Top 10 Useless College Degrees & Classes

As the Sune expands from a mid-sized yellow star (which it currently is) to a red giant the size of Antares (which has a diameter the size of Mars' orbit), does the Earth remain stationary and just wait to get burned up or do gravitational forces push the planets further outward? If natural forces don't cause planetary orbits to shift outwards, isn't there some grouping of various types of scientists who could figure out how to alter planetary orbits in case of just such an emergency?

 

And have you yet learned of how your wife's last final went?

PS - Isn't the phrase "last final" kind of redundant?

 

St. John's

You kinda lost me on this one. St. John's has highly selective admissions, an outstanding academic reputation and is one of the oldest colleges in the country. My nephew is currently a junior at St. John's and turned down appointments to service academies (Army and Air Force) to go there. Were the medical school rejections due to St. John's emphasis on liberal arts on both campuses? Please explain.

http://www.sjca.edu/

 

It was the final exam for her last class which made it the last final. I started to write "final final". That definitely sounded redundant.

She ended up with the highest grade in the class on that particular test.

BTW - I was looking through the program at her graduation and noted that one particular program had a very high percentage (14 of 16) of students who graduated with honors when comparing it to all the other programs including those that are run out of the same department. I wondered if this spoke more of the ease of the particular program or the high caliber of the students.

 

Not that it really matters, but how do you figure that? Every university I have attended is older than STJ.

 

St. John's College www.stjohnscollege.edu/about/AN/campus.shtml is a direct descendant of King William's School, founded in 1696. If I am not mistaken, only John Harvard's College (1636) and the College of William & Mary (1693) are older.

 

St. Johns is a fascinating school.

Regarding its age - by one way of calculating it, it appears to be the third oldest college in the United States, behind Harvard and William and Mary. Its history dates back to 1696 as a secondary school called King William's School. In 1784, the Maryland legislature chartered a degree-granting college called St. John's College, which promptly merged with King William's School and together they built a new building in 1789, which still exists on St. Johns' Annapolis campus and is one of America's oldest college buildings still in use.

http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/about/history.shtml

Regarding St. Johns graduates' suitability for medical school admissions, I'd guess that might depend on two things. First, does the St. Johns undergraduate program (the school doesn't have majors) include the kind of subjects that medical schools expect in a pre-med program, things like organic chemistry for instance. Second, is St. Johns' unusual history-of-ideas approach to teaching science suitable for this particular purpose?

Here's St. Johns' undergraduate program:

http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/academic/main.shtml

Here's a description of how they approach science through its history:

http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/academic/laboratory.shtml

 

Yeah, I was thinking of THE St. John's (STJ), not SJCA. My bad...

 

St. John's can trace its roots back to 1696 as a secondary school. However, it is not regarded as one of America's "Colonial Colleges", because it did not actually operate as a college until after the American Revolution. Some other schools, like Washington & Lee or Moravian College, have similar histories.

There are nine generally accepted "Colonial Colleges": seven of the eight Ivy League schools (minus Cornell), plus William & Mary, and Rutgers.

My understanding is that St. John's does *not* offer lab courses, such as organic chemistry, that are normal prerequisites for medical school. Graduates of St. John's that want to pursue medical careers normally make up this deficiency by enrolling in pre-medical "post-bac" programs, such as the one offered by Johns Hopkins.

In general, the St. John's "Great Books" approach would not be ideal preparation for graduate school in science or engineering. There's a famous sign on the wall in the library at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, featuring the handwritten words of Louis Agassiz: "Study nature, not books"

 

At the risk of returning this thread to its original topic I'd like to simply say that it all depends on how you define the term "useless."

Obviously, some are, perhaps, defining this as meaning a degree that helps you toward a stable career or otherwise helps you to make lots of money. Others might be thinking of it more in terms what catches your imagination or passion. Both can be quite useful and can be equally useless. There is no need to argue.

 

An undergraduate degree should be in Liberal Arts unless you are seeking a vocation such as Teacher, Nurse etc.

The biggest waste of time is a degree in Business.

 

The biggest waste of time is a degree in Philosophy. A Business degree is the most applicable of all if you don't know exactly what you want to do.

 

Google "Leland Milton Goldblatt".

 

My wife has been considering a degree in philosophy. Why are you so judgmental?

 

Because I hate cyclical logic. Dealing with social constructs in mythical scenarios is not my idea of a worthy endeavor. Everyone is entilted to their opinion and that is mine.

 

Earlier in this thread I asked you, "So what do you believe has intrinsic value in this life?" Your reply was "Anything I see as worth doing or having."

So in the light of your earlier remark, how should we interpret your more recent "The biggest waste of time is a degree in philosophy"?

I won't disagree that you perceive no intrinsic value in philosophical thought and that you don't think that philosophy will aid you in acquiring whatever it is that you seek in life. Studying philosophy may well look like a waste of time for you. You certainly don't seem to have much natural affinity for it.

But that isn't true for everyone else.

If you were only commenting about yourself here, then you probably should have qualified things and not made a flat general statement. It reads like you aren't just saying that 'I see no value for myself in studying philosophy'. It looks like you are making the much stronger assertion that 'Studying philosophy has no value for anyone'. If you really want to make that stronger claim, then it's going to need some additional argument and justification.

 

Based on what I've read, a philosophy degree is perhaps the best prep for law school.



http://www.cas.usf.edu/philosophy/Philosophy_Law.pdf

 

Of course a Military yes man would think logic is waste of time. The truly educated measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.

Without an education or privilege our youth gets stuck in the military. It is a shame the uniformed service people are the less fortunate and less intelligent.

When I drive (In my Rolls Royce) past a Military recruiters office, I feel sad because of the enlistee dupes being lied to.

 

There is no substitute for logic, and I love logic. Try it some time and it will set you free.

 

I have come to the conclusion that reading your posts fall into the same bucket...