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

[Syringer]

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

Admit it, you just wanted to brag to ATOT that you know a girl.

 

[AreaCode707]

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.

The counter argument being that those things are only needed to allow humans the leisure to produce art. You can scrap building and food production and whatever if you want to go back to living a full time hunter-gatherer existence. We don't NEED to know about the universe or build ourselves good solid houses; we only do those things to make our lives easier, thereby allowing us time to *gasp* explore more about what it means to be human.

 

[Syringer]

The counter argument being that those things are only needed to allow humans the leisure to produce art. You can scrap building and food production and whatever if you want to go back to living a full time hunter-gatherer existence. We don't NEED to know about the universe or build ourselves good solid houses; we only do those things to make our lives easier, thereby allowing us time to *gasp* explore more about what it means to be human.

So basically you have a household of two people. One works and brings home money and feeds the both of them. The other sits home all day and plays video games..Hmm which is more useful to society.

 

[Ruptga]

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

So you're still in college then?




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.

Yes I am a senior in college, and I don't think I have anything else with which to disagree

 

[Ruptga]

I don't deny that we need both engineers and linguists, but I don't think we need as many linguists as engineers.

 

[ShawnD1]

Admit it, you just wanted to brag to ATOT that you know a girl.

Next thread will be called "only stupid people believe in god" and I'll use that thread to brag about sleeping with this woman

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

My school is mostly for job-related training and applied science, and business courses are a joke around here. All of the engineering and applied sciences start at 8-9am and end at 3-4pm every day of the week. The business classes rarely start at 8am and most days are half days. It doesn't surprise me one bit that the people who picked the easiest classes tend to have a hard time getting jobs that pay well.

The arts people really don't deserve the flack they get. The person who sent that ridiculous link in the OP is actually a drama student. A lot of her school work involves building sets, doing stage lighting, and rehearsing for plays. It's a lot of work. It's the complete opposite of my business student ex girlfriend who did a report last year about facebook.
I'm pretty sure my drama student friend will not have a problem finding work when she graduates. Her past summer jobs involved working for the city, doing what she does every day at school - organizing group activities.

 

[IronWing]

I don't deny that we need both engineers and linguists, but I don't think we need as many linguists as engineers.

It was the linguist Dr. Ransom that saved all of humanity, not some engineer!

 

[AreaCode707]

It was the linguist Dr. Ransom that saved all of humanity, not some engineer!

Is that seriously a Lewis trilogy reference? Or am I going too obscure?

 

[Ruptga]

It was the linguist Dr. Ransom that saved all of humanity, not some engineer!

Uhhh, The Space Trilogy? I liked the first book, made it through the second alright, but the third sucked so hard... or at least it did for me in early high school.

 

[Fenixgoon]

It was the linguist Dr. Ransom that saved all of humanity, not some engineer!

who built a tank out of transparent aluminum in order to bring two whales back to the 23rd century and save the earth?

oh right, chief engineer of the USS Enterprise, montgomery scott

 

[AreaCode707]

Uhhh, The Space Trilogy? I liked the first book, made it through the second alright, but the third sucked so hard... or at least it did for me in early high school.

Heheh, if I had to pick a single favorite book it'd be the third of the Space Trilogy. You have to have read Abolition of Man to get it though, and having an appreciation for medieval literature and knowing about the relationship between Tolkien and Lewis doesn't hurt.

 

[Howard]

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.

Liberal arts majors teach people how to think and engineering majors don't? Are you out of your mind?

 

[Cheeseplug]

Liberal arts majors teach people how to think and engineering majors don't? Are you out of your mind?

Not just liberal arts majors, all majors. I was just addressing very specifically the claim that liberal arts are useless.

 

[Udgnim]

think of reading Shakespeare as learning a new language then

an engineering degree is much more difficult than an english degree

 

[Sea Moose]

perhaps they could send these tards over to china. THe purpose: Help the chinese people write english instructions so that dumb people (like me) can understand the instructions.

