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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 mathe
by 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 agoPPE 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 agoWhether 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 agoThere'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.