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Arts & Humanities vs. All Sciences:

 
Old 12-12-2013 at 03:29 PM   #31
BenDover
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kudos View Post
I will say that people who are in university just to appease their parents are more likely to be found in soc sci/humanities. Why? Passing is easier. Fact. Excelling is harder. Fact. That combination works pretty well for slackers who want to explain why they aren't on the Dean's list.

There are, of course, exceptions to this. There are some very challenging programs in these two faculties, like social work, linguistics/cognitive science and econ (which would be the closest thing in either of these two faculties to a real science), and of course excelling in any hummer/soc sci program requires soft skills that a lot of folks in the hard sciences simply don't have. That said, in group projects with other soc sci kids, sometimes I'm shocked at how poor their writing skills are even in upper years so taking a liberal arts degree is no guarantee of those soft skills.

In the end, as Lois said, most science/soc sci/humanities degrees are utterly useless on their own. It's the skills you take from them that will serve you in the long run.
Im sorry, but my friend in her final year for social work had ZERO midterms, ZERO FINALS, and one of her term projects was to make a info pamphlet and show it to the class... yeah real challenging
Old 12-12-2013 at 03:37 PM   #32
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who the hell is saying that students in humanities/social sciences are only in school to please their parents?
I work 32hrs/week, pay my own tuition, and frankly, my parents couldn't care less if I had a university degree or not. I'm in my program because I love it (because it's the only thing I love/am interested in), not so I can impress others.

As for those of you saying that we don't care about grades: most law schools require a minimum CA of an A- for admission, and at least half (if not more) of the students in faculties like Philosophy or Poli Sci are aiming for a competitive average to guarantee a spot at the school they want to get into.

This thread is absolutely ridiculous, and I can't believe how closed-minded some of these people are.
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Old 12-12-2013 at 04:42 PM   #33
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SweetyTweety View Post
This thread is absolutely ridiculous, and I can't believe how closed-minded some of these people are.
I believe.
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Old 12-12-2013 at 04:59 PM   #34
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I'm probably going to get a lot of flames for this, but i really fail to see where people in biological sciences and life sciences get their superiority complexes. The self-entitlement for good marks is absurd, i'm pursuing a minor in biochemistry so i take the chem-related classes that life sci majors take and all they do is take every possible shortcut for marks, grovel for marks from TA's, and bitch to the prof when god-forbid the average is below a 70. A fucking 70?! Are you kidding me, i'm taking a thermo class this year where our average is in the 30s! Marks are earned, not given. Physical science is where its at, those pure chem and physics kids have the right to feel superior imo.

The answer is always the same, "I need a <insert GPA> to get into med school!", well tough luck butter-cup, theres a reason why so little people get in, you gotta be top of the class. And i'm guessing the kids at the top of the class don't need handouts.

At least for soc sci/humanities related courses the essays are subjective, there's no cookie-cutter way to an A.
Old 12-12-2013 at 05:21 PM   #35
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Quote:
Originally Posted by adaptation View Post
I'm probably going to get a lot of flames for this, but i really fail to see where people in biological sciences and life sciences get their superiority complexes. The self-entitlement for good marks is absurd, i'm pursuing a minor in biochemistry so i take the chem-related classes that life sci majors take and all they do is take every possible shortcut for marks, grovel for marks from TA's, and bitch to the prof when god-forbid the average is below a 70. A fucking 70?! Are you kidding me, i'm taking a thermo class this year where our average is in the 30s! Marks are earned, not given. Physical science is where its at, those pure chem and physics kids have the right to feel superior imo.

The answer is always the same, "I need a <insert GPA> to get into med school!", well tough luck butter-cup, theres a reason why so little people get in, you gotta be top of the class. And i'm guessing the kids at the top of the class don't need handouts.

At least for soc sci/humanities related courses the essays are subjective, there's no cookie-cutter way to an A.
I've noticed that within the science faculty, there's a tendency to look down upon certain majors. The ones that are most common are the ones you listed - life science and biology. Most other science programs are relatively small and have cutoff averages, whereas the larger ones only require a 6 because there's unlimited space. In addition, many people (though not everyone) choose to go into those programs because they are easier and they can get the higher marks for med school.
People who want to go into med school tend to be rather desperate for marks, whereas the people heading more towards grad school tend not to care as much. Plus, the general mentality is that marks get "taken off" for things that you get wrong, instead of marks being "earned" for doing something well. That only contributes to the sense of entitlement.

Also, to clarify my earlier statement that life sci and biology are easier...while I'm aware that the term 'easy' is subjective, the reality is that those programs have far less required courses and so you can take a ton of bird electives, if you choose - and many people will, just to inflate their GPA. Compare that to some of the more specialized science programs that get 0-1 electives per term. Those aren't the only programs that allow tons of electives and have unlimited space, but they're the most popular/visible ones, so they take most of the heat.

So, yes, people in the more specialized science programs look down on the more generalized science programs because they can take more electives to inflate their GPA, while the specialized people are sitting in something like quantum mechanics . And then the electives that those people take tend to be from humanities/soc sci, which then leads to the perception that humanities and soc sci are easy, and then people look down on them.

