<p>
</p>
<p>There’s no denying this, but the vast majority of humanities majors take their one or two year requirement of a foreign language and stop.</p>
<p>^Yes, but my point was that those majors which require advanced study of foreign languages are not an extreme. They are in a minority, but not an extreme. You cannot make the claim that people respect and view a VERY BROAD category as harder and as producing more intellegent people than another very broad category. This is simply not true. </p>
<p>If you want to say “Engineers are viewed as having a tougher curriculum than many poli sci majors, and thus people respect them more.” That is fine. I still think it a bit arrogant, but the point can be argued. However, you cannot apply it to the entire field of the humanities because that is not true. People understand the hard work and diligence that any major with intensive language study requires.</p>
<p>I don’t disagree with you – the classics are rigorous because of their intensive language study. But as you say, they are a minority within the humanities whereas all engineers have a comprehensively difficult curriculum. The humanities lack this at most colleges. And this is coming from someone who decided to attend an elite liberal arts college when all of my friends from NC Governor’s School and high school school decided to attend UNC-Chapel Hill for pre-med or NC State for engineering, TonyBallioni. ;)</p>
<h2>Classics majors at are required to read Homer and Virgil in the original, before moving on to advanced study in Latin and Greek (Chapel Hill requires 5 advanced Latin courses beyond Virgil and 3 advanced Greek beyond Homer for a Classics major with a Greek and Latin concentration and Latin emphasis) ~ TonyBallioni</h2>
<p>Dude, Latin is a dead freakin language, talk about useless.</p>
<p>I mean come on? What employer needs someone to speak latin? </p>
<p>If I interviewed you, I would actually look at that skill negatively.</p>
<p>“Wait, what? You spent that much time learning to read latin when you could have been learning to do useful stuff?”</p>
<p>USELESS! USELESS!</p>
<p>I mean, that is the perfect example of what not to do in college. Go learn to read a dead freakin language no one in the world speaks anymore as a native tongue.</p>
<p>Could that be anymore irrelevant in real life?</p>
<h2>Like I said, reading Homer and Virgil in the original is just as hard as mastering Calculus, and probably takes more time. ~ TonyBallioni</h2>
<p>Exactly, all it does is take up time you could be using to learn practical skills.</p>
<p>Latin - what a joke.</p>
<p>What a pathetic and ignorant stance; that “dead freakin language” you’re talking about, and the people that spoke it and wrote in it, are the foundations of western civilization. I can’t imagine a humanities degree MORE worthwhile than studying the Latin and Greek classics. The intense focus and attention to detail required for the hours spent translating and reading alone are marketable skills (albeit, not apparently so), to say nothing of the fact that Classics majors consistently earn the highest scores on graduate and professional school entrance examinations across the board, from the GRE to the MCAT to the LSAT. </p>
<p>Lets not forget that classicists are often better writers with a more expansive vocabulary and a mastery of grammar, which can be invaluable in careers like journalism or fiction-writing. I could go on and on, I’m sure. Lets just say that if I were your boss and I heard that ridiculously ignorant statement come out of you, Bigeast, I’d keep you far, FAR away from the hiring process.</p>
<p>Please do not refer to my passion as a joke. If you want to argue that it is going to be hard to find a job, go ahead. I am fully aware of the difficulties that I would have if I wanted to work in the business world, but I don’t want to do that. I intend to either go to law school or seek a PhD, and the priesthood is also something that I have been contemplating recently. A Classics degree is not useless for any of these pursuits. I am also conversational in French and Spanish, something that was made much easier by my knowledge of Latin.</p>
<p>As I have said what must be a thousands times, no one with a Classics major has any intent of keeping it as a four year degree, unless they plan to teach Latin, which is actually a solid career choice because there has been a recent desire to bring back Latin in many high schools, and there is currently a teacher shortage. You don’t seem to get the idea that what you do for undergrad doesn’t matter one bit if your plans are to go to law school or med school, and if your intent is to become an academic, private sector hiring preferences really don’t matter much either.</p>
<p>I do not expect you to agree with the choice that I have made, and I really don’t care if you do. I do however expect some civility.</p>
<p>^ What Tony said.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That sounds like every NC high school, except you forgot to mention about once every other year someone gets into Duke for one of the same reasons. I was never into the idea of an LAC, and it’s lucky for me that Carolina has one of the best Classics departments in the country.</p>
<p>I joke with some of my pre-med bio major friends that, statistically, they’d be better off for med school if they joined me in over in Murphey Hall.</p>
<p>I mean, that is the perfect example of what not to do in college. Go learn to read a dead freakin language no one in the world speaks anymore as a native tongue.</p>
<p>It’s a fine and enriching thing to do as long as one is ALSO keeping the real world in mind. Perhaps this was BigEast’s point. </p>
<p>Lets not forget that classicists are often better writers with a more expansive vocabulary and a mastery of grammar, which can be invaluable in careers like journalism or fiction-writing. I could go on and on, I’m sure. Lets just say that if I were your boss and I heard that ridiculously ignorant statement come out of you, Bigeast, I’d keep you far, FAR away from the hiring process.</p>
<p>I think journalism isn’t exactly a cakewalk to make a nice career in - I know someone who’s quite accomplished in that area, and you really have to make sure you can do a ton of things well. Having an expansive vocabulary can be accomplished many ways - sure, your way may be one, but in and of itself, knowing Latin is likely near useless for a majority of careers.</p>
<p>I think the whole point of someone like BigEast (albeit some points being communicated offensively in the excitement) is that there are <em>tons</em> of jobs in other areas, if someone learns the marketable skills. By itself, learning how to read and write with extensive vocabulary doesn’t get you a very good job, very likely - you’d have to be very extraordinary, and counting on that is arrogance by itself.</p>
<p>(Note - I am not criticizing anyone here in particular, but attempting to clarify what I think is being said … because I feel like lots of people are responding by taking raw offense, which, while understandable, can be avoided.)</p>
