Job Discussion Forums

[TeacherPreacher]

What did I do it for!? I actually thought I could be a social worker when I finished. I imagine there are loads of TEFLers who have degrees in Sociology, Archeology, Philosophy and other useless subjects. Without opening up the whole 'Are Universities Irresponsible' subject. There must be loads of people with useless degrees in TEFL, right?

[TeacherPreacher]

Media Studies! That must be the most common BA amongst TEFLers. Am I right?

[Ariadne]

Mine is a Social Science group major. I will say though that I really enjoyed it. I declared a major fairly late and chose one that would fit with all the interesting classes I'd been taking in sociology, history, and psychology. I still believe that college should be more about education than training for a job.

And hey, lots of those philosophy majors go on to law school.

.

[mozzar]

I did English Literature but I always knew that I was going to settle for being an English teacher.

[Deicide]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[coledavis]

Actually, having a degree in a subject like philosophy, sociology and psychology gives you lots of useful things to discuss with students, if you are able to use the material - in precis form - cogently and comprehensibly.

[Chris_Crossley]

Having an interest in current affairs and politics (especially in one's own country) can also help one to develop ideas about how to discuss morality without necessarily going through three or four years of undergraduate study in sociology and psychology. Life experience can prove just as valuable for the development of personal perspectives on human behaviour.

I must confess, though, that my first degree, which I got 21 years ago, was also in a "useless" subject, but it wasn't a mainstream subject although it was largely based on history - it was called "Independent Studies" because, at the time, the university must have felt that it was trend-setting by allowing students to devise up to five of their own academic units out of the nine they could take during their second and final years.

Perhaps I ought to have stuck with German Studies instead as that was the major that I was originally pursuing before making the (somewhat unwise) change!

[Chancellor]

It just seems to me that if you're not going to be a sociologist or if you're not going to become a sociology professor or if you're not going to work for one of those three-letter American government agencies, a degree in something like sociology is pretty much useless.

But isn't it true that American degree programs tend to put more emphasis on taking a bunch of fairly useless courses while UK degree programs tend to emphasize the field you want to go into?

[coledavis]

I don't think there is such a career as a sociologist, outside academia. As for the UK higher education system, while the market has led to more vocational degrees these days, there are still plenty of arts and humanities courses available.

[Justin Trullinger]

[coledavis]

Point taken.

[naturegirl321]

What about LIberal Arts?

[naturegirl321]

[Chancellor]