This column is written by the Otago University Debating Society, which meets for socail debating every Tuesday at 6pm in the Commerce Building.
Affirmative, by Old Major
A B.Com will turn your brains to shit. For instance, if you take Economics at Otago as a Commerce degree you are never required to take any maths or stats papers. The problem with this is that all proper economics involves a lot of maths, which means that when you graduate you’ll come out with a pseudo-degree in Economics that hasn’t equipped you with the skills needed to work as a proper economist.
The same thing goes with Management. People who are in management level jobs have got post-graduate level qualifications, like an MBA, which they gain after getting a proper degree in something useful. If you want to be the manger of the Gore Four Square, sure go ahead, study management. In England you don’t even need to study accountancy at Uni, you learn on the job. All this adds up to a Commerce degree being rather a waste of time and money.
According to the Philosophy Department’s website, Philosophy students end up in better paying jobs than other Humanities students. Take that, Politics. This is because employers recognise the value of hiring people who have developed their capacity for rational, analytic thought. It means that, unlike the Politics student, the Philosophy student is able to sort through the evidence for and against a given plan, policy or proposal and construct clear and articulate reasons for that action.
Not only do you have decent employment and career prospects with a Philosophy degree, it is also an enjoyable subject to study. There is something satisfying about drinking one’s third soy latte of the day whilst reading Plato. No one has ever come out of a first year Commerce paper lecture and thought ‘’gee, I sure did learn a lot today and golly was that interesting.’’ While it may be that no one had this particular thought, because no one uses words like ‘’gee’’ or ‘’golly,’’ people do get a huge buzz out of philosophy. Just walk into a first year tut and see them all arguing with enthusiasm about whether or not athletes should be allowed to take performance-enhancing drugs.
Even Kayne is up with this shit… Here are some lines from ‘’No Church In The Wild’’: ‘’Is Pious pious cause God loves pious?/ Socrates asks, ‘’Whose bias do y’all seek?’’/ All for Plato, screech’’.
So screech for philosophy everyone. The affirmative side has clearly won this particular argument.
Negative, by Squealer the Pig
If you study your ‘passion’ and get those A+ grades, it doesn’t matter what degree you choose (just go and be smug elsewhere). But if you’re reading this, you’re probably a lost and confused BA student with a mounting pile of student debt and little idea of how to use your degree in the real world. Still a fresh-faced and eager first year? Read on, it’s not too late to switch to a degree that gives you good prospects for minimal effort…
First, you need to study something that gives you options in the real world. The University of Otago B.Com is structured so that every student must take compulsory 100-level papers in the various Commerce subjects. Not only does that give you a broad knowledge base, you have flexibility to figure out which major(s) suit you. You might not have considered ‘boring’ (but high-paying) disciplines like Finance or Accounting otherwise. Philosophy gives you more freedom to pick and choose subjects, and the average first year probably isn’t seeking to challenge themselves beyond a half-hearted attempt at LAWS101, let alone hard-core Maths papers. The Commerce student is more likely to find themselves having to take courses that give them sought-after technical skills (at least at a basic level), whereas the Philosophy student will try and get away with pretending that they’re above being such a sell-out to the demands of the corporate world.
Second, let’s talk jobs. Philosophy students like to pretend they have other priorities, like “finding themselves” and having endless yarns about abstract concepts. Commerce won’t distract you from the cutthroat world of graduate applications. B.Com students have endless opportunities to get relevant part-time work and summer internships. Businesses and community organisations will always need students with skills in Accounting, Marketing, and Information Management. An A-grade in the-history-of-what-old-white-guys-thought-300-years-ago doesn’t seem quite as appealing to the average employer, does it? A Philosophy student might be able to reason well, but that means nothing without a solid grounding in how the commercial world works.
Although Philosophy might seem prima facie* more enjoyable, it’s difficult to keep motivated after studying Nietzsche. Commerce will make you think that money is the only meaningful thing in the world, which is quite a sensible delusion when you’re starting a career $30k deep in student loan debt.
* As well as teaching you how to drop wanky Latin phrases into everyday conversation, Law degrees let you claim to have “analytical skills” despite failing high school maths. Not prepared to become a B.Com sell-out but scared of getting nowhere with a Philosophy degree? It’s never too late to switch to Law…