 

[Sea Moose]

Admit it, you just wanted to brag to ATOT that you know a girl.

I have seen girls from afar. THey have boobies.

 

[Sumguy]

While science majors scoff at English degrees, pretty much everyone shits all over business majors. Those guys get no mercy.

Go up to any typical "I'm hung over on a Wednesday morning" frat boy and chances are he majors in business administration.

 

[Locut0s]

People like to bash arts degrees, because they really aren't that useful, which is sort of true but no one should underestimate the difficulty of majoring in literature, language or any number of other arts degrees. Analyzing, critiquing and commenting on the great works of literature is not an easy thing to do, any more than advanced physics or math is. The main thing is that the two take completely different mental faculties to tackle.

 

[Born2bwire]

People like to bash arts degrees, because they really aren't that useful, which is sort of true but no one should underestimate the difficulty of majoring in literature, language or any number of other arts degrees. Analyzing, critiquing and commenting on the great works of literature is not an easy thing to do, any more than advanced physics or math is. The main thing is that the two take completely different mental faculties to tackle.

:awe:

 

[Savarak]

snip
:awe:

lol @ another tp company guy line

 

[Full Monty]

I have both a B.S. in Computer Engineering and a B.A. in English and my personal feeling is that engineering is more difficult than English, but as was already mentioned, it does depend upon everyone's own personal proclivities toward one or the other. I've seen engineering majors both struggling and flourishing in English classes, so it's pointless to make a blanket statement about which is harder.

 

[Babbles]

People pick majors that match their strengths. People who major in the sciences often think they're better than everyone else because their major is so much "harder." They need to get over themselves.

This is totally true. I'm a card-carrying scientist (or I was before I sold out and started my MBA) for nearly ten years. It drives me freaking nuts when I see people on ATOT talking up science, and engineering, like it is some end-all, be-all to everything. Most people who say this probably are not scientists themselves or they are still in college or right out of college and are acting as pretentious as hell.

In regards to how "hard" programs are, a few years ago when my wife was working on her PhD in art history, she was told to go and take a semester to learn German. There is no way in hell I could have learned a new language in a semester. My point in this story is that technical people scoff at so much of the arts and humanities, yet I would tend to believe that most of "us" would be absolutely terrible at learning a new language in a few months.

Finally when I was working as an analytical Principal Investigator I had to compile big-ass reports, and the ability to be a pretty good writer is absolutely paramount. Arguably you can be a genius at science stuff, but if you cannot convey your data then all of that work you did was almost meaningless. Writing and communicating with others are crazy important skills and should not be casually dismissed.

So that's why alot of the med school applicants are English majors... oh wait... :|

I assume this is some slam of English majors, which if so is a clear indication of your inability to think critically. As noted by somebody else, the typical English major has no desire at all to go to medical school so of course as a percentage of applicants there is likely not to be a significant amount of English majors.

Also at one point some stats mentioned that philosophy majors tend to do the best in medical school. Food for thought.

 

[lurk3r]

The difference is that 80% of the engineers, if you found a way to motivate them enough could study English, we just can't be bothered with trying to translate and absorb what some random lunatic put to paper. Maybe 20% of English grads have any hope of passing 1st year in any engineering school.

 

[zinfamous]

depends on the person.

An English degree was cake for me, because most of the relevant work comes rather naturally. I had to work a bit harder for the Bio degree, though. I'd not want to think about going engineering, as I freaking hate math.

I had Bio buddies in a few of the general English courses for the first year or two, that simply couldn't process that type of work, the mindset is a bit different. Science is generally not a fan of writing.

That being said, I never was too interested in middle or Old English texts, which wasn't required, or at least wasn't featured in the concentration for my degree. Graduate work in English is miles different than undergrad.

 

[Adrenaline]

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

Well for my senior year in engineering we had a whole class dedicated to building a plant from scratch and processing something with an end product that would sell. Split into groups of 3, this project still sucked.

I will take that boring essay read any day over crap like that.