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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2866 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 22, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I think the only reason to do a humanities subject is either if you want to learn from a specific professor who you believe has more knowledge than they’ve put on paper/in articles, or if you’re extremely lazy at self-directed learning and need the structure of regular essays, submissions, tests etc to learn anything. Or if you want to do your own thing and get paid for it and it’s a stepping stone to a PhD and then independent research/teaching for money

Agreed, and there are some genuinely brilliant people doing research in the humanities. Unfortunately trying to get to those specific professors typically requires a massive amount of networking and knowing very early on in your college career that you need to angle for that sort of thing, because the competition is massive.

Either that, or you are able to spend an extra year or two in undergrad building your network due to family money etc etc.

In terms of being extremely lazy at self-directed learning... I don't know. I think autodidacts, the type of person these discussion spaces typically attracts, are extremely rare and abnormal in the grand scheme of things. It's good that modern society gives us opportunities, but I hesitate to call people that need the structure of a college curriculum "extremely lazy." I think there's maybe 1% of adults in the West that can legitimately learn a significant amount about serious topics on their own, and I wouldn't be surprised if the distribution were even smaller than that.

I'll throw in though that a large part of the issues is the way our schooling works. Standardized public education in the US at least is pretty brutally effective at shutting down the curiosity of passionate young children.

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