Has Oxford PPE ruined England?

[DoomYoshi]

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.

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.”

[BoganGod]

PPE means something completely here. Personal Protective Equipment. Safety apparel for worksites, masks, splash guards, gum boots, reinforced gloves etc. Everything you would need to be in a room with Fake Bernie off his meds.

[DoomYoshi]

Your blue collar drivel doesn't belong in this thread.

[mrswdk]

“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.

[saxitoxin]

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.

--------------------------------------------------------------

“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.”

This is a good article DY, and interesting.

I know someone who got his law degree in the UK and lawyers there receive LL.B.s which were abolished in the U.S. awhile ago in lieu of the J.D. On top of that, of course, the UK follows the Bologna Process so the undegraduate degrees are only three years, instead of four years like in the U.S. and (I think) Canada. So legal training all occurs at the undergraduate level; he said he had no finishing / elective courses like art history, logic, biology, etc., that all modules from start to finish were about the law.

Then someone like TGD, on the other hand, will have taken four years of completely unrelated courses before he even started on three years of legal training.

So I've wondered, do "vocational" university degrees like Europe has produce automatons who only have insight into one aspect of life and so you need to have an option for PPE-like degrees or risk creating a nation of technicians? Alternatively, maybe the extra year of U.S. degrees doesn't really give you any better rounding if everyone is just checking out of the electives anyway to drink and f*ck? It's just a wasted year? Then I read in the Guardian the other day that Theresa May is trying to introduce 2-year degrees in Britain which, one would presume, would be even more specialized on a specific subject than the already-short three year degrees?

[saxitoxin]

According to this - http://oregonstate.edu/dept/grad_school ... ologna.htm - U.S. graduate schools are more willing to accept European students with three-year B.A./B.S. degrees now than in the last few years (though it also says a minority refuse to consider a degree from Europe as sufficient for admission to an American graduate school). So if a graduate school sees no difference between a three- and four-year degree for admission, is that just tacit acknowledgment that there is no quality difference, that it's just a money grab?

[DoomYoshi]

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. I never let class get in the way of my studying anyway. I'm a bigger expert on issues that I never formally studied than the areas I did formally study. I could probably tell you more about trends in African Air Control as they have been influenced by African politics than anyone since I don't think that degree is offered anywhere. It really should be since all laws can be viewed through the lens of the legislator rather than the society in which they operate. Both views are worth studying.

Europe overall is more communist than America too. This is evident in the practical law school. In America, the right to become a millionaire or die trying is the only inalienable right. In Europe, social mobility is frozen, due to SJW crusades against the wallet. Lawyer is one of those professions that can really have stratospheric gains and so it makes more sense to guard the right than it would in Europe where even the best and brightest will probably only end up renting a home anyway over an Afghani kebab shop. Recall that Andy Jackson, the ur-Trump was a lawyer even with no law school though.

[Symmetry]

“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.

Nah- I despise PPE- it's a shallow degree for Eton products who can't think in depth, but want to hang around with other Etonians and get a degree from Oxford.

It's a theology degree for a modern political clergy.

[mrswdk]

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.

[khazalid]

'sjw crusades against the wallet'.

f*ck me yo

[DoomYoshi]

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.

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.

[mrswdk]

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.

Why aren't Canadians studying grammar or arithmetic at secondary school? I agree that logic needs reviving as a taught subject, but again that's a secondary school subject not a degree-level module. The purpose of a degree is to gain specialist skills and knowledge in a field that requires specialist skills and knowledge (e.g. medicine, civil engineering, biomedical research), not to develop basic capabilities that should have been developed during school.

As for the journal point, three years' journal access in isolation won't be much good in the long run. If people need to be able to read journal articles in order to keep abreast of developments in their fields then their workplace ought to be providing them with access to journals.

