serious researchers for business are called 'economists'. and they do proper degrees, like economics, with actual disciplinary rigour and an attention to theoretical and abstract matters, rather than 'business' techniques and soft-skills to be used in a 'career'. people get PhD's in economics, i've never denied that. people also become kinesiologists and the like... but not at a university. normally at a special school. i am not denying that, either.Cybargs wrote:
what about serious researchers and intellectuals for business and sports science.Uzique The Lesser wrote:
but that's a huge waste of money and debt. taking on people generously who then fail out. it isn't efficient. it makes the institution and the system look bad (poor paper performance). it's better to be more strenuous about entry and to only run universities that are serious about academia. as for people who fucked around in school... np, there are 'alternative' and non-standard entry routes here. it's not a life-long determined thing: you fucked up in school, oops!, university is forever closed to you. there are plenty of ways to get in for people who are serious about learning. and that's the only person i am trying to preserve universities for: serious learners, scholars, researchers, intellectuals. clear the business-people, managerial class, and sports science degrees out to specialist business schools and institutions. all that happens in our system nowadays is those schools are ran as side-shows, mutually acknowledged as being the 'money earners' from an international cadre. nobody on campus respects them. it's a depressing hybridism that only benefits the universities' chancellors.Jay wrote:
Why should one school system arbitrarily rate a person before they enter another school? I was a middling student in high school because I cared more about athletics than homework, but once I found my passion in college I aced everything. If the system you want had been set up, I would've been shut out because I hadn't displayed top-of-the-class traits in high school.
I like the current system. They just need to make undergrad grading more rigorous so less people skate by, and more people actually fail out.
all i have ever argued for is a meaningful distinction and demarcation. not a hierarchy. if these people went to specialised business schools or polytechnics, with no need to adopt the pretension of being a university, they would do much better. they would be instructed better, having thrown off the needless formalities of a university, and would likely cultivate closer institutional links to business/industry. i don't have a problem with people taking business degrees. it doesn't bother me personally. and i know that many business type students do look down their noses at academics on campus, thinking they are doing 'useless' studies. okay, they're entitled to that. all i'm proposing is that you separate the institutions so you don't have this stupid and meaningless mix. the system would be much more efficient if people doing practical/utilitarian degrees didn't have to be incorporated into a 'research university' - a body whose mission statement is really quite pointless and unrelated to practical degrees.Jay wrote:
You display a shocking lack of being able to see anything outside of your own narrow viewpoint. Can't the students in the degree paths you look down your nose at do the same to you in turn? Can't they revel in the utilitarianess of their own studies and thumb their nose at yours? Isn't that what 99% of the arguments on this forum about you and college have been? It doesn't matter if you and your snobby professors and friends look down on others. You study English, a language you've been speaking since you were a toddler. Sure, I'm sure it's difficult at a high level, but you really have to stop with the denigration of others' choices. You sure as hell don't like it when it's done to you.Uzique The Lesser wrote:
but that's a huge waste of money and debt. taking on people generously who then fail out. it isn't efficient. it makes the institution and the system look bad (poor paper performance). it's better to be more strenuous about entry and to only run universities that are serious about academia. as for people who fucked around in school... np, there are 'alternative' and non-standard entry routes here. it's not a life-long determined thing: you fucked up in school, oops!, university is forever closed to you. there are plenty of ways to get in for people who are serious about learning. and that's the only person i am trying to preserve universities for: serious learners, scholars, researchers, intellectuals. clear the business-people, managerial class, and sports science degrees out to specialist business schools and institutions. all that happens in our system nowadays is those schools are ran as side-shows, mutually acknowledged as being the 'money earners' from an international cadre. nobody on campus respects them. it's a depressing hybridism that only benefits the universities' chancellors.Jay wrote:
Why should one school system arbitrarily rate a person before they enter another school? I was a middling student in high school because I cared more about athletics than homework, but once I found my passion in college I aced everything. If the system you want had been set up, I would've been shut out because I hadn't displayed top-of-the-class traits in high school.
