4.5.11

Anecdatum about higher education surely of interest to someone: at today's lunch seminar, there was general agreement amongst those involved in the conversation* that Harvard's degree in Social Studies sounded of lower quality that Chicago's Social Thought, despite (I am told) covering the same approximate subject matter. Some of this is attributable to the reflected glow of Committees on Social Thought past, no doubt, but some seemed to be the feeling that 'studies' programs are inherently suspect. As I feel that the Program gathered together is capable of expressing something like the conservative consensus on a topic, it seemed worth reporting.

*i.e. not me.

2 comments:

FLG said...

My hunch is that people associate Social Studies with middle school.

Nicholas said...

Oddly, though entirely commonsensical, this did not come up in conversation. Which makes my suspicion that the real problem was the word 'studies,' and not something else seem more likely.