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 motyak wrote:
Hotsauceman, I have a question. Why on earth are you doing sociology instead of an education degree to become a teacher? Or is Australia backwards like that where you are expected to have an education degree to do teaching.

Kinda. It's a big plus on your resume, but its in no way a requirement. The only requirement for teaching college level classes is to be registered in a master's course.

Or is sociology ridiculously giant catch all course over there?

Again, kinda. It depends on the Uni in question.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
I majored in liberal arts, history to be exact. If I had it to do over again, I would've majored in pretty much anything else, but specifically computer science or business. Or I would've gotten a BS in an in-demand field.

Now, I've lucked into very good money despite my degree, but they also didn't hire me for the BA, they hired me for my past experience and contacts with the military. A BA doesn't mean much anymore.

My cousin in law have a degree in spanish, i still not sure how she got a job helping special needs children.

Because your degree doesn't have to limit what you can go into if you know how to swing it. Having a degree doesn't limit your career prospects, it expands them. Some degrees expand your career prospects more than others, but still. And a foreign language degree can be an extremely marketable humanities degree, especially if you are actually proficient in the language, which is extremely possible in four years if you apply yourself just a little bit, and doesn't take anywhere close to that long if you apply yourself a lot.

Yeah I play rugby wih a bloke that did Art History at quite a nice Uni, he now manages Logistics for the Post Office.

Don't look for a connection, there isn't one.

You guys all need to check out the book [i[Outliers: the Story of Success[/i] by Malcolm Gladwell. It might be helpful for some of you...

~Tim?

Over here you get your degree then your permit to teach(Unless you plan to teach elementary, but that is a different bucket of worms)
I have talks to a counselor 3 different times about this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 motyak wrote:
Hotsauceman, I have a question. Why on earth are you doing sociology instead of an education degree to become a teacher? Or is Australia backwards like that where you are expected to have an education degree to do teaching.

Kinda. It's a big plus on your resume, but its in no way a requirement. The only requirement for teaching college level classes is to be registered in a master's course.

Or is sociology ridiculously giant catch all course over there?

Again, kinda. It depends on the Uni in question.

Not the one im going to, it is well known for its sociology department and the studies it does.

There's an article here that's worth taking a look at. Its focus is on the humanities rather than social sciences, but a lot of it is still relevant.

 notprop wrote:
Yeah I play rugby wih a bloke that did Art History at quite a nice Uni, he now manages Logistics for the Post Office.

Don't look for a connection, there isn't one.

Yup. I have a degree in music and work in banking.

Don't look for etc.

It's also worth noting that a lot of skills carry over from one field to another.

For example, although my degree in New Media focused on digital illustration, graphic design, and game design, I managed to do pretty well in comparison to people in other majors. My experience leading an art team in a game development project (the game was terrible, but I kept my team in order) helped me succeed amoungst dedicated management majors. My limited experience with 3D modelling helped me keep up with dedicated art majors (and it was really helpful in learning perspective, since I can't actually see depth). And my experience getting projects ready for events/galleries made me better at keeping gak together.

Granted, my examples are more arts based, but short of the technical skills, a lot of what you'll learn isn't really isolated to a specific major.

Excellent points, Fafnir and Albatross. It's certainly possible to become a well-rounded, and employable jack-of-all-trades, regardless of what your degree field actually is.

Here's another article I read today, again with a humanities focus, but I think it is still applicable to this discussion: link

 Albatross wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Yeah I play rugby wih a bloke that did Art History at quite a nice Uni, he now manages Logistics for the Post Office.

Don't look for a connection, there isn't one.

Yup. I have a degree in music and work in banking.

Don't look for etc.

My mum did Russian and is an HR Director...

 rubiksnoob wrote:

 easysauce wrote:

anyone can write, takes talent to make $ off of it, and that cant be taught, or at least if you need university education to get the mechanics of spelling/grammar down, its likely not even a valid plan B.

I have a bit of a problem with this.

Yes, anyone can tippity-tap away at a keyboard, but very few people can actually tippity-tap something coherent. The average level of writing competency among university students is horrific. Most people in school and in the job market are fething awful writers. So, not just anyone can write.

The silver-lining here is that you don't need talent to make money off of writing, you just need to actually be able to do it well! And that can, in fact, be taught.

The problem is that it should be taught in goddamn high school, not freshman comp. courses. If you can't write a basic argumentative essay, you shouldn't be in college, yet your average college freshman writes like a barely literate sixth-grader and doesn't graduate greatly improved, either.

Here are my two cents as a bonafide pro copywriter.

Few people actually write well, but even fewer can do what I do. I'm not hired for my subject-verb agreement. It's understood that I should have a firm handle on such things, but I'm hired for my ability to be creative and persuasive, think strategically, target audiences, change voices, work within branding and/or regulatory constraints, collaborate with designers, and make complicated products and offerings understandable, among other things. For journalists, it's about different skill sets, but the point remains the same. Creative writers -- novelists, poets, etc. -- are a slightly different case, but it still involves other things than just understanding how to put words together.

So while I generally agree that writing skills can be taught, and that the blogosphere has created ways for some people to make income from writing, I won't say that anyone can be a professional writer. I mean no offense by this, but I think the distinction needs to be made.

 purplefood wrote:

 Albatross wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Yeah I play rugby wih a bloke that did Art History at quite a nice Uni, he now manages Logistics for the Post Office.

Don't look for a connection, there isn't one.

Yup. I have a degree in music and work in banking.

Don't look for etc.

My mum did Russian and is an HR Director...

Huh, that's probably pretty useful in HR these days, this country's going to the dogs etc.

/dailymail

 Albatross wrote:

 purplefood wrote:

 Albatross wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Yeah I play rugby wih a bloke that did Art History at quite a nice Uni, he now manages Logistics for the Post Office.

Don't look for a connection, there isn't one.

Yup. I have a degree in music and work in banking.

Don't look for etc.

My mum did Russian and is an HR Director...

Huh, that's probably pretty useful in HR these days, this country's going to the dogs etc.

/dailymail

I think her being a mum helped more than anything...