Proof that an English degree is harder to get than an engineering degree

[Cheeseplug]

It's not that it isn't difficult, it's that it's not USEFUL in any way shape or form for anything other than teaching other people the same useless bullshit.

How is learning to think not useful? Liberal arts degrees, more than other degrees, teach a person how to think (at least, they're supposed to) which allows them to go into any number of different fields where they can be trained for the position.

Bachelors degrees aren't degrees saying you can now do job X, they are degrees that show that you can commit to something and you could work for four years to achieve that goal.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Oh wow, Shakespeare, one of the many reasons I don't miss school. I know why they called it Shakespeare too, not because it was the guy's name, but because it makes you want to shake a spear at it.

And what exactly would one do with an English degree anyway? You could could teach English to people who want to have an English degree, I guess, but, what's the point? lol.

 

[SunSamurai]

I use mine every day. Matrix Algebra seemed like it was going to be useful but I've never gotten around to applying it.

Yet youre using a computer and getting transportation to work. The product of engineering. Im not talking about YOU anyway. Im talking about the world in general. You do not need to be pro in a language to get the gist, you DO need to be good at engineering or you'll produce useless crap.

 

[AreaCode707]

A friend and I were talking about certain plays being difficult to read. I thought Shakespeare was hard to read because it contains all these screwy words that haven't been used in hundreds of years such as hark and wherefore. She then sends me a link to this page:
some crappy play




Imagine reading an entire play like that. That really is one of her assignments - read this entire piece of shit and write an essay about it. Luckily my report for the semester is as easy as doing sweep frequency analysis on some transformers and giving a powerpoint presentation

Without reading any more than the OP and without clicking the link, I'm going to say that's Troilus and Cresseyde by Chaucer. Am I right?

I did medieval lit in college as my English specialty. SO much fun! My favorite line was "dinna spurn upon an al". One of the few things that really stumped me on translation. Any guesses on interpretation??

 

[JohnCU]

Just watch, in 500 years, the only surviving remnants of the Internet will be bits of the LOLCat version of the Bible. Literature student droids will puzzle over our odd linguistic patterns, while scholars go on and on about the brilliance of the prose. Historians will argue over whether or not cats actually were capable of consuming cheeseburgers.

this is why jeff7 is my favorite ATOTer

 

[AreaCode707]

And yet an English degree and five bucks will get you some coffee at Starbucks, while engineers actually get paid

Graduated 2003 in English and Communications, making 6 figures now. Want to compare e-peenz?

English majors usually have a personality that's less career driven than science and engineering majors, so I think that's one factor in the difference in post-college salaries and jobs. I'm a type-A and I had no problem finding a wide range of jobs after graduation. I had a job within 5 weeks of graduation, without any internship or other preparation work.

[edit] I should add that the most brilliant math genius I know doesn't have a degree because he's so afraid of the English classes.

 

[krylon]

I take penis up the butt

 

[AreaCode707]

It's not that it isn't difficult, it's that it's not USEFUL in any way shape or form for anything other than teaching other people the same useless bullshit.

And THAT I won't argue with. When I graduated some grad student got a grant to study the significance of the color of women's clothing and its relation to gender roles in Chaucer's minor works.

Seriously....???

 

[Farang]

Yet youre using a computer and getting transportation to work. The product of engineering. Im not talking about YOU anyway. Im talking about the world in general. You do not need to be pro in a language to get the gist, you DO need to be good at engineering or you'll produce useless crap.

Not really a fair comparison. One needs only to get the jist while the other is expected to produce? What about if they both needed only to get the jist--you to write complete sentences and the other to operate the equipment you've engineered. Or what if they both needed to produce--you a novel, a useful how-to guide for laymen, or an editorial that affected change in your community, and them a piece of machinery that increased manufacturing capacity in a factory.

With the fair comparison, you can see you would both fail or succeed (depending if you were required to produce or just get the jist) equally.

 

[Jeff7]

this is why jeff7 is my favorite ATOTer

8.7 Snorgles for you.

 

[Farang]

I take penis up the butt

ygpm

 

[AreaCode707]

Not really a fair comparison. One needs only to get the jist while the other is expected to produce? What about if they both needed only to get the jist--you to write complete sentences and the other to operate the equipment you've engineered. Or what if they both needed to produce--you a novel, a useful how-to guide for laymen, or an editorial that affected change in your community, and them a piece of machinery that increased manufacturing capacity in a factory.

With the fair comparison, you can see you would both fail or succeed (depending if you were required to produce or just get the jist) equally.

Fair comparison:

An English major needs to know enough about computers to get one to work if they wind up in an admin job.

An Engineering major needs to know enough about English to write properly-composed emails when corresponding professionally at work with executives or customers, etc.

And that's about the level of exposure that high school and college general ed gives both people.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

I hope that is a joke. Not that English cannot be hard, just that what was posted in the OP is not evidence that it is.

I hated my English classes but I had no trouble with them, free A's. Thankfully I don't have to deal with that crap anymore.

 

[Ruptga]

Not this again. Let's be frank...are you an engineer?

nope, business major; way more marketable than either of those two

Graduated 2003 in English and Communications, making 6 figures now. Want to compare e-peenz?

English majors usually have a personality that's less career driven than science and engineering majors, so I think that's one factor in the difference in post-college salaries and jobs. I'm a type-A and I had no problem finding a wide range of jobs after graduation. I had a job within 5 weeks of graduation, without any internship or other preparation work.

[edit] I should add that the most brilliant math genius I know doesn't have a degree because he's so afraid of the English classes.

One example isn't a trend

 

[AreaCode707]

nope, business major; way more marketable than either of those two

Not in THIS market they aren't. The only thing marketable is experience.

