Subject Snobbery?

OK so while I know this is kind of old news now, I’ve got to say it did annoy me, it seems that this is another attempt by Oxbridge to keep certain people from certain types of schools out and other students firmly in.

In case you cannot be bothered to click the link, students who take more than one “new” A level such as Health and Social Care, Media Studies, ICT and Sociology will not be accepted by Oxford or Cambridge. Another plot to keep the riffraff away…

Having studied two of these “unworthy” subjects at AS level, one of which required more work than both English and History combined (seriously, you don’t know what boredom and frustration is until you’ve gone through the testing stages of various query commands on an Access database), I’ve found that while they may not be traditional subjects, they are much more relevant to the modern world than dead languages (which are dead for a reason, by the way). It’s true in media studies you do spend some time watching films but I do not really see the difference between watching film noirs and studying History of Art; both seem like useless areas to study on the surface but both to some extent look at the social and political contexts in which they were made and are about appreciating arts and culture. However I’m probably biased, but the media plays a huge role in our society and it will only continue to grow. I think it is important to have an understanding of how it works and whose interest it all works in because it allows us not to take everything that is fed to us through the internet and TV whether it’s the News, Eastenders or The Maltese Falcon at face value.

It’s all very well saying that Oxbridge are after traditional (adj: often used to justify and excuse social inequalities, barbaric rituals, Christmas trees and the like) subjects but how relevant is a superior knowledge of Latin/Ancient Greek in most jobs today? I’m sorry but just because your degree has “University of Cambridge” stamped all over it, does not make knowing [insert random Latin phrase here] any more practical.

I’ve studied a relatively new discipline at university (Social Policy and Administration has only really existed for the past 100 years-mainly because governments have only started paying attention to the welfare of the less better off in the last century) when people ask me what I study at university I usually have to tell explain what it is before justifying why I took it instead of a more established subject (leaving out the bit about not really having much of a choice due to A level grades, bloody Media!). When I first started the course I was kind of a little bit ashamed of it but looking back on the three years, although there have been modules I hated, it has been interesting-we have covered a wide range of areas everything from how local and central government work, to the good old Poor Law, crime victims, NHS management, social exclusion all of which is important and I hope will actually be of some use if I manage to get a job in the public sector.

I haven’t meant to be a subject snob in this post (sorry Oxbridge dead language students but your institutions started it!) and I have been in the past regarding certain school subjects, although a person who took farm GCSE can’t really be too up themselves about their subject, to be fair!