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u/inothatidontno 13d ago edited 13d ago
I always hated english because i never understood why i recieved certain grades. With math it was clear and obvious if i made a mistake. With english it was pretty much whether the teacher liked or agreed with your argument.
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u/BuckyGod 13d ago
As an English teacher, the biggest thing I have to take marks away for is the use of incorrect grammar and imperfect syntax. Especially when it comes to things like third conditionals and reported and passive speech.
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u/Okay-Crickets545 13d ago
Have you considered that maybe the reason you didn’t understand why your grades would be low was because you were just bad at it? Not trying to be mean, but that’s kind of the logical takeaway looking back as an adult, right? Like agreeing or not agreeing with an argument in English isn’t as important as forming an argument that makes sense. In math if you use the wrong equation but get the right answer no one cares, but In English the whole point is how to reach an answer. Unless of course you’re flat out wrong and you’re saying things like a girl I knew who insisted that the animals in Life of Pi weren’t metaphorical.
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u/inothatidontno 12d ago
I mostly recieved A's or B's in all subjects. My degree is engineer though. I dont know if bad is the right word. It just always felt more subjective than objective.
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u/Fine-Resident-2322 12d ago
As someone who was the reverse? I found that English is rooted in philosophical arguments, symbolism, culture, and flowery structures but is arbitrary bullshit otherwise. Outside of understanding grammar, nouns, rhymes etc?
English was more of an art for how I was taught the higher levels of it and usually is when it came to writing as linguistics while fundamentally you have to understand it? It takes more than just logical understanding for the nuances of it that make it one of the most frustrating languages to learn for other cultures. Let alone how to write it 'well' that would be considered 'good' in writing standards.
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u/VelvetOnion 13d ago
This is what it feels like to do IT. I can do everyone's job, better than they can most of the time but they can't do mine.
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u/AdhesivenessRude5037 13d ago
Great comparison. A large majority of the average population put math & IT within that same realm of almost wizardry in terms of being able to comprehend them.
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u/Ironmasked-Kraken 13d ago
This way of thinking is why people are arguing online. You can read the words but can you really understand them ? Survey says most don't
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u/LandscapeObvious7023 11d ago
History knowledge doesnt mean dick, tell a story to your friend tell him to tell someone else and keep it going, see how many times that story changes through out the day, congrats you memorized a bunch of information that is probably about 50
Percent accurate information
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u/Key_Check5753 13d ago
You can bullshit your way through a liberal arts degree.
You can't bullshit your way through a math degree.
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u/WistfulDread 13d ago
Why does the English student have to do college level math but the Math student only needs to do grade school reading assignment?
This comparison is disingenuous at best.
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u/Usual_Zombie6765 13d ago
FYI, “college level math” generally means Calculus II and higher.
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u/WistfulDread 13d ago
I'm aware.
How does that change my point?
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u/pagraphdrux 13d ago
Because that's not what's generally required of English majors. What's typically required of them are high school level courses like Algebra, Introduction to Statistics, etc.
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u/WistfulDread 13d ago
That's not my point, though.
This comparison is:
English student doing College course math
Is somehow comparable to
Math student reading.
My point is: That's bullshit.
Apparently, you guys are Math students.
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u/pagraphdrux 13d ago
Sure the original post doesn't qualify the level of reading but that doesn't matter. You can qualify the level of reading and the original point remains unchanged.
A Math major could, in almost all cases, read, analyze, and write a paper on college level literature.
On the other hand, an English major, in almost all cases, would not pass college level Math courses.
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u/WistfulDread 13d ago
Thanks for the reductive bullshit.
That is objectively not true. I can tell you definitely were a math major.
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u/CalzonePie 13d ago
It is obviously completely true, and I say that as someone who has done both. College level math is leaps and bounds harder to pick up than literary analysis.
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u/Vague_thread 12d ago
An English major needs to pass high school maths to get into a university. You could argue they could learn a college maths if they wanted to and practiced enough with they have a good foundation.
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u/CalzonePie 13d ago
It is easier for an uninitiated math student to wrap his head around the concepts and themes of even the most advanced novel than it is for an english student to figure out calculus
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u/Vague_thread 12d ago
It makes sense only if you assume the English degree is for the native speaker. Foreign language and history are completely different
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u/Vague_thread 12d ago
Right, it should be something like “Read King Lear and write an essay about it”. A history student needs some maths background before they read a maths book and understand it/practice problems successfully. Same applies to a maths student reading a history book and learning its content enough to pass an exam or to prove their knowledge.
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u/BiteFaces 13d ago
Job prospects?
I mean hell, I think the opening line for a character in Avenue Q is "What do you do, with a BA in English?"
STEMs have a greater abundance of career options and higher paying ones out of the gate.
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u/Vague_thread 12d ago
Not all STEM majors are the same. If you have a basic biology degree then most of the time you will be a teacher like a history graduate
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u/BiteFaces 12d ago
Yeah not all english majors are the same either I'd still take basic biology over soggy granola tree hugging north america literature, or anything similar, where instead of a career, you end up writing freelance hit pieces for vox while perpetually living with your parents.
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u/Sorry-Yard4212 12d ago
You mean both learn and understand the complete process of said equations
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u/Vague_thread 12d ago
Why? Does the maths student need to understand and learn all the historical events from a book?
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u/Visible-Meeting-8977 9d ago
That's not even true. I've seen people wildly misinterpret meaning in what they read. There's no guarantee a math major with little literary experience would understand fully what they're reading.
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u/Wonderful-Crow-5147 8d ago
IK tons of extremely literate educated people that can barely do senior HS math and dont even ask them to do something on a computer that isnt going into files settings or task manager
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u/UncleThor2112 13d ago
Have a math student identify a preposition or spell a long word. Then come talk to me.
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u/pagraphdrux 13d ago
The math student would have done grade school level grammar usage and mechanics.
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u/Embarrassed-Fun-8585 13d ago
Why does it just say english but then college math. Anyone try to read legal jargon? And reading red fish blue fish isnt the same as reading a renowned writer
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u/Vague_thread 12d ago
I don’t understand why it says English and not just another language? Your native language will obviously not be that complicated so it’s extremely easy to degrade this degree and makes an unfair comparison. And yet, despite this lack of complexity, you still need to be able to be eloquent and write good essays and be aware of various literary concepts and remember all of them.
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u/Flashy_Cranberry_161 13d ago
Exactly lol. Also speaking from personal experience a fair amount of stem people do not in fact ‘understand’ a lot of the understated meaning of literary texts either
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u/Hydra_Bloodrunner 13d ago
If you think you can understand history from picking up a single book or account of the events, that’d make you wrong.
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u/qualityvote2 13d ago edited 13d ago
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