Conquer Club

Monday, 13 April 2015 was a typical day in modern British politics. An Oxford University graduate in philosophy, politics and economics (PPE), Ed Miliband, launched the Labour party’s general election manifesto. It was examined by the BBC’s political editor, Oxford PPE graduate Nick Robinson, by the BBC’s economics editor, Oxford PPE graduate Robert Peston, and by the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Oxford PPE graduate Paul Johnson. It was criticised by the prime minister, Oxford PPE graduate David Cameron. It was defended by the Labour shadow chancellor, Oxford PPE graduate Ed Balls.

Elsewhere in the country, with the election three weeks away, the Liberal Democrat chief secretary to the Treasury, Oxford PPE graduate Danny Alexander, was preparing to visit Kingston and Surbiton, a vulnerable London seat held by a fellow Lib Dem minister, Oxford PPE graduate Ed Davey. In Kent, one of Ukip’s two MPs, Oxford PPE graduate Mark Reckless, was campaigning in his constituency, Rochester and Strood. Comments on the day’s developments were being posted online by Michael Crick, Oxford PPE graduate and political correspondent of Channel 4 News.

On the BBC Radio 4 website, the Financial Times statistics expert and Oxford PPE graduate Tim Harford presented his first election podcast. On BBC1, Oxford PPE graduate and Newsnight presenter Evan Davies conducted the first of a series of interviews with party leaders. In the print media, there was an election special in the Economist magazine, edited by Oxford PPE graduate Zanny Minton-Beddoes; a clutch of election articles in the political magazine Prospect, edited by Oxford PPE graduate Bronwen Maddox; an election column in the Guardian by Oxford PPE graduate Simon Jenkins; and more election coverage in the Times and the Sun, whose proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, studied PPE at Oxford.

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“PPE thrives,” says Willetts, a former education minister who is writing a book about universities, “because a problem of English education is too much specialisation too soon, whereas PPE is much closer to the prestigious degrees for generalists available in the United States. As a PPE graduate, you end up with a broad sense of modern political history, you’ve cantered through political thought, done [philosophical] logic, wrestled with economics from monetarism to Maynard Keynes. You’ve had to get through a lot of work – 16 essays a term. That’s very useful later when you have to write a speech to a deadline.” Willetts adds: “As a minister, you do sometimes think that British political life is an endless recreation of the PPE essay crisis.”

DoomYoshi wrote:

“PPE thrives,” says Willetts, a former education minister who is writing a book about universities, “because a problem of English education is too much specialisation too soon, whereas PPE is much closer to the prestigious degrees for generalists available in the United States. As a PPE graduate, you end up with a broad sense of modern political history, you’ve cantered through political thought, done [philosophical] logic, wrestled with economics from monetarism to Maynard Keynes."

DoomYoshi wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/feb/23/ppe-oxford-university-degree-that-rules-britain

Monday, 13 April 2015 was a typical day in modern British politics. An Oxford University graduate in philosophy, politics and economics (PPE), Ed Miliband, launched the Labour party’s general election manifesto. It was examined by the BBC’s political editor, Oxford PPE graduate Nick Robinson, by the BBC’s economics editor, Oxford PPE graduate Robert Peston, and by the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Oxford PPE graduate Paul Johnson. It was criticised by the prime minister, Oxford PPE graduate David Cameron. It was defended by the Labour shadow chancellor, Oxford PPE graduate Ed Balls.
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Elsewhere in the country, with the election three weeks away, the Liberal Democrat chief secretary to the Treasury, Oxford PPE graduate Danny Alexander, was preparing to visit Kingston and Surbiton, a vulnerable London seat held by a fellow Lib Dem minister, Oxford PPE graduate Ed Davey. In Kent, one of Ukip’s two MPs, Oxford PPE graduate Mark Reckless, was campaigning in his constituency, Rochester and Strood. Comments on the day’s developments were being posted online by Michael Crick, Oxford PPE graduate and political correspondent of Channel 4 News.

On the BBC Radio 4 website, the Financial Times statistics expert and Oxford PPE graduate Tim Harford presented his first election podcast. On BBC1, Oxford PPE graduate and Newsnight presenter Evan Davies conducted the first of a series of interviews with party leaders. In the print media, there was an election special in the Economist magazine, edited by Oxford PPE graduate Zanny Minton-Beddoes; a clutch of election articles in the political magazine Prospect, edited by Oxford PPE graduate Bronwen Maddox; an election column in the Guardian by Oxford PPE graduate Simon Jenkins; and more election coverage in the Times and the Sun, whose proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, studied PPE at Oxford.

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“PPE thrives,” says Willetts, a former education minister who is writing a book about universities, “because a problem of English education is too much specialisation too soon, whereas PPE is much closer to the prestigious degrees for generalists available in the United States. As a PPE graduate, you end up with a broad sense of modern political history, you’ve cantered through political thought, done [philosophical] logic, wrestled with economics from monetarism to Maynard Keynes. You’ve had to get through a lot of work – 16 essays a term. That’s very useful later when you have to write a speech to a deadline.” Willetts adds: “As a minister, you do sometimes think that British political life is an endless recreation of the PPE essay crisis.”

mrswdk wrote:

DoomYoshi wrote:

“PPE thrives,” says Willetts, a former education minister who is writing a book about universities, “because a problem of English education is too much specialisation too soon, whereas PPE is much closer to the prestigious degrees for generalists available in the United States. As a PPE graduate, you end up with a broad sense of modern political history, you’ve cantered through political thought, done [philosophical] logic, wrestled with economics from monetarism to Maynard Keynes."

Quotes like this are why Willetts is probably one of Symmetry's idols.

