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useless university majors

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by faultyink, Mar 19, 2019.

  1. Mihael

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    Ummm that's not much maths tho. That's just a little bit, not extensive knowledge. Normally, engineers take a few terms of calculus and algebra, up to multi-variable.
    And it's mathematics graduates who become actuaries, where I live, at least. It pays roughly the same as engineering and programming and being a financial analyst.
    But enough about maths, the OP isn't considering mathematical degrees. Just pointing out that medical degrees don't do very much maths.
     
  2. Destin

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    Maybe it's different at other universities, but there's not much difference between pre-med and engineer math here not counting the actual engineering classes.

    Math pre-med's at my university take:
    - College Algebra
    - Pre-calculus algebra
    - Analytic Trigonometry
    - Applied Statistics
    - Statistics for the life and physical sciences
    - Calculus I with analytic geometry
    - Calculus II with analytic geometry
    - Physics I (calculus based)
    - Physics II (calculus based)
    - Biomedical Physics I
    - Biomedical Physics II

    Math engineers have to take:
    Most of the above
    Plus Calculus III and Differential Equations
    Minus Biomedical Physics I and II, and science statistics.

    So really the only difference is we take more physics and statistics and the engineers take more calculus. I'd say 11 math classes is pretty extensive knowledge still haha.
     
  3. Mihael

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    Wow, that's really a lot. Is that what they require from doctors where you live? Or biochemists? Where I live, doctors only take statistics when it comes to math (I'm not counting physics as mathematics, physics is physics). Biochemists, tho, take a similar number of math courses to other engineers.
     
  4. Destin

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    The minimum requirements to qualify for applying to medical school in the United States is:
    - English I and II
    - Biology I and II
    - General Chemistry I and II
    - Organic Chemistry I and II
    - Biochemistry I
    - Physics I and II
    - Applied Statistics
    - and some schools require Calculus I but it used to be all of them not long ago.

    The two algebra and trigonometry classes are prerequisites for calculus and physics so everyone has to take those as well.

    However, medical school is also insanely competitive in the United States so taking just the minimum is rarely enough to be accepted, causing most people to take extra math and science classes like I did too. My university decided to just build all of those extra classes into our degrees so we have to take them either way, guaranteeing that all of our science graduates are competitive for medical school applications no matter what field of science they majored in.

    My biochemistry degree requires all of that plus about 5 additional chemistry and 4 additional biology classes.
     
    #44 Destin, Mar 23, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2019
  5. Mihael

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    English? That's so strange. Or maybe it's because you guys go to college at an earlier age and then spend more time in undergrad and less in high school? Here university is at 19. You pass the end of high school exams in chosen subjects plus in literature and a foreign language and math (all those at basic level minimum, they are obligatory). The chosen subjects have to be at a higher level and determine what kind of university major you can get into later. So right after high school you go to engineering or medical school or whatever else. If you took math and physics in high school, you go to engineering school. If bio and chem, then to some kind of medical school or biology or chemistry degree. If humanities, then to a humanities school or law school. The trigonometry class also sounds like obligatory high school math to me. College is just algebra, calculus and statistics. I've heard that people in America spend a longer time to earn a Bachelors degree (4 or 5 years compared to 3) but also go to college at, like, 17? Am I right? I have heard that when someone decides to study in America at undergrad level, then they are very bored in the beginning of the degree, being after European high school.

    Also, not all biochemsichal degrees have that math beyond ststistics in them. It depends on the university you attend at its focus.

    Medical school is also super competitive to get into here, but it is about the grades you get in bio, chem and physics. At end of high school exams.
     
  6. BMC77

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    Four years is the standard--at least historically. But that's not fixed--it can take longer (and, in fact, often does take longer--5 years is common), and some people have completed a degree in 3 years. A lot hinges on what one studies, and also the college or colleges involved. It also probably partly hinges on how carefully the student plans ahead.

    Assuming someone graduates from high school, and then goes to college the next school year, he or she will be about 18 or 19 at the time.
     
    #46 BMC77, Mar 24, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2019
  7. Aussie792

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    This situation is anomolous to North America - undergraduate degrees in law are common elsewhere. Also, to my knowledge it's the case that virtually no paralegal comes close to what senior lawyers can earn, at least in the private sector in commercial law.

    I'm also not sure you've given an accurate description of the market for legal employment. It's certainly not true for Australia, New Zealand or the United Kingdom. You are much more likely to have stable and well-paid employment as a lawyer, rather than casual, part time or poorly paid employment more common to paralegals. I say this as a paralegal.

    I'm also sceptical that employment in law will be driven out by technology. Lawyers often take vast amounts of time to sift through spreadsheets, emails and other often irrelevant material to do their work - it's likely that simply more mundane work will be done in less time, leading to greater capacity for new clients or higher quality work product on legal advice, rather than the laying off of every junior lawyer and work that does itself. I think this is also quite true of accounting and so on - the numbers haven't massively decreased even as the last two decades of technology have made the work so much easier.