So you're still in college then?

One example isn't a trend

True enough, and I know that if we pull up statistics we'll find a disparity in post-college salaries between majors. However, YOU know well enough that correlation doesn't equal cause. Liberal arts majors tend to be more focused on having what they consider fulfilling life experiences, and hard sciences majors tend to be focused on quantifiable achievements. Of course, business majors are basically busy learning to be leeches on the success of the hard science majors.

 

[tboo]

And yet an English degree and five bucks will get you some coffee at Starbucks, while engineers actually get paid

LOL, so true

 

[Turin39789]

LOL, so true

Meh. The only people I personally know who are unemployed are Business majors.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Quote:
Originally Posted by ConstipatedVigilante


You think that's hard to read? It's middle english - it's the same as what we speak today, except that the written stuff is based more on the phonetics of the language than today. Just say it in your head as you read it, it will make a lot more sense.

Science majors scoff at liberal arts degrees, but most of them can't write a proper sentence. People tend to major in what they're interested in - a science major might find an english degree very difficult in practice, and vice versa.

<---Chinese major; I find learning to write characters and speaking the language to be child's play compared to simple arithmetic.


Oh come on. We can write sentences. It's not that bad. Most humanities majors can't even figure out velocity and acceleration for a car--something we learn in high school physics. Most of them threw a hissy fit in chemistry in high school and decided that they would take biology instead of physics to continue. Did we engineers do that bad in high school english? I took both the English AP exams, and took honors classes. I didn't duck away from Spanish AP and History AP like the humanities majors avoided Calc AP and Physics AP. I did it all. Sure my high scores were physics and calc, but it's not like I suck that bad at English.

Fair enough, not all engineers are terrible at writing. If I was any good at math (or if it interested me as much as languages do, to give me an incentive for learning/practicing it), I would probably be an engineer since, like most people here, I'm interested in technology. But for the most part, the engineers I have met are good at math and don't know the difference between a colon and a semicolon.

 

[Modular]

nope, business major; way more marketable than either of those two



One example isn't a trend

This is what I was trying to get at. You're still in school and assuming that you won't be working with any LA majors just because you think that they're working towards a "less useful" degree. Pure comedy. When you get in the real world, you'll see that your boss is a fine arts major with an MBA and makes 150k a year while you complete all his projects for him...

 

[Jesusthewererabbit]

The Middle English Chaucer used isn't too bad, except the fucker never finished the Canterbury Tales. Try Beowulf in Old English. Ah yes, those were the days...senior level English classes...I was averaging an eight to ten page research paper about every three days...it was so fun, it makes me wonder why I quit...and why my hair fell out...

 

[SunSamurai]

Not really a fair comparison. One needs only to get the jist while the other is expected to produce? What about if they both needed only to get the jist--you to write complete sentences and the other to operate the equipment you've engineered. Or what if they both needed to produce--you a novel, a useful how-to guide for laymen, or an editorial that affected change in your community, and them a piece of machinery that increased manufacturing capacity in a factory.

With the fair comparison, you can see you would both fail or succeed (depending if you were required to produce or just get the jist) equally.

No, I dont care about hippy 'fair' comparison. In the real and practical world, your language is about body movement and a general understanding of what is being conveyed. You cannot get away with that in engineering. You either know what youre talking about, or you cannot build it. Try building a CPU with a general knowledge of the process. Its not going to happen.

One can go on and on about sentence structure, grammar and all the like, but at the end of it, language is made up by humans and can be changed by humans. Obeying the laws of physics is not, and that makes engineers much more valuable to society.

 

[Fenixgoon]

how do you get a liberal arts major off your door?

pay for your pizza.

zing!

 

[AreaCode707]

No, I dont care about hippy 'fair' comparison. In the real and practical world, your language is about body movement and a general understanding of what is being conveyed. You cannot get away with that in engineering. You either know what youre talking about, or you cannot build it. Try building a CPU with a general knowledge of the process. Its not going to happen.

One can go on and on about sentence structure, grammar and all the like, but at the end of it, language is made up by humans and can be changed by humans. Obeying the laws of physics is not, and that makes engineers much more valuable to society.

The argument about what's more valuable to society is a moot point.

You can argue that arts are impractical and valueless, and it can also be argued that the only purpose of applied science is to free up as much time as possible for the production of art.

You can argue that the use of science is what makes us productive, and it can be argued that the appreciation of art is what makes us human.

What it really boils down to is that people have different proclivities and value different things, and there is no reason to stack rank worth on an absolute level based on a person's area of interest from the ages of 18-22. Humanity and history are made up of the conglomeration of all types.

 

[IAteYourMother]

i could shit out an english degree

 

[SunSamurai]

The argument about what's more valuable to society is a moot point.

You can argue that arts are impractical and valueless, and it can also be argued that the only purpose of applied science is to free up as much time as possible for the production of art.

You can argue that the use of science is what makes us productive, and it can be argued that the appreciation of art is what makes us human.

What it really boils down to is that people have different proclivities and value different things, and there is no reason to stack rank worth on an absolute level based on a person's area of interest from the ages of 18-22. Humanity and history are made up of the conglomeration of all types.

I think we all know this. This is not what is being discussed. As a society, almost anywhere in the world, engineers are worth more than linguists. Being able to translate someone accurately is useful and convenient. It is wanted, like art. Your house not falling on your face and killing you, that bridge you drive over not collapsing and crushing you onto the rocks below, having clean water and food without pathogens liquefying your insides etc etc is needed.

Engineering relying on unchanging facts also means it is much harder to perfect and learn than language that relies somewhat on culture and aesthetics. We cant as a society sit and make up new physics that dont exist in reality but we can wake up one day and give a definition any word we want if we can make it popular enough.