I like the current system. They just need to make undergrad grading more rigorous so less people skate by, and more people actually fail out.
most europeans countries separate practical/technical/business schools out away from universities. the UK just adopted a political name-change whereby all institutions of higher-learning were 'rebranded' as universities, to make the figures of "university attendance" or "% university-educated" look more impressive on paper. it's a meaningless political change. nowhere am i saying people doing business degrees are not pursuing a valid path in life. i just don't think it benefits either to have them mixed under one diluted 'university' tag.
what about teaching the theories of poker. MIT is doing it, must be legit. i want a PhD in poker.Uzique The Lesser wrote:
all i have ever argued for is a meaningful distinction and demarcation. not a hierarchy. if these people went to specialised business schools or polytechnics, with no need to adopt the pretension of being a university, they would do much better. they would be instructed better, having thrown off the needless formalities of a university, and would likely cultivate closer institutional links to business/industry. i don't have a problem with people taking business degrees. it doesn't bother me personally. and i know that many business type students do look down their noses at academics on campus, thinking they are doing 'useless' studies. okay, they're entitled to that. all i'm proposing is that you separate the institutions so you don't have this stupid and meaningless mix. the system would be much more efficient if people doing practical/utilitarian degrees didn't have to be incorporated into a 'research university' - a body whose mission statement is really quite pointless and unrelated to practical degrees.Jay wrote:
You display a shocking lack of being able to see anything outside of your own narrow viewpoint. Can't the students in the degree paths you look down your nose at do the same to you in turn? Can't they revel in the utilitarianess of their own studies and thumb their nose at yours? Isn't that what 99% of the arguments on this forum about you and college have been? It doesn't matter if you and your snobby professors and friends look down on others. You study English, a language you've been speaking since you were a toddler. Sure, I'm sure it's difficult at a high level, but you really have to stop with the denigration of others' choices. You sure as hell don't like it when it's done to you.Uzique The Lesser wrote:
but that's a huge waste of money and debt. taking on people generously who then fail out. it isn't efficient. it makes the institution and the system look bad (poor paper performance). it's better to be more strenuous about entry and to only run universities that are serious about academia. as for people who fucked around in school... np, there are 'alternative' and non-standard entry routes here. it's not a life-long determined thing: you fucked up in school, oops!, university is forever closed to you. there are plenty of ways to get in for people who are serious about learning. and that's the only person i am trying to preserve universities for: serious learners, scholars, researchers, intellectuals. clear the business-people, managerial class, and sports science degrees out to specialist business schools and institutions. all that happens in our system nowadays is those schools are ran as side-shows, mutually acknowledged as being the 'money earners' from an international cadre. nobody on campus respects them. it's a depressing hybridism that only benefits the universities' chancellors.
most europeans countries separate practical/technical/business schools out away from universities. the UK just adopted a political name-change whereby all institutions of higher-learning were 'rebranded' as universities, to make the figures of "university attendance" or "% university-educated" look more impressive on paper. it's a meaningless political change. nowhere am i saying people doing business degrees are not pursuing a valid path in life. i just don't think it benefits either to have them mixed under one diluted 'university' tag.
theories of poker are still highly mathematical and involve high-theory. may be a 'fun' application but the abstract is very high-level. you can be as facetious as you like but i don't think anyone is questioning that someone doing a maths-thesis on poker at MIT is way above 'international business' in the intellectual league. just like people who study game-theory or the logical operations involved in chess are on a serious fucking level, as well. "lol a PhD in chess". sure beats a degree in supply chain management, no?
continued from texas thread:
continued from texas thread:
i am literally telling you that to work in the foreign service, the best degrees you can get will be language/literature degrees - as many as possible, as relevant as possible to current geopolitical matters. arabic, chinese, french, russian, etc. people who speak 2/3 languages will get employed as a diplomat before someone with an IR degree. most people who go into the uk civil service (foreign office especially) will have a variation of: PPE (the oxbridge-level politics-philosophy-economics degree); history/classics (history seen as important for diplomacy); literature/languages. traditional stuff.
