I’m hooked on the programme University Challenge which I watch on YouTube. (I spelt programme the British way.) The show is the British version of College Bowl. Two teams for 4 players each answer questions so difficult that I cannot even understand the questions. During the introductions, each student gives the degree s/he is studying for. How about getting a Ph.D. in “middle Byzantium eucharist objects”? Talk about a niche degree. I’m guessing he will end up a professor. What else do you with a degree in middle Byzantium eucharist objects? Work at museum, maybe? How many other people do you think have that degree??
Michael Jordan graduated from the University of North Carolina with a degree in Geography. While he was certainly ‘going places’ [somewhere, a dad is grinning while his kids groan], I’m hard pressed to imagine what his fellow classmates - who did not go on to graduate school - did with their skills.
Was his degree in “middle Byzantium eucharist objects” or was his degree in “medieval history” or “theology” and his PhD dissertation about middle Byzantium eucharist objects?
Was the contestantHarry Prance?
Yep. And he said his Ph.D. was in MBEO, not just his thesis. Do you know him, or did you Google?
In case you’re not aware of it, a fun way of playing along at home can be to award yourself points if your answer to the question is at least in the right field. For example, if you guess “Henry VIII” and the right answer is “Richard III”, that’s points - if your answer is “Canaletto” and the right answer is “Jupiter”, no dice :). For those not familiar with the programme, the latter situation (OK, maybe not that exact example, but you get the idea) is more common than you might think!
In the business world, often a degree is the minimal requirement for entry level jobs. Even if you want to enter the US military, it’s hard to become an officer without one, but they don’t seem to pay much attention to the subject.
My degree is a BA in Music theory, but I was offered and accepted a job as a Senior Engineer in software development with a large military contracting company in the 1980’s. The salary offered was commensurate with a college education, but no consideration was taken to the subject.
I can usually get 2 or 3 answers per show, usually in categories I didn’t know I knew anything about. I love when the question is about U.S. states. I feel I have an advantage, but am thrilled when a U.K. person answers correctly.
My favourite question ever on that show was ‘What links the artists Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello?’ Just for the look of absolute terror on the guy who answered’s face; you could see him thinking ‘Is this going to be some obscure art technique or did they all decorate a room in the Vatican or something? Because if I’m wrong, I am never ever going to live this down’.
In that show, it really could have been something like that and not, as he said:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Evil question people 
But yeah, there’s some weird PhD topics people say on there, sometimes I think they’re just so happy people are gonna be forced to listen to at least the title of the topic, because people usually run away when they start talking about it.
I normally do pretty well on the nature based questions, which the teams often do really badly on, so I can feel all smug.
Brandon killed it in UC this year! I was so looking forward to Brandon vs Wang, but Wang under-performed in the final. I felt a little sorry for Wang and Gunasekera, TBH. THey performed so well all year.
StG
StG how do you watch it? I watch via YouTube and just started so this is my first year. I believe the tournaments start in July.
I just googled. It sounded like the title of a thesis, not a degree.
Brandon was the American kid in the final against Corpus Christi, right? I remember one question about a term coined by W.E.B. Du Bois and he muttered something about how he was going to get the question about African-American political theory wrong on television. (I laughed.)
(Googling, the question was “What is a two word term coined by W.E.B Du Bois to refer to an internal conflict experienced by colonised people?” and the answer was double consciousness.)
While I know many people think of Geography as a grade-school subject where you learn state capitals, it’s actually a legitimate field with departments in many Universities. It includes aspects of sociology, economics, planning and many other fields.
Yeah, nobody “gets a degree” in a such a narrow topic. His degree is no doubt in Art History, History, or maybe Religion. While it’s true jobs may be limited to universities or museums, that’s true of a lot of Ph.D. level jobs.
My thesis was on hummingbird ecology, but my degree was from the Department of Environmental Biology. The degree was a qualification for employment in a wide range jobs related to biology, not just hummingbirds.
Anything that requires someone capable of PhD-level work. School != job training. At least not always.
Thanks.
I kinda sorta realized I was being ignorant when I made the comment (reinforced by the fact that I managed to totally blank on the fact that the entire thread concerns ‘graduate’ degrees, and I was feebly mocking an undergrad degree).
According to the link in post #4, Harry Prance’s thesis is titled “Malleable Materials: Middle Byzantine Eucharistic Objects”. He’s studying for a doctorate at the Courtauld Institute of Art. His thesis advisor is Antony Eastmond, who teaches there in the Department of the History of Byzantine Art. This is a little more specialized than usual for a department, but most big universities have departments of art history. Prance is someone who has studied the history, the religion, and the art of the Byzantine Empire., the Eastern Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.
I watch on Dave Garda’s Youtube channel. He posts every week after the show airs. He’s just finished the 49th series.
StG
There’s probably a fair amount of money in middle Byzantium eucharist objects.