Long story short, I was curious about why some certain degrees (mine included, and if you haven’t known, I’m doing a Bachelor in Communication & Media Studies) are mocked so much while others are so highly praised.
And then I came across this.
This article is, well, nonsense. The writer made his/her point by playing down the actual ways in which the teaching and learning of these degrees work. To me, if this article were speaking the truth, the only degrees worth learning are ones in STEM fields.
And that is not how the world works.
It is true that to developing countries, to have experts in STEM fields are crucial, to infrastructural development at least (the acronym spells ‘stem’ for a reason). But they still need people working in Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences as well. Any extreme does no good, I believe.
My point is that, all degrees matter. Anyone doing a degree studies in details something that the rest take for granted.
The rest of us emerges ourselves in novels probably written by someone doing a Creative Writing degree, the rest of us admire artworks probably done by someone doing a Digital Arts degree. The rest of us listen to concerts and watch musicals and give standing ovations and yet some talk trash about people doing a Music degree.
The rest of us consult brochures and catalogs and window-shop and never pay a thought to people with a degree in Fashion or Advertising or Marketing. The rest of us make transactions and withdrawals from banks and their ATMs and never consider how somebody with a degree probably in Finance or Accounting made it convenient for us.
The rest of us use medicines and cleaning substances and detergents based on what we’re told would do good to us, unknowing of the hours put in by people with degrees in Chemistry and Medicine. The rest of us live our lives in sturdy houses which were bought mostly on the basis of aesthetic qualities and durability and were worked on so hard by someone with a degree in Architecture and Engineering to assure that the criteria we’re looking for are met. The rest of us commute on a daily basis and hardly ever think thoroughly about how people with a degree in Physics laboured to guarantee our safety in those vehicles.
And there’s plenty more.
But none of us is to blame. It is natural to be absorbed in what you do only, and stereotyping people is most of the time easier than holding back your hasty judgements.
Just please bear in mind when you are about to make a cruel and heartless joke about someone else’s choice of field in higher education, that no matter what they do, they are all putting tons of efforts (that you might not see) into it, and in this case, kindness does no harm.
The Specs 