may be different in australia, but whatever. foreign office jobs here are one of the hardest civil servant jobs to land, fullstop. the foreign office in the UK is a notorious elitist-posho fortress.
take a look at the last bunch of diplomats to work their way to the top of the uk foreign office:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hague
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Miliband
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hurd
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Cook
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Rifkind
what degrees? ok. yes, i am telling you.
taking this to d&st.
Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-07-13 09:06:08)
whats wrong with managing a chain and providing new production/management theories. harvard business review is the shiznits and you just hating coz you missing out on the asian gravy train.
i can tell you're losing your footing when you start posting half-serious shite.
and yes, harvard business school is separate to the university. that is exactly the system i am talking about having in the UK. i'm sure business schools like that are extremely prestigious and worthy. but it's separated. all i am saying is that vastly different schools should be separated from the 'university' and given financial/institutional independence. someone going to harvard/yale business or law school has no illusions about what he's doing. a person studying business management at a 'university' however is probably wasting their time - they are the butt of all jokes on campus.
and yes, harvard business school is separate to the university. that is exactly the system i am talking about having in the UK. i'm sure business schools like that are extremely prestigious and worthy. but it's separated. all i am saying is that vastly different schools should be separated from the 'university' and given financial/institutional independence. someone going to harvard/yale business or law school has no illusions about what he's doing. a person studying business management at a 'university' however is probably wasting their time - they are the butt of all jokes on campus.
beats being a an english, liberal arts or communications major who are the butt of the joke of every single university.Uzique The Lesser wrote:
they are the butt of all jokes on campus.
have been on quite a few campuses in my time and never heard those jokes. maybe if you're at a shit university where they are the low-entry casual joke degrees. but i'm talking about proper universities keeping proper credentials. you wouldn't last 5 seconds on a liberal arts course at a US liberal arts college. nor would you be able to pass a first-year essay assignment on an english university literature course.
so what degrees do you think universities should gut then to keep the "proper credentials."Uzique The Lesser wrote:
have been on quite a few campuses in my time and never heard those jokes. maybe if you're at a shit university where they are the low-entry casual joke degrees. but i'm talking about proper universities keeping proper credentials. you wouldn't last 5 seconds on a liberal arts course at a US liberal arts college. nor would you be able to pass a first-year essay assignment on an english university literature course.
You mock at jay for going to a maritime college and he still landed an engineering job with his omg engineering degree. why do you care so much that uni's are broadening their horizons their traditional faculties?
edit: you know nothing about me zique and you just make up all these judgements about what people can or can't do because of some forum posts. not like everybody had the opportunities in life like you did. i gots da 5 on AP lang, i think i'd do ok in a lit course if I really cared about it. not bad for non-native english speaker aye.
Last edited by Cybargs (2013-07-13 09:44:24)
universities are ranked and are in the business of producing research and scholarship. this is really simple. any subject that isn't research-oriented or engaged in a wider body of scholarship is just there to make undergraduate $$$. and i'm not really even talking about gutting courses. i never mentioned that. the only person that started going on about this pointless 'hierarchy of subjects' thing is you, when you made a (misguided) comment about communications majors - whilst being a soft-ass business studies major yourself. my point was that polytechnics and low-ranking institutions should be reclassed as just that: polytechnics. they can focus on giving business studies majors and technical diplomas in real trades/skills. that has always been their 'thing'. no shame in it. very noble and very profitable to pursue, for people who are so inclined.