My opinion is that if your required courses are your hardest ones, you're in the wrong program.

I'd just like to add that those whiners that you mentioned don't speak for the class. Many of the life sci and biology students are just as annoyed with them as you are.
Old 12-12-2013 at 06:11 PM   #36
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SweetyTweety View Post
who the hell is saying that students in humanities/social sciences are only in school to please their parents?
I work 32hrs/week, pay my own tuition, and frankly, my parents couldn't care less if I had a university degree or not. I'm in my program because I love it (because it's the only thing I love/am interested in), not so I can impress others.

As for those of you saying that we don't care about grades: most law schools require a minimum CA of an A- for admission, and at least half (if not more) of the students in faculties like Philosophy or Poli Sci are aiming for a competitive average to guarantee a spot at the school they want to get into.

This thread is absolutely ridiculous, and I can't believe how closed-minded some of these people are.
Not me. What I said is that people who are only in school because their parents want them to be are, in my experience, more likely to take a degree in humanities or soc sci (usually a three year one). Doesn't mean that everyone is like that, I'm in soc sci myself (formerly humanities) and work quite hard because I want to be here.
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Old 12-12-2013 at 06:12 PM   #37
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Just to put in my two cents, the difficulty of a course/subject is different for every person. For some, math comes easy to them and for others writing an essay is a piece of cake but a integral will kill them.

At the same time there is an inherent difficulty associated with something like chemisty/physics/math and it is that most of the concepts you learn, especially when you get to the higher level course, are not intuitive or make sense at first. An example is Quantum Mechanics, anyone who has read a bit of QM and says they understand it, don't. On the other hand, in something like history, there is not much difficulty in concept, but rather the ability to communicate effectively and interpret properly.

Though I think everyone can agree that reading and interpreting Shakespeare is bogus

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Old 12-12-2013 at 08:56 PM   #38
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Originally Posted by kitty1 View Post
i am not going to join this argument about why one thing is better than the other. however i would like to point out that science is definitely NOT all about memorizing and regurgitation. yes i agree there are some topics that are regurgitation but not all. you're forgetting that science is also divided into many sub-fields, for example genetics, biochemistry, cell biology, physics, general chemistry, organic chemistry and environmental sciences (to name a few). by no means is everything in the faculty of science about memorizing and 'barfing things back onto a page and getting a good mark.' some memorization is found in all fields of studies including 'science', humanities, commerce, political science, religion studies and specially history, this doesn't mean that you can memorize and still be able to get a 4.0 gpa. every field is difficult AND easy in one way or another, and understanding and applying is involved in everything.
With the way that science courses are set up (based on objective measures like tests/quizzes vs. subjective essays), it is easier to get a 12 in a test-based science class than it is to get a 12 in a humanities class which is often based on essays/assignments. This is coming from a science major.

Anyhow, degrees in themselves are useless. What matters is soft skills - communication, teamwork, adaptability, and connections.
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Old 12-13-2013 at 03:02 PM   #39
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Quote:
Originally Posted by adaptation View Post
I'm probably going to get a lot of flames for this, but i really fail to see where people in biological sciences and life sciences get their superiority complexes. The self-entitlement for good marks is absurd, i'm pursuing a minor in biochemistry so i take the chem-related classes that life sci majors take and all they do is take every possible shortcut for marks, grovel for marks from TA's, and bitch to the prof when god-forbid the average is below a 70. A fucking 70?! Are you kidding me, i'm taking a thermo class this year where our average is in the 30s! Marks are earned, not given. Physical science is where its at, those pure chem and physics kids have the right to feel superior imo.

The answer is always the same, "I need a <insert GPA> to get into med school!", well tough luck butter-cup, theres a reason why so little people get in, you gotta be top of the class. And i'm guessing the kids at the top of the class don't need handouts.

At least for soc sci/humanities related courses the essays are subjective, there's no cookie-cutter way to an A.
I don't have a problem with most of your post - I'm in biochemistry and that do-whatever-for-marks and do-things-just-to-put-on-med-school-applications attitude pisses me off to no end as well - but I take a bit of exception to the bolded parts.

1. Please don't generalize every single person in biological/life sciences. There are plenty (though probably still a minority) of people that don't want to go to medical school and/or don't know what they want to do and are in science because they like it. They don't deserve to be scorned because of their louder, more annoying program-mates.

2. No, just because your program is "harder" doesn't give you the right to feel "superior". People are in their respective programs for different reasons, and just being in that program doesn't make you superior. Using the same type of argument as being in biological sciences/grovelling for marks for med school, I could just as easily say "people in physical sciences are just in there so they can feel superior and look down on other people and show off about how hard their program is". It doesn't work like that.

Someone could be really good at physical sciences and understand everything and is a genius in that regard, but what if they just feel an affinity towards life science or humanities as well? They're just as "smart" as you, who actually went into physical sciences, but for personal reasons they did not go into it. Are you "superior" to them, or should you feel superior to them?

(Note: I'm using a general "you", not you in particular).



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