A call to arms (Arts)
It's late. I'm angry. Might be ill-advised, but for better or worse, here's a rant. You would think that by third-year I'd be over defending my choice of study, but apparently not.
Seriously. The next time I hear someone rag on Arts students, I'm going to... I don't know what I'm going to do, but you should fear it. It might involve writing poetry.
Because the only people allowed to bitch about Arts students are Arts students. (Everyone has similar us-and-them rules , so don't pretend you don't.) It's not my fault society places a low value on the Arts than on the Sciences or Law or, hell, every other degree offered except perhaps Performing Arts. It's not *my* fault Arts degrees are under-funded and the last-resort option for a lot of people because they offer a lower entrance standard, due to a need to get as many students as possible to actually gain some funding. (I chose to take a BA. It was not a last resort but a deliberate decision to study English literature.) Someone said to me that an Arts degree was about as useful as a piece of toilet paper, but you know why that is? It's endemic of the kind of snobbery that doesn't value critical thinking or imagination.
Because my little BA teaches me how to think. It teaches me to analyse, to mount an argument, to take an interest in the world around me. It fosters learning skills, teaching skills, and critical skills. It allows for an appreciation of aesthetics, consideration of the bigger picture, and use of the imagination. I'm not saying other degrees don't do this. I'm not saying that's all a BA does. But that's some of what it does do, and you can't tell me that's not worth anything. You can't tell me it's irrelevant to society, because expression and communication will always be relevant.
What I dislike, most of all, is the lack of respect. Arts is my path and I love it. But everyone else has a right to study what they want, or enter the employment they want, and I don't dispute that. I will never say someone else's degree is worthless (except a B Business -- KIDDING) while that person enjoys it. Every kind of study has its merits. So don't go whinging that all biologists do is name things, or all arts students do is get high and read poetry and shit. If you can't have respect for someone else's career path, then how can you have any esteem for your own?
Oh, yeah. And don't tell me Arts or English lit is for idiots. I am not going to boast (OE bo:st, a formal speech in pre-battle verbal warfare, or a promise made over mead on the eve of a battle), but I am damned intelligent, yet I will never earn as much as an engineering graduate (or a business graduate in middle management) while such bias exists around university faculties. Nor will I get a better tertiary education while the Arts faculty is going broke and all the government money is channelled into the vet science and medical schools, but that is a whole other story.
Seriously. The next time I hear someone rag on Arts students, I'm going to... I don't know what I'm going to do, but you should fear it. It might involve writing poetry.
Because the only people allowed to bitch about Arts students are Arts students. (Everyone has similar us-and-them rules , so don't pretend you don't.) It's not my fault society places a low value on the Arts than on the Sciences or Law or, hell, every other degree offered except perhaps Performing Arts. It's not *my* fault Arts degrees are under-funded and the last-resort option for a lot of people because they offer a lower entrance standard, due to a need to get as many students as possible to actually gain some funding. (I chose to take a BA. It was not a last resort but a deliberate decision to study English literature.) Someone said to me that an Arts degree was about as useful as a piece of toilet paper, but you know why that is? It's endemic of the kind of snobbery that doesn't value critical thinking or imagination.
Because my little BA teaches me how to think. It teaches me to analyse, to mount an argument, to take an interest in the world around me. It fosters learning skills, teaching skills, and critical skills. It allows for an appreciation of aesthetics, consideration of the bigger picture, and use of the imagination. I'm not saying other degrees don't do this. I'm not saying that's all a BA does. But that's some of what it does do, and you can't tell me that's not worth anything. You can't tell me it's irrelevant to society, because expression and communication will always be relevant.
What I dislike, most of all, is the lack of respect. Arts is my path and I love it. But everyone else has a right to study what they want, or enter the employment they want, and I don't dispute that. I will never say someone else's degree is worthless (except a B Business -- KIDDING) while that person enjoys it. Every kind of study has its merits. So don't go whinging that all biologists do is name things, or all arts students do is get high and read poetry and shit. If you can't have respect for someone else's career path, then how can you have any esteem for your own?
Oh, yeah. And don't tell me Arts or English lit is for idiots. I am not going to boast (OE bo:st, a formal speech in pre-battle verbal warfare, or a promise made over mead on the eve of a battle), but I am damned intelligent, yet I will never earn as much as an engineering graduate (or a business graduate in middle management) while such bias exists around university faculties. Nor will I get a better tertiary education while the Arts faculty is going broke and all the government money is channelled into the vet science and medical schools, but that is a whole other story.