you guys seem to have a real tough time with this. you read 'elitism' when it is only commonsense. the bottom 70% of all 'universities' in places like the UK (and i suspect the US/canada/aus as well) are jokes, with no entry requirements. they aren't even universities. they have zero input to research and furthering scholarship. they are just for non-academic people to get a 'degree', in whatever subject. but these degrees never really lead to graduate-level employment (not in the main, anyway). all i'm saying is they should go back to their polytechnic original role and provide meaningful training for people to get other qualifications. like germany. a system you just praised a page ago. now you're calling me out for the same argument? pretty confusing. considering elsewhere all of you have made arguments critical of the 'student debt burden', i'm surprised you find this so shocking. perhaps we should stop sending so many people to meagre institutions to take student loans they will never repay? stop entertaining an egalitarian delusion about 'university'? admit some students are more suited to polytechnic-style educations? germany does it and their youth employment is the envy of europe - as is their economy. but no, let's tut-tut about elitism and continue sending every student that can spell their first name to the university of shitsville to get a 'degree' in return for 2 decades' of debt.
i wouldn't 'gut' any subjects from top universities, really. it's confusing having management students on a university campus, but everyone knows the effective difference, and it doesn't really disturb the institution too much. what i'd like is a meaningful reform on a structural level: universities to be universities, and to focus on scholarship/research; and polytechnics to be polytechnics, to focus on skills and industry. then you can finance both suitably, rather than having the same pot of cash for both. most european states manage this fine (better than us, at least). in the anglophone world we seem to be stuck on this dumb political idea that it's 'shameful' to not have a degree. so people get pushed along to joke institutions to study joke degrees (an 'english' degree from an ex-polytechnic probably is total shit, let's face it, just like a maths degree from the same would probably only glance sophomore year material).
again: you brought up the subjects thing, when you started shitting on communications majors. all i said was that 'international business' has no more historical pedigree than the communications guys you laugh at. say "liberal arts and english majors" are the butt of all jokes, if you want... but that is historically inaccurate. these degrees have existed for centuries and are considered 'classical learning'. look back through history at all the presidents and prime ministers go through some form of 'classical learning', or all the public figures. clearly not joke degrees. they have defined the university as a place of scholarship for as long as the university has existed; they have a place. whatever your opinion of them, they dwarf 'international business' and the new arriviste class of asian management students in almost every single way. you can say it's a joke, but who is more in-line with the universities' original civic ethos: the person reading aquinas, kant, mill, and dewey, writing essays on classical subjects; or the asian business student there to study taylorism and figure out a way to make himself employable to a corporation?
you guys seem to have a real tough time with this. you read 'elitism' when it is only commonsense. the bottom 70% of all 'universities' in places like the UK (and i suspect the US/canada/aus as well) are jokes, with no entry requirements. they aren't even universities. they have zero input to research and furthering scholarship. they are just for non-academic people to get a 'degree', in whatever subject. but these degrees never really lead to graduate-level employment (not in the main, anyway). all i'm saying is they should go back to their polytechnic original role and provide meaningful training for people to get other qualifications. like germany. a system you just praised a page ago. now you're calling me out for the same argument? pretty confusing. considering elsewhere all of you have made arguments critical of the 'student debt burden', i'm surprised you find this so shocking. perhaps we should stop sending so many people to meagre institutions to take student loans they will never repay? stop entertaining an egalitarian delusion about 'university'? admit some students are more suited to polytechnic-style educations? germany does it and their youth employment is the envy of europe - as is their economy. but no, let's tut-tut about elitism and continue sending every student that can spell their first name to the university of shitsville to get a 'degree' in return for 2 decades' of debt.
i wouldn't 'gut' any subjects from top universities, really. it's confusing having management students on a university campus, but everyone knows the effective difference, and it doesn't really disturb the institution too much. what i'd like is a meaningful reform on a structural level: universities to be universities, and to focus on scholarship/research; and polytechnics to be polytechnics, to focus on skills and industry. then you can finance both suitably, rather than having the same pot of cash for both. most european states manage this fine (better than us, at least). in the anglophone world we seem to be stuck on this dumb political idea that it's 'shameful' to not have a degree. so people get pushed along to joke institutions to study joke degrees (an 'english' degree from an ex-polytechnic probably is total shit, let's face it, just like a maths degree from the same would probably only glance sophomore year material).