<p>You don’t seem to get the idea that what you do for undergrad doesn’t matter one bit if your plans are to go to law school or med school, and if your intent is to become an academic,</p>
<p>Now, law and med school I can understand. I don’t think anyone should get hung up on being an academic - it’s a pretty uncertain path, and one should be prepared not to become one. Sure, it’s good to try, but there have been numerous discussions of how steep the job market is for that. Sure, if someone’s going to try, that’s his/her choice, but I will certainly call it silly for any but the most well-connected, most talented individuals to be bent upon academia. Go to grad school, figure out if it’s really for you, and keep the head grounded at reality … or you actually do waste time away, in case your one narrow career plan doesn’t work.</p>
<p>Note - for law and med school, I think it is much more predictable to have some degree of success. Still, doing fairly well on the standardized testing can be a hurdle. I’ll have all know that my friend in math seemed to do much better in law admissions than others who did things like polisci, simply because he had the right kind of reasoning skills to ace the LSAT.</p>
<p>Finland uses Latin. Not dead yet!</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I wish it had happened before I had to take those classes…HAH!</p>
<p>^ too bad.</p>
<p>are you guys saying that my future degree in Quantitative Economics will be worthless because it’s a BA? I thought it had carry over to finance, operations management/engineering, marketing, and management.</p>
<p>The distinction between a BA and BS is usually nonexistent if the department only offers a BA version of it, or minimal if there exists a BS version of it. The argument is more in regards to the representative majors of liberal arts (English, Literature, , Classics, as well as the [insert random word here] Studies) and not so much the ones that are borderline.</p>
<p>I have to agree and disagree with certain points made. First, not all liberal art degrees are useless. Many sociology, political science, psychology, economics, and English majors go on to become lawyers, social workers, and state workers. I work at a courthouse on the east coast and every lawyer/social worker/court clerk/probation officer/ US marshal/Judge has a Bachelors of art degree. Fact is they are great with words and writing. They are able to effectively communicate with people on paper and in person. I knew a girl who majored in English and now works full-time at a big university writing to prospective donors for grants. I know a girl who has a degree in communication and works at a casino. She works as a liaison between the casino and their wealthy clientele. She earns 60k plus bonuses and she is 24. My cousin was a sociology major and now works as a social worker-case management for the state complete with great benefits, salary, and pension. They paid off her student loans too.
My best friend was a statistics major and is still jobless. I wonder what she can do with that degree, because last time I checked there were very few jobs that exclusively hire statistics majors. She is also 45k in student loan debt. Currently she is an assistant manager at the Gap.
Most jobs that require a BS also require one to take a test to get hired and if you are terrible at tests you are sol. My uncles are engineers and when the economy got bad they had their salaries reduced. They also laid off many engineers.</p>
<p>I would never get a degree in philosophy or anything like that. I have to agree that unless you plan to go to law school or get a PHD that degree is useless.</p>
<p>Political Science is good because they can go to law school? Engineers and scientists can also go to law school. But if they don’t go to law school, they can do other things, because they have quantitative knowledge. There is a great difference between people who have the knowledge and ability to work with mathematics and physics, and those who do not. One can say that knowing mathematics and physics sets one apart from the crowd, that even if unemployed, will make them a better person and better equipped to find the next job. Even biology is not good enough, because it doesn’t have enough math and physics. What happens to the poli-sci people who can’t go to law school?</p>
<p>Now I’m not going to say polisci is useless. The world needs mcdonalds workers, janitors and corrupt politicians. however, wouldn’t you rather learn something quantitative? engineering and hard sciences are the real liberal arts degrees that expand your mind, humanities degrees close your mind off to the quantitative aspects of the world.</p>
<p>remember: the foundation of ALL modern civilization is Mechanical Engineering, not English, classics, or things like that. the most fundamental subject in the world is not Literature, but Mathematics. the subject that people use every day, but most are too ignorant of recognizing it, is Physics, not Gender Studies. Almost everything we use has been created by a Chemist, not by a Sociologist. And you are here talking because of Electrical Engineers ,not because of Psychology. If you want to argue which is more important, see whether you can survive 10 days without electricity (thanks to Electrical and Mechanical Engineers), water (thanks to Civil Engineers), a computer (Physicists and Electrical Engineers), medicine (thanks to Biologists and Chemists) or fuel (thanks to Chemists and Chemical Engineers), then try to see if you can survive 10 days without Freudian psychoanalysis or something.</p>
<p>Gotta say, while I do think liberal arts degrees are essentially useless unless going to graduate school or teaching, that is not stopping a large sum of them to pursue them. Just a look at my school statistics (UCSB) shows that 67% of students are pursuing a non-Science degree.</p>
<p>Could you survive? Sure it would be great to have all those things, but if no one is there to interpret the laws that protect the rights of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians then what? I don’t know where you live but being that the United States is slowly but surely out sourcing everything there will come a time when we won’t need engineers, because we don’t make anything. Anytime we need something fixed we will hire people from other countries ( who will make close to nothing) to fix or buy it from another country. The funny part is the laws that allow out sourcing and such are all decided by Liberal art majors for the most parts IE senators, congressman, and the President.
Supreme Court justice John Roberts-BA in History
Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia -BA in History
Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy-BA in Political Science
Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas-BA in English Lit
Supreme Court justice Ruth Ginsberg-BA
Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito-BA
Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor-BA
Supreme Court justice Stephen Bryer-BA in Philosophy<br>
Supreme Court justice Elena Kagan BA in History</p>
<p>@nw2010</p>
<p>Maybe that’s why they’re so incompetent 
jk jk</p>