Reply to Majoring in English—why so much disrespect?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I know women’s studies, studio art, and political science majors from my LAC, who went to medical school. [/quote]

3% of med school students were/are humanities majors

It’s safe to say nobody knows many English majors who became doctors because it’s statistically impossible.

But you may know some.[/quote]

Statistically if you know 33 doctors one of them majored in humanities. To know two you need to know 67 doctors. To know “a few” or you need to know hundreds of doctors.[/quote]

That’s all humanities…not just English (poli sci most popular humanities major BTW).  We are talking specifically English majors which is the title of the thread.

You probably have to know 150-200 doctors to know one that was an English major.[/quote]

Gracious, I was an English major and even I understand that's not how probability works. You do not "have to know 150-200 doctors" to know one who was an English major. You can know just one doctor - the one in 150 who was an English major. [/quote]

And that’s why people look down on English majors. If you look at the prior post it started with the word “statistically”, meaning on average. You’re confusing a possible outcome with the probability that said outcome is realized. Where’s that sharp critical thinking that English majors supposedly develop while analyzing Shakespeare? Businesses will not pay you money for these trite arguments, you need to be productive.[/quote]

I'm the PP English major. Precision matters, and you were being imprecise to serve a false argument.  
The statement "Statistically if you know 33 doctors, one of them majored in humanities" is not the same as "Statistically you would need to know 33 doctors to know one who majored in humanities." 
But, you (or somebody) conflated the two and then doubled down on that second formulation to suggest that it's impossible the other PP knows a few / more than a few doctors who were humanities majors. "You'd have to know x number of people ..." was offered to show that there's no way they actually know that many people in the category. But, of course, that does not follow from the statistic. It's entirely possible that PP knows a dozen humanities majors who became doctors, for all sorts of reasons - perhaps PP is a member of an alumni club with that focus. Perhaps several friends all met at a liberal arts college and then became doctors. Perhaps all of PP's family members have that educational background. When you misuse statistics, you come to false conclusions and overlook interesting possibilities. [/quote]

:lol:  :lol:  :lol: Fascinating! English majors can critically analyze mathematical concepts; yet most STEM folks can't write a quality research or scientific paper, or clearly explain something in layman terms to someone who doesn't know science, and I doubt would comparatively analyze two excerpts from literature with as much skill.[/quote]
congrats, but most English majors still need a graduate degree to get paid similarly to a STEM grad.

Also, most English majors wouldn't be able to explain a scientific/eng/CS paper using layman terms, either.  And STEM grads wouldn't care about having to compare two literary texts.  Most aren't interested in it.   Even my IBDP grad who is a STEM major didn't like having to do that when they were in IBDP. They called it BS.

-dp btw[/quote]

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