again: you brought up the subjects thing, when you started shitting on communications majors. all i said was that 'international business' has no more historical pedigree than the communications guys you laugh at. say "liberal arts and english majors" are the butt of all jokes, if you want... but that is historically inaccurate. these degrees have existed for centuries and are considered 'classical learning'. look back through history at all the presidents and prime ministers go through some form of 'classical learning', or all the public figures. clearly not joke degrees. they have defined the university as a place of scholarship for as long as the university has existed; they have a place. whatever your opinion of them, they dwarf 'international business' and the new arriviste class of asian management students in almost every single way. you can say it's a joke, but who is more in-line with the universities' original civic ethos: the person reading aquinas, kant, mill, and dewey, writing essays on classical subjects; or the asian business student there to study taylorism and figure out a way to make himself employable to a corporation?
Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-07-13 10:13:40)
lmao i missed that gem the first time. brilliant.Jay wrote:
You study English, a language you've been speaking since you were a toddler. .
fyi, people who study 'the language' take a course called 'linguistics', which involves hardcore math, logic, grammar, semiology/semiotics, and often aspects of computer programming. linguistics is actually considered a science. people who study "the english language" go to MIT to do so.
Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-07-13 10:09:24)
again i don't just do asian business k
there is no difference. business-style and international relations degrees are not academic. they are not the traditional purview of the university. sure the university may be 'diversifying' and 'modernizing', but that doesn't mean you can shit on communications majors. you are both part of the same new 'modern' university, i.e. one that engages with 'contemporary' subjects. both are very light on 'classical' learning and erudition, the historical purpose of the university. people interested in business in europe go to business schools. france, switzerland etc. have a whole series of world-class business schools. they aren't lumped into some university administration pointlessly to labour for a faux-academic 'degree'. people interested in business go and get trained in business. it is not academic. people who are academically interested in the business-world or money or capitalism etc. study economics. simple. seeing as you don't study economics, stop trying to make out other people on a university campus do 'joke' degrees in comparison to you. your 'vantage' is built on a foundation of sand.
Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-07-13 10:16:51)
why you so fixated on the business end of mah degree. i do IR as well kk
IR is exactly the same. the classical-learned versions of IR are philosophy, politics, economics, history. traditional academic subjects with huge bodies of scholarship and a research tradition. IR is a 'modern' degree mostly invented by universities for 1/2 year masters courses, to make money from an international business-class. it is nowhere near as academically rigorous or 'deep' in learning as its classical counter-parts. stop shitting on communications majors. pretty simple.
lol ok zique, IR is for business majors and rich asians apparently. gee i guess state to state relations are non-existent until some english dude decided it was important to study at a university. not like all those enlightenment philosophers didnt write anything about sovereign relations or gave advice on how a state should act.Uzique The Lesser wrote:
IR is exactly the same. the classical-learned versions of IR are philosophy, politics, economics, history. traditional academic subjects with huge bodies of scholarship and a research tradition. IR is a 'modern' degree mostly invented by universities for 1/2 year masters courses, to make money from an international business-class. it is nowhere near as academically rigorous or 'deep' in learning as its classical counter-parts. stop shitting on communications majors. pretty simple.
did they study international relations in their day? no. IR as a professionalized degree came out of the 20th century. same as communications majors. same as political science. of course state-to-state relations have existed as long as states. does that mean IR has a 3,000 year history? what a stupid fucking argument. machiavelli was an IR-tutor, then? don't be dumb.
