Save your money. What you are likely to be subjected to is hardly worth the tuition.
Take these lines, from the opening of a master’s thesis recently accepted by the University of Toronto, for instance: “I also wrote this paper for myself, because I needed an explanation for my own existence. It became a method of explaining why I don’t exist yet,” wrote Narisa Vickers.
Moving on from the author’s existential crisis, Vickers’ thesis is titled, “Female Dopers, Gender Fraudulences, and Racialized Bodies: The Misgendering of Imane Khelif.”
“It became a method of explaining why I don’t exist yet,”
Chick-logic amped to the max. If you don’t exist yet, how are you typing?
I write science fiction, and even for SF that line right at the beginning of a story is pretty bold. You’re going to be needing some pretty big ideas to back that up.
If you laughed, or even raised an eyebrow, she’d start screaming “racist reeeeee!”
Whoever gave her an MA for that needs adjustment.
Any apparent third party observing my typing is simply part of my non-existence. I am not, therefore I don’t think.
My favorite is how to prove objective existence.
You wave your hand at them, and ask if they can see it. Observing the waving hand yourself proves you exist. When they observe it too, that proves they exist.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
If they resist and say all is illusion, you step on their toe. That generally is the end of the argument.
You call that a thesis?
It was more like a “dear woke diary” confused mess.
I know there are many here who eschew the value of “liberal arts,” but there has been intrinsic value for grappling with the great tradition and the best that has been thought and said.
The Judeo Christian tradition, coupled with Enlightenment thinking, is what undergirded what built our Western World (i.e., that precious accomplishment that you see being undermined in myriad ways, this article being but one tawdry example).
I digress. I recall a time, not so long ago, when a proper and arguably valuable arts thesis from an English Literature perspective, would have argued on how Milton’s works influenced the development of religious and political innovations and thus spurred the the idea of individual thought, and freedom from repressive dogma, all of which contributed to the growth of western thought and bloody good empire, eh, wot?
Excuse my tirade and hope you get the buried intent.
PS…I am not transgender and don’t have any pronouns. Just don’t get me going on adjectives.
Have a nice day.
Personally I overuse adverbs … I actually beat them to death. Seriously.
There was a point in time when I argued in favor of the value of a “liberal arts” degree as a means to understand the Western world. A way to understand all that gives rise to our culture and society. Now that classic education has been flushed down the toilet.
L – Peterson Academy, where sharp minds go to be honed and the content provides more red meat for the brain, per tuition dollar, than any traditional university in our demented Dominion.
https://petersonacademy.com/
Larry, the library is cheaper and can give a sharp mind the tools to hone without suffering Peterson’s verbosity.
L – The last time I walked into a local library branch. I looked at 100s of titles. No more than 2 or maybe 3 would count as classics, as outstanding contributions to Western Civilization. Much of it was aimed at a grade 6 level and that applies to the adult sections. Public Libraries are one of the gov’t. Institutions infiltrated by Cult. Marxists.
Best to find a used bookstore. Though, Indigo does feature low priced classics in one section.
As for the Peterson Academy, the course offerings are varied, and the lecture series delivered by those of high and accomplished intellect in their field, and are passionate in their pursuit of truth about the subject matter. From my years at university, I’d rate these lecturers well above average. The standards in most of the 21st Century universities are a caricature of 20th Century universities
As for Prof. Jordan Peterson, while his two Rules for Life books are written for a general audience, His other books and some of his lecture material are aimed at those, whose verbal IQ would be at least 1 or better 2 Standard Deviations above average. There are some with high mathematical and spatial skills, and moderate verbal skills, who have difficulty understanding the material. Or won’t expend the extra effort required to learn something new. There are others who have the I.Q. but are two ideologically possessed, too frightened, to even attempt to understand the arguments of someone they disagree with.
Peterson’s quest to understand human evil, in all its aspects , is one that few can face. True is the axiom that states that if you dare to look into the abyss, you will find it looking back into you!
By comparison, a BA in co-ed coathanger straightening would be useful.
People always made fun of the PhD in basket weaving. But you know, at the end of the day that guy can still make a basket.
Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art. -Tom Stoppard
Never, ever accuse university students of intelligence. Especially the educated ones.
Who is she writing about?
STEMs. Keep to the STEMS.
You will still get subjected to some woke nonsense, but mostly you’ll learn useful stuff.
Right. Too many STEM types these days ( and in fact for decades) just publish or perish according to who funds and peer reviews their over promising and under delivered horse manure.
Just look at what so many of the “S” in STEMS have been inflicting on us, from climate change to indigenous ways of doing biology, etc, As for the “E” types, they offshore real engineering and badly design things like wood framed mid rise buildings. I could go on….
Get a trade and build of fix real stuff.
The tuition to attend every faculty that is not STEM should be doubled in order to lower the tuition for those in STEM and trade schools.
The Japanese Model is that the government will not fund non-STEM programs *at all*.
I took STEM subjects at cooking school! Asparagus and mushrooms mostly, some broccoli…
Aaron Clarey (aka Captain Capitalism) wrote a book a few years ago called “Worthless: The Indispensible Guide to Choosing the Right Major”. Far too many stupid people have wasted years of their lives and tens of thousands of dollars by choosing the wrong one. And then they whine about their student loans and “affordability”. Idiots all of them.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13494865-worthless
The thesis should be, “non cogito, ergo non sum”
Vickers describes her work as “grounded in Black transgender feminist theory and decolonial queer of colour critique,” in its examination of “online reactions to Khelif as a case study shaped by histories of transphobia and colonialism in North America and Algeria.”
Of course it is. Extra points for word salad.
“It became a method of explaining why I don’t exist yet,” wrote Narisa Vickers.”
Existentialism gone amok. Paging Jean-Paul Sartre.
Ms Vickers is not a Human Being, she is a Human Becoming. Or not.