FML

I went to see Mark Ronson perform at the Palace Theatre on Bourke St last week – all in all a great concert, despite the mood being soured by one particularly individual with whom I made acquaintance. The conversation when something like this:

Random: hey man, are you a uni student?

Me: yeah man, I’m studying at Melbourne Uni at the moment.

Random: what do you study?

Me: I’m second year arts.

Random: I’m so sorry.

Me: (not happy) what about you?

Random: mate, film and media at Swinburn Uni – Prahran Campus, best degree in the world mate. I’m gonna be making the ads that will control your mind and tell you what to buy in the future (conversation over).

Bachelor of Arts, or artium baccalaureus, has been one of the staple degrees of the University of Bologna, Paris, Cambridge, Salamanca and Montpellier, dating back to 1088 AD. Young men, having successfully completed their studies of Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialect, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy at a secondary level would continue on to the finest universities in the world to further their education. They would study things they had already addressed in schools but in much greater depth, as well as exploring new subjects such as philosophy, politics, economics, history, physics, chemistry and law. A man of true upbringing would seek an education not as a means to a vocational end, but rather to ensure he understood all the facets of the world in which he was living. The question of whether or not this attitude is still applicable in the 21st is debatable, and depends greatly on the quality of secondary education that one receives. However for those of us who do not feel that they knew everything there was to know at age 17, artium baccalaureus seems a viable life decision as far as bettering oneself is concerned.

It is hard to overlook the irony that those with the narrow-minded view that a scholarly pursuit is only worth as much as its vocational outcomes tend to be those studying something narrow themselves, indeed “this marginal attitude may result from lack of knowledge about the existence and importance of cultural capital in addition to economic capital, and the reality that many Arts students often complete a second or third degree after a BA, for the attainment of a position suited to their interests in the job market.” (March 2011: Wikipedia)

To be continued…