just stop picking on subject choices. it doesn't make any sense. i am arguing for a practical division between 'academic' leaning subjects and 'applied' or 'technical' subjects. my argument was related to funding and student debt. not elitism. all you are doing is trying to say some other students are 'below' you or are doing a 'lesser' degree, whilst all the while doing a subject that has no more historical pedigree. it's a completely pointless exercise. i always toe the line that all academic subjects are equal - hence my anger at STEM/humanities bullshit - and ranking subjects is meaningless. there is only the academic and 'classical'/liberal education, and the applied/technical. those are the only two categories of subject that are meaningful and not just expressive of the person's discrimination. most of the animosity in universities only arises because the institutions force together these two disparate styles of education under one umbrella, and one type of qualification (the degree). i.e. it is diluted. all i want is a re-separation. it's very simple. i don't think someone doing business is 'a lesser' person than someone doing history. i just think they are a pointless addition to the university institution (hence why university campuses are rife with people making jokes about 'the management kids'; they don't do 'proper' academic essays, they don't present papers, they don't learn from the canon; they don't fit). they'd be better at a business school. horses for courses...
just stop picking on subject choices. it doesn't make any sense. i am arguing for a practical division between 'academic' leaning subjects and 'applied' or 'technical' subjects. my argument was related to funding and student debt. not elitism. all you are doing is trying to say some other students are 'below' you or are doing a 'lesser' degree, whilst all the while doing a subject that has no more historical pedigree. it's a completely pointless exercise. i always toe the line that all academic subjects are equal - hence my anger at STEM/humanities bullshit - and ranking subjects is meaningless. there is only the academic and 'classical'/liberal education, and the applied/technical. those are the only two categories of subject that are meaningful and not just expressive of the person's discrimination. most of the animosity in universities only arises because the institutions force together these two disparate styles of education under one umbrella, and one type of qualification (the degree). i.e. it is diluted. all i want is a re-separation. it's very simple. i don't think someone doing business is 'a lesser' person than someone doing history. i just think they are a pointless addition to the university institution (hence why university campuses are rife with people making jokes about 'the management kids'; they don't do 'proper' academic essays, they don't present papers, they don't learn from the canon; they don't fit). they'd be better at a business school. horses for courses...
Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-07-13 10:44:27)
Universities used to be places of learning and research, back in the day that 'research' was done in various subjects where progress was made.Uzique The Lesser wrote:
that's the only person i am trying to preserve universities for: serious learners, scholars, researchers, intellectuals. clear the business-people, managerial class, and sports science degrees out to specialist business schools and institutions. all that happens in our system nowadays is those schools are ran as side-shows, mutually acknowledged as being the 'money earners' from an international cadre. nobody on campus respects them. it's a depressing hybridism that only benefits the universities' chancellors.
Now that in many subjects 'research' mainly consists of rehashing past research over and over and no notable progress whatever is made I'd say those subjects are obsolete and the participants should be cleared out, to the British Library or wherever they feel comfortable, to make way for more modern subjects where useful progress is currently being made.
You can sneer at other, more modern, practical and relevant subjects all you like, I'm not sure what you think it achieves.
Fine, lets clear the first group out of Universities to wherever they want to go. Its embarrassing for STEM people to be lumped in with them and reduces the value of their degrees. "What, your degree is worth the same as someone who wrote useless essays about obsolete trivia for four years? LOLOLOLOL"i am arguing for a practical division between 'academic' leaning subjects and 'applied' or 'technical' subjects.
Fuck Israel
Universities are where children go to get turned into raging cunts.
i think we all know that the maddest group are those who don't go to university and then feel sore about it all their lives.
Super mad about not being $70,000 in debt right now.
who is $70,000 in debt? and wouldn't you have had to go to a top school to incur those sorts of tuition fees? lol no chance. your local community college would offer a much more modest price for an AA degree, i'm sure.
Univeristy of Phoenix at Devry, ITT institute division member of the Alpha alpha kappa frat.
Random private schools are 30k a year. do some math on how someone can end up 70k in debt.Uzique The Lesser wrote:
who is $70,000 in debt? and wouldn't you have had to go to a top school to incur those sorts of tuition fees?