    ---

    I think, to be helpful to the OP, I'd say that while I agree that no degree is useless, there are certainly degrees which do not as a general rule meet market demand unless you're outstandingly skilled or well-connected. This is very true of fine arts, somewhat less true but still relevant in law, economics or the social sciences, and barely a consideration for the most practical degrees like nursing, primary education etc. The real difference lies in the significant income premium from being at the top of the ladder in the former examples (art curators at large cultural or art institutions, partners in law firms/Queen's Counsel), versus the smaller rewards from being a senior teacher or advancing through nursing (either because the hierarchy has more equal payment or because there's little hierarchy to advance through anyway).

    I'm close to finishing my two undergraduate degrees - one in law, the other in arts (majoring in history). The former is clearly more marketable but the latter isn't useless to me. I just know that history doesn't on its own give me many career prospects, even as it can give me better analytical skills that are transferable to most workplaces.
     
  8. Mihael

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    Thank you for explaining.
     
  9. Destin

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    The English requirement is because a section of the MCAT (the test to get into medical school) is about verbal reasoning, which involves grammar rules and stuff like that. It was made that way because historically, even though physicians were brilliant scientists, a lot of them were really bad at writing which made it hard for nurses and patients to understand their notes and orders. So now you have to prove you're capable of writing with English classes. In 2015 they added a psychology and sociology section to the MCAT as well, because they realized a lot of physicians lacked the ability to understand their patient's mental health and economic status which was causing problems.

    In the United States, high school is designed to be completed in 4 years from age 14-18 and college is also designed to be completed in 4 years from age 18-22. However, if you continue taking college classes during the summer semesters when everyone else is on vacation it's possible to complete a lot of college degrees in 3 years here (some people also take 5 or even 6 years to finish though if they take fewer than average amounts of classes each semester). The first two years of college are mainly for general educational requirements (which is why Europeans get bored here, they're only taking easy required classes for all degrees at that point like English one, history one etc.) and the second two years are the classes for your actual major, since many people don't even pick a major until the end of the first or second year.

    The educational system in the U.S. is a lot more forgiving than in Europe. What you do in high school here literally doesn't even matter except for your grades. You could go through all of high school without ever taking science classes and still major in chemistry or anything else you want in college. Starting college is basically a reset button where you start from scratch again. In Europe it seems like you have to continue following the path you picked in high school.

    I meant senior paralegals can make as much as normal attorneys at the firm, not the senior attorneys. A paralegal with 20+ years of experience here can reasonably make $60,000-$70,000 and the average attorney also makes around $70,000-$80,000 at medium sized and small law firms.

    I was only talking about the United States, I have no clue what happens in any other country. Here though, unless you get into a top 10 law school or have a scholarship it's a bad idea to become a lawyer currently. About 40% of U.S. attorneys are either unemployed, not working in jobs that require a law degree because they gave up on law and left, or are very underemployed making about half of what they should. All of which are because American law schools have been graduating wayyyy too many lawyers for like 20 years and there aren't jobs for all of them, or even half of them these days. My university's law school is ranked in the top 50 in the country (out of about 250) and according to the school's own statistics, 45% of their graduates are no longer working as lawyers just 5 years after graduating.
     
  10. BMC77

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    I'm being a bit nitpicky here...but that's not necessarily the case. This model is probably fairly common. For all I know, it may be the most common approach. But it's not the only approach in the US. A lot depends on the college or colleges someone attends. My old college was a 4 year institution, and it was generally felt that people who started there would finish there. It was common for people to spread out the general studies at my college. (It was, in fact, very common for people to put off stuff they hated until the last possible minute. LOL) I think one of the paths even required things to be spread out over 4 years, although I can't remember for sure. And it can be argued some majors work better if studies are spread out over more than 2 years.

    Not entirely true. Grades matter--but the types of classes also matter. Someone who takes demanding classes with good but not great grades will look better than a person with great grades in nothing but easy classes. And, of course, a college may expect more than is needed for high school graduation.

    True enough. And there are even options for people who don't have the best high school records. Even my old college would admit people who didn't meet the requirements. In some cases, there might be probation of some sort. In other cases (like insufficient language study), the missing requirement would become a college graduation requirement.
     
  11. johndeere3020

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    I will offer the following perspective...

    Education, of ANY form is important and will serve to better your life. Society needs all sorts of people to function, doctors, nurses, lawyers (well maybe :slight_smile:) to social workers, artists, even the guy that works in the truck stop. Never let some one put you down for your education, income, or the bling that's parked in your garage. As long as you are happy in life is all that really counts.

    That being said, if I could hop on the time machine I would go and succeed at higher education at almost any cost. I really would like a new F-150 4x4. When cleaning the last of my father papers I found the canceled check for the first new truck he bought. An F-250 4x4, $3450.00. Now one costs as much as my home.

    Dean
     
  12. Mihael

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    That makes sense for doctors to take those classes, in my opinion.

