

XxMCRxBabyxX

Some of it is just good old fashioned slagging though. I did Arts last year to give me the option of transferring into my course this year but yet I still slag the hell out of some of my Arts buddies. It's basically part of the course at this stage!

kev9100

The idea that Arts is easy and is of no use is just a pure myth. If you put the work in, an Arts degree can be the building block for anything you want. As for it being easy, come back to me after you've done some of my History and French essays.

spurious

It's the Boards LC forum where way too many look down on anyone not in a private school, anyone doing LCA, anyone in Ordinary Level (as for poor old Foundation people, who let them onto boards?), anyone who doesn't wear the right shoes, like the right bands, etc., etc.. The rule is that you also blame your own inadequacies and poor exam performance on 'crap teachers' or 'a crap headmaster' or 'a crap school'.

The world will slap them in the face soon enough, when the labour doesn't care where they went to school and no-one gives a toss whether they could have (or more probably 'could of') got into Medicine/Law/Funderland.

DaveMur1

Why would anyone bash an arts course????
They open a whole new euphoric world of future dole queues & fás courses.:P

Seriously though people haven't just magically developed these views of arts courses overnight,many career/guidance counsellors advise students to avoid an arts course if at all possible,so how can you ever expect people to change their opinions?

Another notable fact is that arts courses always contain one of the highest drop-out rates,due to the participants are usually people going to college just for the sake of it ,who have no general vision for their lives or what they want to do.

randylonghorn

DaveMur1 wrote: »

Seriously though people haven't just magically developed these views of arts courses overnight,many career/guidance counsellors advise students to avoid an arts course if at all possible,so how can you ever expect people to change their opinions?

Many school guidance counsellors also seem to automatically advise people to do medicine or law if they are capable of getting the points for it, regardless of whether they are in any way suited or interested in those courses; people regularly complain of that in this forum. It seems to be another by-product of the points mania, which has affected even those who should really know better ... if it's higher points, it's a better course, regardless of whether you actually have any aptitude for it! :rolleyes:

DaveMur1 wrote: »

Another notable fact is that arts courses always contain one of the highest drop-out rates,due to the participants are usually people going to college just for the sake of it ,who have no general vision for their lives or what they want to do.

There's a certain truth in that, as I noted above:

randylonghorn wrote: »

Unfortunately for the continuation of the stereotype, you also get people who drift into Arts because they got the points, do the bare minimum to pass, and never understand what a degree in Arts is all about either ... a phenomenon which has been rendered more common by massification at third level.

I would argue with the word "usually" though, but it's certainly far more common than it should be.

The problem there though is not with the courses, but with people making lazy uninformed decisions, or going to college anyway to please Mammy (or, in the present climate, because college seems a better option to the dole, which I guess is understandable).

whadabouchasir

crayolastereo wrote: »

Its not. Lot of arts graduates/masters in my family. They are all making a pittance part time teaching.

There are about 1,200 arts graduates coming out of NUIG every year and a similar amount from UCD as well as arts graduates from UCC,NUIM and TCD.Are you really saying that all of them will end up as teachers?

Arts is like all other college courses,it's as difficult as you make it.You could pass Arts doing very little as previous posters have said,but are you going to get a 1.1?no you're just going to scrape a pass degree and the same can be said of almost any other course,the amount you get out is the amount you put in.Science,law,commerce,engineering getting that magical 40% can be achieved without too much stress.as for Arts being uselss,would you consider forgein languages,maths,I.T,psychology and sociology to be useless?

tbh I can see someone with a degree in a forgein language having a better chance of getting a job atm than an engineer or architect,so the notion that arts graduates are destined for the dole queue is just riduculous and really ignorant.

So in short,yes people do bash arts students,and i'll admit that I have too,but it really doesn't deserve the stick it gets.So if you want to do arts go for it,regrdless of the condescending sniggers of others.

RandomName2

chicken fingers wrote: »

Not really. Arts does not give you any real productive life skills.
An engineering grad could walk into a job having 4 years or projects, programming, design, and so on under his belt. The employer knows that this guy (or girl, but really who am I kidding) CAN complete difficult tasks, bring projects to completion, has critical thinking skills etc.
Same can be said for medicine, hands on sciences, some media courses, some IT courses and so on and so forth.

However, a 3 year arts degree can be fairly easily completed with very little work. You can pass off mostly crap and get a good grade.
I went to university in Ireland, I got a 2.1 in arts(weirdly eng,soc and psy) and I worked 45 hours a week full time during that period. I attended maybe 3 lectures per semester. Got all of the notes off moodle, the whole thing took maybe 6 hours of work per week plus another 6 for assignments / studying before exams.

I should try to pretend that my degree is worth a lot and was difficult to obtain, but the truth is that if you do a bare minimum of work with little critical thinking you can just pass an arts degree. I spent more time and effort chasing women in college than doing college work.

And what university did you go to?

If you read Arts and did not display the capacity to complete difficult tasks, bring projects to completion or have critical thinking skills you had no business receiving a pass, let alone a 2.1

If you answer UCD or TCD I wont believe you worked this little. You really saying that a 4,000 word essay in english took what... on average 2 hours? Are you having a laugh? What was your bibliography like?

I will now answer a question on Bleak House. To read this very small text will take me an hour. To read 20 sources on the text will take me 20 minutes. Writing the first draft of my essay will 5 minutes. Citation will take 20 seconds. Proofreading will be done instantaneously. Now, where's my next woman? Lol.

TrollHammaren

I think a BA in Arts is an easy target because of the kind of peope it often attracts. It does have a reputation for attracting affluent wasters who just want a generic degree, but obviously it's not always the case.

I would concentrate more on your prospects, and what you hope your future career would be, than what other snobs think about its reputation.

karaokeman

chicken fingers wrote: »

Not really. Arts does not give you any real productive life skills.
An engineering grad could walk into a job having 4 years or projects, programming, design, and so on under his belt. The employer knows that this guy (or girl, but really who am I kidding) CAN complete difficult tasks, bring projects to completion, has critical thinking skills etc.
Same can be said for medicine, hands on sciences, some media courses, some IT courses and so on and so forth.

Then explain the number of engineering/medicine and other professions you listed, which have a growing number of graduates on the dole.

chicken fingers wrote: »

However, a 3 year arts degree can be fairly easily completed with very little work. You can pass off mostly crap and get a good grade.
I went to university in Ireland, I got a 2.1 in arts(weirdly eng,soc and psy) and I worked 45 hours a week full time during that period. I attended maybe 3 lectures per semester. Got all of the notes off moodle, the whole thing took maybe 6 hours of work per week plus another 6 for assignments / studying before exams.

I should try to pretend that my degree is worth a lot and was difficult to obtain, but the truth is that if you do a bare minimum of work with little critical thinking you can just pass an arts degree.

As another poster has stated that is like saying you can do a Leaving Cert with very little work and it leads to under-average options (Eg PLC's, courses with lower points, repeat LC etc.).
If students work really hard for their Leaving Cert they get into better college courses than the ones who didn't work their ass-off. The same is with arts degrees. If you don't work you won't get a good jb, but if you work you will get a good job.

chicken fingers wrote: »

I spent more time and effort chasing women in college than doing college work.

I've spent 60% of my time in secondary school chasing girls and it hasn't affected my work overall.

randylonghorn

Not this again!

/headdesk