Battle of the “Arts”: Cambridge’s shittest arts subject?

VOTE NOW. Or forever hold your peace.

6 years ago

It’s exam term. You’re bored. You’re tired. You’re at the end of your tether and every ounce of enthusiasm you once held has now evaporated – almost as rapidly as this stifling heat has descended upon Cambridge, drawing you out from the cool, air-conditioned depths of the library and inviting you to reflect on the pure shitness of your degree.

But just how shit is your subject? Fancy venting your fervent opinions on the utter shitness of your own degree, or do you pity the struggles of your mates or the social reclusivity of your flatmate enough to give their subject a vote? Or do you just want to know once and for all which subject is unanimously the shittest?

The time is now for you to cast your vote in this highly relevant and hotly contested debate.

“ARTS”

English:

Everyone knows an Engling – or has at least glimpsed those preppy students who stride through college in some cool trousers with a well-worn copy of a classic work of literature under their arm. Really, English is such a joke that even the examiners don’t take it seriously and don’t even give students a mark for prelims because apparently ‘marks don’t matter’. And to be honest, how ‘burning’ is your desire for long-winded works of medieval literature or the mind-numbing text of that obscure author who always seems to find their way into your essays via the insistence of your DoS? Oh, and the reading lists aren’t for the faint hearted…

An accurate depiction of every Engling after that 2nd essay of the week…

HSPS:

Everything is a social construct!! Even this degree is a social construct – does it even exist? Nevertheless SJWs eat your heart out, an HSPSer can argue about anything anytime, just don’t bring up Br***t or T**mp or even Th*r*sa M*y, trust us it’s not worth it…

Everything has to come with a trigger warning because we’ve got to protect these liberal snowflakes.

Don’t get them started…

Geography:

Despite being a breeding ground for the tighest-knit friendship groups, born from a mutual affinity for headlands and erosion, isn’t it really just expert colouring in? The only time this degree comes into use is when the ‘countries’ round comes up in Pointless or when your grandad banters the family gathering with some trivia about capital cities through which you can gain some serious admiration from your geographically unaware family members, but not much else.

Minfulness or coursework?

Law:

Yes, the law fac is one of the better architectural achievements of the Sigdwick Site but you have to know your subject is sad when one of its biggest developments came courtesy of a snail in ginger beer. A *snail*.

Comprised of the entirety of Downing College vying for those sweet, sweet training contracts. What’s the point of doing an arts subject if you actually have to work? You pretend to have all this legal knowledge and bandy it around to sound impressive but really you have as little understanding of the word ‘tort’ as I do.

The contrast… enough to make any other humanities student weep

History:

At the other end of the spectrum is the History faculty. The building is honestly disgraceful. The library has Antarctic conditions in winter but is like a giant greenhouse in summer – having one on one supervisions means they get roasted both in the faculty and during supervisions. The exam papers have some bullshit questions, like ‘what do pictures want?’, artfully constructed just to fuck you over when you’d memorised the 200 dates you allegedly ‘needed to know’ for your British Political History exam. Also, work is impossible in summer as, after prelims, you can’t be fucked and end up doing a week’s worth of work in 3 days with no sleep whatsoever.

An architectural monstrosity

Classics:

Outdated, pretty much useless, and seriously niche with seriously underdiscussed contact hours to rival those of the Engineers… yeah, it’s broad and whatever and you get to learn all the cool stuff about the Romans, shit that the Ancient Greek’s did, and you get to be lectured by Mazza B but… dead language, dead subject, dead job prospects.

Can relate…

ASNAC and AMES:

Took us a while to decipher these acronyms… took us even longer to deliberate what the study of Anglo Saxon, Norse and Celtic might entail. Where on earth did you discover this ridiculously niche interest area and where might you be going with it? AMES is a similar case often people pile them into ‘a branch of the historical tripos’ forgetting it’s an actual degree offered at Cambridge…

Potentially the nichest, most irrelevant degree of the lot…

MML:

‘WE EXPECT PERFECTION’ – Every MML teacher ever.

Did I come out of the womb saying bonjour? I think not.

There is a huge contingent of annoying gap yah students, who trekked round South America referring at length to their encounters with the locals. The native speakers look on in horror if you can’t instantly translate and speak their language. All the language classes are pretty much ritual humiliation for how little you actually know.

None of the different language departments seem to have considered that it might be useful to work together; they’re all determined to protect their own cultural interests to the death – whether this is bamboozling first year students with intense philosophy or Spanish teachers being permanently over-excited. All the language stereotypes are true.

“On my gap year did you know that I was a French au pair?”

Philosophy:

What is the point of philosophy? What is the point of life? Why are we here? What is your purpose? Why is there a purpose? Need I continue… Constant confusion and frustration – as if you needed any more in your life – combined with seriously disorganized supervisors who are too absorbed in consolations of Existentialism to show up or commit to your supos.

Your basic bitch philosophical interests won’t last long…

Theology:

To quote Jeremiah 29:11 ” I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future….”

He obviously had not thought about the consequences of studying Theology at uni…

Supposedly a free-ride into Cambridge…and just when you thought you’d live a reasonably carefree life you are given the awesome task of conquering Arabic or New Testament Greek alongside an analysis of the Beatitudes.

If this doesn’t sum it up I don’t know what does…

History of Art:

What sort of unemployment are you looking for? You probably chickened out of both History, English and potentially Classics too before you settled for the watered down option of all three. Girl-dominated, with the odd male in there for variety, students of history of art frequent Kettle’s Yard and pepper their instagram stories with questionable examples of ‘modern art’.

“Modern art”

Music

There are about thirty of these per year. They will be ridiculously skilled, like Grade 8+ on all the 7 instruments they play. They can play ‘any song’ and will of course insist on playing it for you. They will frequent all the recitals and concerts your college offers which recieve recurrent PR from them on Facebook where they undoubtedly will have some strained candid shot of them playing the piano as their profile pic. We rate your musical genius but perhaps not music as a 3-year, 9,000 quid a year commitment…

Muso’s won’t be impressed by your Grade 3 in clarinet soz…

Economics:

They like to big themselves up and think they’re scientists when actually everyone knows their just jumped up arts students seeking 6-figure salaries in some soul-sucking city stint. I mean, if they’re so scientific why do their economic models fail every 5 years and create a global crisis? Just because they do a degree that might actually make them some money does not justify their superiority complex.

The city skyline all Econs dream of…

Land Economy:

No one really knows what it is, it’s exclusive to Cambridge, full of sporting blues who turn up to lectures in all their merch and types who try to evince their fascination with Land Law or go off on one about its allegedly soaring job prospects in comparison to Econ or Engineering to grant it some sort of authority above all the other degrees. We’re not sure ourselves.

The object of ridicule even on Crushbridge…

What’s your verdict? Vote now to have your say.

Annie Appen

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