[DoomYoshi]

Your equation for human life seems wrong. It isn't like "mad skillz" + "having a job" = productivity. Those types of jobs are rapidly being replaced by robots. 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. 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 engineering or science course can you teach you the thing that you are going to invent/discover.

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; you need the workforce and b)innovation isn't maximized that way.

There isn't a dozen jobs out there, waiting for you to finish your degree. In fact, degrees and jobs available almost never correlate. There might be 8x as many Doctors of Poetry as required by our current economy. Really, if no innovation was ever done by you the economy would still trudge along. If no new art or science was ever accomplished, if this was the pinnacle of human achievement right now. If no new apps came along, humanity would trudge along like this happily for millenia. The only person who loses out on the lack of innovation is you, since you didn't spawn it.

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.

Now, the next pillar that is attacked is always the soft things like literature. What good could literature possibly be? Consider this: Shakespeare and Winston Churchill studied the same Greek, Latin and Bible in school. The humanities can ground a person, stimulate the other side of the brain (you know that whole creative side) and connect you with the history of the world, putting your ideas in context. Since all men are required to be good citizens, and studying the humanities is the only way to answer the question of how to be a good citizen, it necessarily follows that all men should have a good balanced curriculum.

[riskllama]

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

[mookiemcgee]

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

Hot Sauce learned everything he knows from one book.

[mrswdk]

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

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?

The point of your education - including degree education - is to give you knowledge and skills that will equip you for whatever you go on to do after your education. As I mentioned before, in some degrees (e.g. nursing, civil engineering) this is clearly done; in others (e.g. Philosophy) the utility of much of what is being taught is less apparent.

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

Employers still need employees. In the UK we have apprenticeships, where someone just out of school starts straight into a workplace and spend 1-2 years working on a reduced wage while learning the job and taking relevant qualifications alongside this. The employer can take a punt on the inexperienced kid for relatively little money, and if it all works out then by the end of it they have a 19 year-old with experience and qualifications who'll likely be a better employee than a 21 year-old who just graduated from a three-year degree program.

Traditionally apprenticeships have mostly been focused in manual roles (e.g. car mechanic or carpenter), but now there are more and more apprenticeship schemes out there for accountancy, PR and a number of other white collar roles. Companies like PwC and Deloitte have apprenticeship intakes, for example.

These days more and more undergrads (in the UK at least) are spending their summers doing work placements and sometimes taking whole years out mid-degree to spend a year on an industrial placement. Given that, by the time they graduate, that work experience will be 95% of the proof that they are employable, you might as well just cut out the academic crap and put people through a vocational education from day 1.

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.

Experienced specialists from 2/3 areas working together =/= one person who took a few modules in undergrad Psychology, History and Biology alongside their maths degree

On a side note it's also worth mentioning that important for successful innovation is not just having knowledge and experience pooled together but also having that knowledge and experience placed within close contact of industries that will be able to commercialize and spread the innovation.

[nietzsche]

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]

@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.

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.

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

[mrswdk]

@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.

I agree with the importance of teaching life skills as well as academic skills, but again that's all secondary school education. Putting people on three- or four-year degree programs to learn these basic skills is a waste of time and money, especially given less than half the population do degrees anyway.

[nietzsche]

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.

[DoomYoshi]

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.

Maybe a problem is that anything I've ever read takes that answer for granted.

Here's an article that does just that:
http://www.chronicle.com/article/We-Need-More-Useless-/239365?key=sp0x03E8c0EpmAD1jKoY1bfV4sUT5Q4XEgqPwngvKWO9K3tB2ItsT7NqOgfc52k3dEZob2E0Tmk2MGVTWEZwZGRZUHdxczhkclJ1U1YyRE0tbFlVMVViMHdPbw

[mrswdk]

Maybe there should be a bachelor degree in Intensive Thinking.

[TA1LGUNN3R]

Maybe there should be a bachelor degree in Intensive Thinking.

That's what the terlet's fer.

-TG

[mrswdk]

lol turtles can't think silly