DoomYoshi wrote:I think it is just a money grab but it's the 3-year and potential 2-year degrees that are the most moneygrab of all. For all it's faults, school is a time when one can a)binge drink and bang b) focus on studying without having to show up at a 9-5. A shorter, denser vocational degree would be a waste of time in that by the time you figure out what you wanted to study, it's already over and now you have a student loan to pay off before you can actually start the studying process.

mrswdk wrote:

DoomYoshi wrote:I think it is just a money grab but it's the 3-year and potential 2-year degrees that are the most moneygrab of all. For all it's faults, school is a time when one can a)binge drink and bang b) focus on studying without having to show up at a 9-5. A shorter, denser vocational degree would be a waste of time in that by the time you figure out what you wanted to study, it's already over and now you have a student loan to pay off before you can actually start the studying process.

What's the point in paying lots of money to lie around taking random courses in art history and psychology while you work out what you want to do with your life, when you could just work out what you want to do with your life beforehand and then start studying that from day one?

Even better would be if every job that does not require academic training would just drop the requirement for a degree - like EY did - so that people could transition straight from school to professional training and cut out the degree completely. Most grads need completely retraining upon entering the workforce anyway, so in most cases it's hard to see what value is being added by their degrees.

DoomYoshi wrote:

mrswdk wrote:What's the point in paying lots of money to lie around taking random courses in art history and psychology while you work out what you want to do with your life, when you could just work out what you want to do with your life beforehand and then start studying that from day one?

Even better would be if every job that does not require academic training would just drop the requirement for a degree - like EY did - so that people could transition straight from school to professional training and cut out the degree completely. Most grads need completely retraining upon entering the workforce anyway, so in most cases it's hard to see what value is being added by their degrees.

I can't think of any person who wouldn't be better off studying the original liberal arts - grammar, rhetoric, logic, music, astronomy, arithmetic and geometry. It's not much a waste either. The biggest thing you can do in college that you can't do at home is read journal articles. Unless you can keep up with the current research in your field, and other fields at a whim, it's hard to see how one can gain a real education. Not that the journals are necessarily right, but it's important to know where the field is going so you can correct the course of the ship.

riskllama wrote:I learned all I needed to know by the age of nine.

DoomYoshi wrote:Schools can only teach you what happened in the past; on real jobs you need to predict and create what comes in the future as well as responding to it. So in a way school does nothing whatsoever for jobs. you don't think teaching people essential mathematics, language and writing skills, critical thinking etc. is preparing them for jobs? This is borne out in practice as well as theory. No law school can prepare you for the next Supreme Court case, although it can prepare you for bottom-feeder injury work. No medical school case study is a lesson on how to work in the actual cases you will face no but the several years of rotations within hospital departments that med students undertake during their degrees will. No engineering or science course can you teach you the thing that you are going to invent/discover. how are you ever going to make an advancement in your field without first learning about how things work in that field?

So you might say to get rid of school entirely. Just get right into the workplace as soon as possible. There are two reasons against this: a) the workforce doesn't actually want you

So how does innovation happen? It happens when disparate ideas in your brain become crossed and become something new. At Google, Pixar and other big companies as well as more successful universities like MIT innovation is fostered by having people in different departments and working on different things share their findings with each other. Turns out, somebody else is working on exactly the solution you need. You can recreate these conditions in your own mind simply by being a renaissance man and then tackling problems inside your specialization.

DoomYoshi wrote:
So how does innovation happen? It happens when disparate ideas in your brain become crossed and become something new.

mrswdk wrote:@DY now I'm back to not knowing whether you're joking or not.

you don't think teaching people essential mathematics, language and writing skills, critical thinking etc. is preparing them for jobs?

nietzsche wrote:

DoomYoshi wrote:
So how does innovation happen? It happens when disparate ideas in your brain become crossed and become something new.

Pardon my interruption, but this is highly speculative, and I wouldn't say it's wrong because I don't know, but nobody can really say for sure yet. It's your interpretation.

Now, continue with your little gay (as in happy) topic, which i don't know what is.

DoomYoshi wrote:

mrswdk wrote:@DY now I'm back to not knowing whether you're joking or not.

you don't think teaching people essential mathematics, language and writing skills, critical thinking etc. is preparing them for jobs?

Any "skill needed for a job" can be taught to a robot. Real skills (responding to/creating change) can't be taught, only developed. I'm not joking, I'm just perhaps not articulating. I don't think it's preparing them for jobs, I think it's preparing them for life. Essential mathematics, language and writing skills are generalist education which I am advocating here. How to be a better parent, employee, employer, citizen, lover etc.

DoomYoshi wrote:
What other speculations are there? It's the only theory I've ever heard.

nietzsche wrote:

DoomYoshi wrote:
What other speculations are there? It's the only theory I've ever heard.

I'd lie to you if I told you this and that. I think the theory you mentioned is mainstrean because it was in that top seller Blink i think, suggesting that normally breakthrougs come from outside of the discipline.

I've read over the years many ideas related to this, for instance the one that i like most is the "tuning in" idea... some sort of very narrow focusing in your own mind in moments of extreme clarity and energy and a lot of brain "RAM" to find something. I another idea proposed in the blink book is to think about stuff in moments like when you're shaving? Because of the focus + small stress response (maybe the first theory i mentioned was not in Blink but in another one of those top seller books.) Another popular way among authors is thinking about topics intensely for a short period of times, 2-3 days, then leave it along and in one week or two, sit down to type, and somehow the ideas/pointers have matured in the back of their minds.


I don't know, for sure, but never has anyone responded that question, if you are interested in the topic you'll have to accept the uncertainty and maybe that creates enough tension that you find the answer and tell me.

mrswdk wrote:Maybe there should be a bachelor degree in Intensive Thinking.