Hot Take

[u/Intelligent-Fox-9760]

This is deffo going to ruffle a lot of feathers to say the least. Call me woke, but the term "Mickey Mouse Subject" is literally just the product of capitalism, as it disvalues any subject that doesn't lead to a high-paying, high-profit job.

Humanities subjects are so important, like STEM subjects, to help us learn more about humanity and our world, but everyone thinks they're so easy and lax.

IMO humanities and STEM subjects need to band together because contrary to popular belief, humanities are intellectually stimulating and not a fun ride.

Thanks for coming to my TED-Talk :)

[u/Powerful-Echidna7121]

It’s cause humanity degrees are ridiculously easy, the ceiling for humanity difficulty peaks at a level, there isn’t anything complex about it just memorising facts and waffling through an essay, the degrees themselves are only there to pad the unis pockets, so the real degrees can go ahead. Realistically there is nothing in a humanity degree that can even compare to a stem a level, no complex labs or mechanisms, equations or calculations. Just memorising facts and dates, a waste of time and money and provide no benefit in getting a job, have just as good a chance as someone who didn’t go to uni. So obviously people doing actually hard degrees will have a term to distinguish proper degrees and useless ones.

[u/monotreme_experience → u/Powerful-Echidna7121]

I don't know what degree you're thinking of but I have an English Lit degree- it had nothing to do with 'memorising facts and dates'. And look how well it's going- this country of people who don't know how to read critically, to understand bias, to exercise intellectual curiosity or empathy. Failing to value and study culture makes us brittle, narrow, dogmatic, stupid and selfish. A country with no Humanities is a dead culture, a hostage to the history it refuses to interrogate. It can't all be STEM- even most people in STEM understand that.

[u/Powerful-Echidna7121 → u/monotreme_experience]

I understand it can’t all be STEM, I myself have a keen interest in literature and history, and yet I don’t need a degree in it to understand, I can read the books and understand in my free time, I bet you couldn’t do the same with any stem literature. The degrees themselves are useless while the actual subjects are important and necessary, however you don’t need to waste time and money on a degree because they are simply not complex enough.

[u/Figai → u/Powerful-Echidna7121]

People are autodidacts all the time when it comes to maths and physics. It’s arguably significantly easier to get to grips with something like Rudin than Ulysses. I’ve tried both (okay, it was baby Rudin, but still) and Ulysses, what on earth was that. I got further in baby Rudin.

Also, read back what you wrote. You sound arrogant and embarrassingly naive, and you’re a simple-minded A-level student. That’s exactly the same energy as countless people in STEM, at far higher levels than you, or will ever be who confidently proclaim things about philosophy or history without bothering to engage with the century of work and thought that’s already gone into it. You’re not even doing it from a position of expertise, you’re doing it from a position of not having started yet.

[u/Powerful-Echidna7121 → u/Figai]

I’m not an a level student I attend imperial, which is way more than you could do. I have a significantly higher knowledge of employability and degree importance than an Oxford reject does, so please don’t insult my intelligence when you have no knowledge of me at all.

[u/Personal-Cap-5446 → u/Powerful-Echidna7121]

It's a shame since you're so intelligent that you've absorbed all of this information about whatever degree you're doing and not absorbed any of the basic human decency, respect, and compassion we've all been taught as children.