7th September 2005, 12:18 PM
Eggy,
I'm with you on every point. I think I may have got wrongfully implicated in that old saw of an argument about degrees teaching you how to think. Usually employed to suggest English lit grads can do any job because they are inherently superior beings having gone to university, and part and parcel with the view that only the elite should go to uni.
I think that whole argument is horse****.
I merely wanted to suggest that having done a degree may suggest an ability to use a brain, whether or not it is actually employed in the field. And of course this attribute is not limited to degree holders.
I thankfully was not exposed to the failings of UK archaeology departments, and feel I was well prepared for fieldwork by my course(ironically in a country where little fieldwork is actually done by our standards), so have an advantage over otherwise intelligent non archaeology degree holders. I do occasionally work with new grads who got something useful and applicable to fieldwork from their degrees, but they are in the minority.
Cheers,
Merc.
I'm with you on every point. I think I may have got wrongfully implicated in that old saw of an argument about degrees teaching you how to think. Usually employed to suggest English lit grads can do any job because they are inherently superior beings having gone to university, and part and parcel with the view that only the elite should go to uni.
I think that whole argument is horse****.
I merely wanted to suggest that having done a degree may suggest an ability to use a brain, whether or not it is actually employed in the field. And of course this attribute is not limited to degree holders.
I thankfully was not exposed to the failings of UK archaeology departments, and feel I was well prepared for fieldwork by my course(ironically in a country where little fieldwork is actually done by our standards), so have an advantage over otherwise intelligent non archaeology degree holders. I do occasionally work with new grads who got something useful and applicable to fieldwork from their degrees, but they are in the minority.
Cheers,
Merc.