Let's have a rant thread! ~*Stress Relief*~

[mymiridon]

niph, king's college med school isn't really feasible for me. The Americans do things a bit differently and I don't have the qualifications to get in unfortunately. stare  

[cold_blooded_chick]

I've got a friend who does med at King's College. My mum and his mum went to he same med school in China.  

[mymiridon]

lucky b*****d stare
What kind of medicine does your mother practice? Or is she more of the researcher type?  

[cold_blooded_chick]

She used to be an anaesthetist in China, but now she does research.  

[Chibito7]

@Niph: B-But why?! gonk What's wrong with Psychology?
But nein, I will certainly not be applying for Psychology - not after finishing my personal statement and choosing my unis. Plus, I have my heart set on Lit. 3nodding  

[mymiridon]

@chibi: there are plenty of reasons not to do pysch. one of them being, how are you going to make money when you're in the psych field? At least with lit, if you fail in creative writing or *shudders* academic writing you can get a job writing toothpaste jingles xd xd
"When your breath stinks
and your molars rot
use Aquaink biggrin "
yes, that was absolutely horrid XD

@cbc: oh, that's pretty cool... you know... I don't think there are many female doctors in China. It's just a thought, there might be plenty and i just didn't know about them.  

[Minielf]

mymiridon

@chibi: there are plenty of reasons not to do pysch. one of them being, how are you going to make money when you're in the psych field? At least with lit, if you fail in creative writing or *shudders* academic writing you can get a job writing toothpaste jingles xd xd
"When your breath stinks
and your molars rot
use Aquaink biggrin "
yes, that was absolutely horrid XD

@cbc: oh, that's pretty cool... you know... I don't think there are many female doctors in China. It's just a thought, there might be plenty and i just didn't know about them.

Don't be so quick to assume that Psych fails at earning money. One of the greatest fads I've seen the past few years have been the profusion of emotional counsellors who offer 'advice' on matters ranging from divorce to suicide. I'm pretty sure these counsellors, however bogus, all had experience doing psychology. Just look at Dr. Phil-he looks like a psychologist to me.

Plus, creative writing is much harder to get successful than a lot of people assume. Unless a writer hits big with a multimillion best seller, they're doomed to a life of writing trashy fiction/non-fiction and possible unemployment.  

[cold_blooded_chick]

Yeah, well a lot of trashy fiction become best sellers. Just look at all the NY Times bestseller romance novels, it's amazing how popular they are.  

[Niphz]

@CBC - What's his name? I know someone who does Medicine at King's..  

[Chibito7]

gonk gonk gonk

crying

Why must everyone debate the futility and downfalls to my interests and possible future careers?! *wails*

xd

But on a serious note, I know the limitations of the subjects I'm studying for uni. I've battled through these issues before with my parents, who've always wanted me to do medicine. Every other course or career just isn't good enough, because according to them, I'll never get a job with anything else but medicine.

But to be honest, what about all those kids out there who go to s**t unis and still get jobs? Good jobs at that? I mean, not to be arrogant, but I am a lot cleverer and have better grades than a lot of the people in this country who have jobs or will be offered jobs. They're not the best jobs in the world, yes, and I won't be earning loads of money, but I don't care. As long as it's enough to feed me and keep me content, I'm not asking for any more...

But yeah, I would be a psychologist if I weren't going to do Lit. With Lit... it has the advantage (or disadvantage) of being completely open. I could go into nearly any job with Lit. I was thinking of working for the BBC, if I'm lucky. Not as a journalist perhaps, but... yeah. Something like that. I wanted to be an author as a kid, but it's not feasible. I'm not that great a writer. xd

And rofl @ yalie's jingle.  

[Minielf]

You're thinking the same way I did when I chose to do Arts, in that it is completely open, with virtually no restrictions on your future career path. However, there is one downside: because Arts is so open, it's incredibly hard to set a defined career goal and base your major around it. Especially Lit; there's not exactly a job out there that specifically requires that skill. The only job I can think of where you only need to do well in Lit is being an academic scholar, which no doubt you'll find incredibly boring: you spend all of your time trawling through stacks of books. Journalism and broadcasting work requires talent in the field of media and communications, so I'm not sure if you can get in to those jobs just by doing lit.

For me, even though I'm doing Arts I've managed to give myself fairly good prospects at finding a job, as doing politics would allow me to get into the public service or parliament. If that fails, I've got a back up plan of doing a Nursing course.  

[cold_blooded_chick]

Niphz

@CBC - What's his name? I know someone who does Medicine at King's..

Xi Chen, he just got in this year. And he's not hard to miss, smaller than most of his classmates and wears glasses - quintessential nerd look.  

[Chibito7]

@Mini: I don't know how Aussie works, but in the UK, it's better to have done Eng Lit and try to go into the BBC than to have, say, a Media degree. After all, most good unis don't even do Media! People think, I want to work for the media, so what's the obvious choice at uni? Media. But that's not the case. The courses for Media are barely vigorious, especially at the unis that offer the course. It's actually a lot easier to study Eng Lit or History, because they are respected degrees, especially if you studied it at Oxbridge or Durham or Warwick.

I'm not saying I'll get a job, but unlike Medicine, studying Media doesn't guarantee you'll find a job in the Media. If you do Medicine, it's such a closed route, the only thing you should really become after studying it is a doctor, etc. However, with media, it's different. You can have studied anything. As long as you have good qualifications and an impressive CV and grades, etc, plus a good uni, then it doesn't really matter what degree you did. They'll slap you into some training for the work, and then voila: you have a job in the media, regardless of whether or not you did it for university.  

[Niphz]

Eng Lit is a good course, darling. Do it. Also, it's half term? COME TO LONDON!

@CBC - Ohh, nah, the guy I know is second year. Besides, it's sort of social suicide at UCL to admit that we know King's students.. xDD  

[Minielf]

Chibito7

@Mini: I don't know how Aussie works, but in the UK, it's better to have done Eng Lit and try to go into the BBC than to have, say, a Media degree. After all, most good unis don't even do Media! People think, I want to work for the media, so what's the obvious choice at uni? Media. But that's not the case. The courses for Media are barely vigorious, especially at the unis that offer the course. It's actually a lot easier to study Eng Lit or History, because they are respected degrees, especially if you studied it at Oxbridge or Durham or Warwick.

I'm not saying I'll get a job, but unlike Medicine, studying Media doesn't guarantee you'll find a job in the Media. If you do Medicine, it's such a closed route, the only thing you should really become after studying it is a doctor, etc. However, with media, it's different. You can have studied anything. As long as you have good qualifications and an impressive CV and grades, etc, plus a good uni, then it doesn't really matter what degree you did. They'll slap you into some training for the work, and then voila: you have a job in the media, regardless of whether or not you did it for university.

So that's the situation in the UK eh? It's different than Australia then. Here Media and Communications is a completely separate discipline than Arts, and in some ways it's a more effective degree. Whereas traditional arts is far too broad (covering everything from Lit and creative arts to political and social science), Media and Comm. is focused solely on the media industry. People who do that course are all but guaranteed a job in the media, plus the course is recognised nationally. In contrast, an English Lit. or Creative Arts major is worth virtually nothing, since there aren't any specific jobs in Australia that require them. Most universities, including Melbourne, have taken a chainsaw to the creative arts and Lit subjects and have cut them bone dry, so the only Arts subjects worth doing now are probably social sciences. So yeah, the situation here in Australia is totally different to where you live, and there's no way I'd consider doing a pure Lit degree.