6 ms·

It sounds like PPE basically does what Oxford designed it to do. Before PPE would be bureaucrats and ministers studied Greek and Latin. Then Oxford decided they

It sounds like PPE basically does what Oxford designed it to do. Before PPE would be bureaucrats and ministers studied Greek and Latin. Then Oxford decided they may need training in something more practical. Throw in some stats and basic data analysis and I think you have a pretty good training regimen for people who want to go to Whitehall and Parliament

revelation 10y ago
Just as wet streets don't cause rain, Oxford degrees don't make politicians. It's just that all the British trust fund kids go to Oxford to study .. well, whatever.
- StClaire 10y ago
  You could say that about college in general. College doesn't make people successful, successful people go to college
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    And yet the (champagne) left has sold the public on the idea that education solves all ills...
    - StClaire 10y ago
      I'm not arguing. I think I would have been better off taking some college courses instead of actually going to college
  - pnathan 10y ago
    > College doesn't make people successful, successful people go to college That's a wonderful epigram. Did you come up with that? I'd like to remember it and properly source it.
    - StClaire 10y ago
      Yes.
  - MengerSponge 10y ago
    You can say lots of things that are BS. College is a prerequisite for professional degrees. Hacker News crowd notwithstanding, your career earning potential is reduced if you only have a secondary education. Note that not all college degrees are equal. Obviously. Four-ish years of dedicated study changes your mind appreciably, which is the real objective. Also, finishing a degree signals your ability to function in a somewhat opaque bureaucracy, which means you'll be able to follow dumb rules and still get stuff done in a business organization.
- MLR 10y ago
  I always find it odd how the Cambridge educated prime ministers seemingly dried up, one would really expect it to be closer to a 50/50 split as it had been in the past.
  - mathetic 10y ago
    We got caught up doing science of it all.
  - james1071 10y ago
    Oxford:27 Cambridge:14 Since 1945 Oxford:10 Cambridge:0
cperciva 10y ago
PPE isn't perfect, but as far as a preparation for government goes, it's better than any other degree I've seen. I'd like to see it include slightly more mathematics -- economics has become significantly more quantitative over the decades, and PPE hasn't kept up -- but it's still vastly ahead of a degree in law, which seem to be the most common preparation for political careers in North America. Before PPE would be bureaucrats and ministers studied Greek and Latin. Some of them, I'm sure; but I think the highest density of Greats has always been in the House of Lords.
- Silhouette 10y ago
  PPE isn't perfect, but as far as a preparation for government goes, it's better than any other degree I've seen. Doesn't that make the implicit assumption that any degree is good preparation for government, though?
  - cperciva 10y ago
    Whether it is "good" preparation depends on how good something needs to be to qualify as good. All I'm saying is that it's better than the alternatives.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    There's upside and downsides. A good place to look at a non-political example of this phenomenon is submarine captains. A US submarine captain is by training a nuclear engineer first and foremost. It dominates the training and career path. In the Royal Navy, captains are more rounded and while they have plenty of training in that area, they have a more liberal education. That impacts leadership style and other things. Both courses are effective, just different. Politics are similar. Your typical US politician is an attorney with a feeder degree in political science, history, etc. More MBAs too. Staffers usually have politically focused degrees as well.
- tnecniv 10y ago
  > but it's still vastly ahead of a degree in law, which seem to be the most common preparation for political careers in North America. Those are kind of fundamentally different things, aren't they? A PPE degree is an undergraduate degree while a US Law degree is a graduate one. Law school doesn't require any specific undergraduate degree (it's well documented that the highest STEM and philosophy majors are some of the highest scoring on the LSAT). It'd be more applicable to compare what undergraduate degrees North American politicians have to the Oxford PPE curriculum. As an anecdote, at my (US) undergrad school, people who were interested in politics majored in political science, international relations , or PPE (I don't know how the curriculum of this PPE degree compares with the Oxford one). Plenty of those people got law degrees and plenty didn't. PPE also attracted people who wanted to do something vaguely liberal arts but didn't want to specialize / commit too much.

revelation 10y ago

Just as wet streets don't cause rain, Oxford degrees don't make politicians. It's just that all the British trust fund kids go to Oxford to study .. well, whatever.

StClaire 10y ago
You could say that about college in general. College doesn't make people successful, successful people go to college
- digi_owl 10y ago
  And yet the (champagne) left has sold the public on the idea that education solves all ills...
  - StClaire 10y ago
    I'm not arguing. I think I would have been better off taking some college courses instead of actually going to college
- pnathan 10y ago
  > College doesn't make people successful, successful people go to college That's a wonderful epigram. Did you come up with that? I'd like to remember it and properly source it.
  - StClaire 10y ago
    Yes.
- MengerSponge 10y ago
  You can say lots of things that are BS. College is a prerequisite for professional degrees. Hacker News crowd notwithstanding, your career earning potential is reduced if you only have a secondary education. Note that not all college degrees are equal. Obviously. Four-ish years of dedicated study changes your mind appreciably, which is the real objective. Also, finishing a degree signals your ability to function in a somewhat opaque bureaucracy, which means you'll be able to follow dumb rules and still get stuff done in a business organization.
MLR 10y ago
I always find it odd how the Cambridge educated prime ministers seemingly dried up, one would really expect it to be closer to a 50/50 split as it had been in the past.
- mathetic 10y ago
  We got caught up doing science of it all.
- james1071 10y ago
  Oxford:27 Cambridge:14 Since 1945 Oxford:10 Cambridge:0

cperciva 10y ago

PPE isn't perfect, but as far as a preparation for government goes, it's better than any other degree I've seen. I'd like to see it include slightly more mathematics -- economics has become significantly more quantitative over the decades, and PPE hasn't kept up -- but it's still vastly ahead of a degree in law, which seem to be the most common preparation for political careers in North America. Before PPE would be bureaucrats and ministers studied Greek and Latin. Some of them, I'm sure; but I think the highest density of Greats has always been in the House of Lords.

Silhouette 10y ago
PPE isn't perfect, but as far as a preparation for government goes, it's better than any other degree I've seen. Doesn't that make the implicit assumption that any degree is good preparation for government, though?
- cperciva 10y ago
  Whether it is "good" preparation depends on how good something needs to be to qualify as good. All I'm saying is that it's better than the alternatives.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  There's upside and downsides. A good place to look at a non-political example of this phenomenon is submarine captains. A US submarine captain is by training a nuclear engineer first and foremost. It dominates the training and career path. In the Royal Navy, captains are more rounded and while they have plenty of training in that area, they have a more liberal education. That impacts leadership style and other things. Both courses are effective, just different. Politics are similar. Your typical US politician is an attorney with a feeder degree in political science, history, etc. More MBAs too. Staffers usually have politically focused degrees as well.
tnecniv 10y ago
> but it's still vastly ahead of a degree in law, which seem to be the most common preparation for political careers in North America. Those are kind of fundamentally different things, aren't they? A PPE degree is an undergraduate degree while a US Law degree is a graduate one. Law school doesn't require any specific undergraduate degree (it's well documented that the highest STEM and philosophy majors are some of the highest scoring on the LSAT). It'd be more applicable to compare what undergraduate degrees North American politicians have to the Oxford PPE curriculum. As an anecdote, at my (US) undergrad school, people who were interested in politics majored in political science, international relations , or PPE (I don't know how the curriculum of this PPE degree compares with the Oxford one). Plenty of those people got law degrees and plenty didn't. PPE also attracted people who wanted to do something vaguely liberal arts but didn't want to specialize / commit too much.