    *facepalm*

    Aaah. That explains a lot. We have that in high school and university is almost only in the direction of your degree. So while a lot of classes in the first years are general, like maths and physics and chemistry, you only take those relevant to your major. There is a requirement of having general education classes as well, but they take like an hour every week and you pass unless you try very hard to fail.

    Technically, you don't have to attempt exams in the same subjects as the classes you attended, but you have to study for them on your own if you pick different ones. Some people do that. And I'm not sure how they go about this in the UK, if you can do it there.
    It also depends on how the faculty you want to get into give points to applicants and how many for which subjects and how competitive the entry is. Some factulties require the exams in higher level of certain subjects, like medicine requires bio and chem. But some don't. Humanities except for law are more liberal about it. For some degrees, you need also nearly maximum points to get in, so you won't get away with irrelevant subjects on your exams.
    You can also retake the exams how many times you want.

    Isn't it very hard though? But then, you have those general classes at the beginning, and maybe that is how it works.
     
  13. Destin

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    Yeah it's harder for those people, but only for the first semester usually, and since all of their other classes that year tend to be easy general educational requirements it gives them a lot of time to study/catch up on their science. Once they take biology one and chemistry one they're pretty much at an equal knowledge level to the people who studied science in high school anyway since college classes cover a lot more than high school classes.
     
  14. BradThePug

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    I went to school for video journalism and ended up working in corrections. No matter what field you choose to study, the skills you learn can transfer over. I use a lot of my journalism skills in the field that I work in. If you get out of school and find out that you cannot get into your field of choice, there are always other options. Having a degree looks good, even if it is in a different field.
     
  15. LaurenSkye

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    English and/or literature sounds like one. You're two career possibilities after that are writing a book and working at Starbucks. Also communications sounds useless. Top career paths for communications majors are professional football player and professional basketball player.

    I had some useless classes when I was in school for Business Admin-Accounting. For one, I had to take Sociology, which is bad enough having to study the principles of Sociology, but the class was so much about the principles as it was about learning the names of the people who came up with these principles (I've never been good with names). I had to take an art class, so I chose Music Appreciation. The class covered the history of music from Gregorian chants to Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart. Anything newer was covered by another class. I also had a class that studied the culture of West Africa by reading novels set in those countries. I would have rather just read regular old text books about West Africa than read a novel set there (I've long preferred to watch fiction and read non-fiction). Worst of all with that class was that the professor was a dinosaur. Had to be at least 70 years old (looked 80), and was frequently pressing his fist to his jaw, presumably to adjust his dentures. I also had his wife for two different English classes and she was one of my favorite professors.
     
  16. Destin

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    I'll defend English/Literature majors a little... even though it's often thought of as one of the stereotypical "become a barista at Starbucks" degrees... it can actually be pretty useful. It's one of the only non-STEM/business degrees I'd say that about.

    You can get a job as a technical writer paying $40,000 - $50,000 starting salary with just a bachelors if you take editing related classes during the degree. It's incredibly boring work (literally writing the instruction manuals that no one reads) but it pays well.

    You can get a job in marketing/advertising helping write things or as a copywriter too which pays decently with just a bachelors.

    It's considered the best pre-law degree because it prepares you for a lot of writing in law school too. Then of course there's becoming a teacher.
     
    #56 Destin, Apr 3, 2019
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2019
  17. AwesomGaytheist

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    A bit of advice if you’ve got a degree in one of these majors is to look into government jobs. The government can be less selective depending on the job. There are quite a few at least here in Michigan where they just want you to have a Bachelor’s degree regardless of the major.
     
  18. ECMember

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    Im a BA graduate from Txst Univ San Marcos and MA graduate from UT San Antonio. Both in History. I cant really use it towards it because I didnt get a fellowship during my gradwork or TA gig there.

    I was a Research Assistant and did participate in two academic conferences but didnt really have much to make a good CV for it

    Plus you need to have solid portfolios for historical related jobs as Ive seen

    I dont want to do teaching due to the amount of bullshit and abuse my sister deals with working at a public school system working in a Special Ed classroom dealing with children with emotional challenge and also of stuck up teachers and stress she has.
     
  19. RainbowGreen

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    I'm graduating in translation this year and, believe it or not, it's actually classified as an Arts major, lol.

    Still, it's a pretty good job with a lot of opportunities. If I were willing to work for the federal government, I could earn 60K CAD from the start. Tho, that's sounds boring as hell, so I'd prefer working for a smaller cabinet, which pays less, granted, but it's still good.

    As for useless majors... I don't think those majors are useless, but a lot of them are certainly not worth it, especially in the US where your tuition debts can haunt you for the rest of your life. It's a balancing of ''will I be happy doing this?'', ''will I be able to repay my debt doing this?'' and ''can I support myself by doing this?'' Unfortunately, a lot of arts majors do not cut it. Tho, no one says you HAVE to go to university to do those jobs. Community colleges exist, for one thing, and you can also learn on your own. I would say that for some fields, that might be a better idea than going to university.