How Easy Is Your Degree?

Let’s remember it. Freshers week. So many names, so many degrees to remember. Every time somebody said Medicine, you automatically thought “fucking hell, smart arse.” Every time somebody said Vet Med, you thought “see you later, social life.” And when somebody said Sports Science, we all really wanted to laugh.

“You’re studying Scottish Ethnology?” (yes, that exists).

But can we really judge how difficult our degrees are on face value? Although Medicine itself is difficult, the Uni’s History of Medicine course only has a 2,000 essay to complete for the whole semester. More shocking than that, it actually turns out the Geographers do a bit more than colouring, with their course combining of a range of online assignments, essays and an exam. So what really makes a degree easy? Here’s our favourite facts about Edinburgh’s courses.

Our beloved medical students.

+ The most difficult course to get onto at the University is actually Graphic Design, with only a 6.5% of getting in.

+ The School of Divinity is the easiest course to get into at the Uni, with an acceptance rate of 69.8% (so apparently you don’t have to actually be a wise mind to pull yourself off as one).

Looking hot.

+ The Sports Recreation and Management has the lowest A-Level offer, asking for BCC to study the intricate art of managing people’s balls.

+ To get onto the Business Studies course, you need 3 A’s at A-Level (we were shocked too), but according to our Student Poll, the ‘Innovation and Entrepreneurship’ course that the School offer, is apparently viewed as the easiest on campus. Rack in the 20 credits lads.

+ One student told us that she finds her History of Art course “the most difficult” that she’s taking. Although its low teaching hours don’t exactly scream challenging, it’s range of essays and an exam where you have to memorise 40 slides of art works, doesn’t exactly sound like a walk in the park (or gallery).

If only they all looked like this.

+ Where do we even start with Primary Teaching. Even though we all assume Primary Teaching is piss-easy because of their lack of lecture hours, and lessons which include making origami frogs and dancing to Dora the Explorer (no lie), it’s not all child’s play (intentional). The teachers are expected to be faced with a class of 30 screaming children in their first semester, and lose a whole month of nights out during a month long placement. Who really wants to get up at 6am to be slobbered on by children?*

So there you have it, a few interesting facts about our degrees. But before we have an angry hoard of Sports Scientists after us, in reality no degree is easy, and we all do work really hard (occasionally). Form an orderly queue folks, Entrepreneurship is filling up by the second.

*Thank you to Clare Murray, The Tab’s favourite primary teacher, for being a font of knowledge for this article.