Oh, the Humanities!

[Tannin]

To be fair, there are some things which are best learned outside of the university environment. To take a topical example, I don't believe that even the very best universities can come close to producing such magnificently ignorant jealousy and bile.

[slangman]

[stui magpie]

[watt price tully]

[Pies4shaw]

Slangman, that's quite humorous, although I'm not sure if it's intentional. The expected ATAR to get into Melbourne Arts or Melbourne Science this year is 85 (in each case). The lowest ATAR accepted for entry into those courses last year was, respectively, 76.3 (for Science) and 76.05 (for Arts). The median score required for entry to Arts is far above the minimum required for entry to Science.

Here's the link to all the data for Monash (you may sift it yourself): https://www.monash.edu/study/courses/admissions-transparency/atar-offer-profile-report?domestic=true

As we know, it is most difficult to get into Law and Medicine and a couple of other study areas that lead to occupation in reasonably-paid employment - the rest is all much of a muchness. The ATARs are a measure of demand to get in - not the intellect required for the field of learning or to acquit oneself competently as a professional at the end of the course, still less the intrinsic value of the particular study. My daughter, for example, just finished her Bachelor of Music at Melbourne. Hers was a performance degree in voice. The entry requirement, measured as an ATAR, for Music is, relatively, quite low. That's because the vast majority of people don't have the basic aptitude required to get through the (mandatory) audition, so they don't bother applying - eg, how's your "Au fond du temple saint" (you're probably not a Bjorling or a Merrill, I expect)? It is also true to say that the vast majority of people who do that course go on to teach. Indeed many of the most elite professionals in that field have to supplement their earnings from internationally-acclaimed performances by working at Lush or Cotton On or selling bras in Myer. A very tiny fraction will, like my daughter probably will, be professional opera singers in major international opera houses (and only occasionally work in retail). The fact that the job market is extraordinarily competitive and there aren't many highly-paid jobs at the end of the degree doesn't mean that the training is not valuable. More importantly, the only way you are going to produce elite performers and develop an elite understanding of music from that pool of students is by giving them elite teaching. That could not, with respect, be done at "night school" or in a TAFE course.

Generally speaking, the people who become "career academics" in the humanities are so highly-skilled, intelligent and capable that they have burnt off the opposition - they aren't the people who "scraped in" with the low ATAR. There will, of course, always be people we think of as the exception. It is, I suppose, your "right" to disregard entire fields of critical thinking and human endeavour and to embarrass yourself by adopting your own unique worldview that identifies you as (or allows you to identify with - I don't know which) some "apex predator" at the top of the chain of human achievement. Personally, I think people who cannot play Liszt's Concert Etudes to international performance standard are not quite "all there". But I try not to allow that particular facet of my elitism (I have others - be careful what you wish for) to lead me to disregard entire fields of human endeavour and pretend that they are for "second-rate" people. In the fields I work in (no, I am not a "career academic" and I don't these days work as a professional musician, either), I have learned that many of the people I work with are brilliant at things but cannot play Liszt's music adequately (indeed, some of the best of those people can't play a note).

At one (incredibly superficial) level, everything that is taught in any undergraduate school could be taught at TAFE. It's only an obsession with a notion that some things are "hard" and others not that leads some to the view that the things they think aren't "hard" shouldn't be studied in a university.

I think you probably also need to revise some of your other assumptions, by the way - not too many of the people having a crack at your militant ignorance work in the "humanities" (whatever that means).

[slangman]

[Pies4shaw]

That isn't a "point". It's just a trite observation.

[Tannin]

[slangman]

[Pies4shaw]

Yes, of course I "admit" it's fact. It would be surprising if I didn't - after all, I said it. And the semantic content of the sentence I used it in makes it plain that I believed the statement to be true. It has no potentially sensible bearing on any logically competent argument about what courses should - or should not - be taught at university.

You plainly think that your last post is some kind of telling argument. So I'd guess it's desirable just to leave it there.

[David]

Slangman, what I really want to know is what you think of marketing degrees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0

[stui magpie]

I'd just like to welcome Slangman to the VPT.

It's a pleasant change having someone other than me or Eddie copping all the heat

[watt price tully]

[watt price tully]

[slangman]