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First Degree in Science Fiction 76

Posted by Roblimo from the we'd-ace-this-one-without-breaking-a-sweat dept.
gilest writes "This BBC story describes the UK's (the world's?) first University degree in science-fiction. Students will be asked to write essays on topics like 'Will Robots Take Over The Earth?' "
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First Degree in Science Fiction

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  • I guess if L. Ron Hubbard could call himself a Sci-fi writer, anyone can...

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

  • Posted by Desva:

    If you are in a position to be looking at resumes, then your close minded attitude and gross generalizations about the UK university system (which has produced more Noble prizes for science per head then any other country) really don't bode very well for who ever you work for.

    Let's not forget that the dumbing down of media, higher education, and popular culture originated in the US (there are so many examples of crud US "degree" courses I don't know where to begin).

    But you did pick some good ideas - the study of prime numbers would be apt material for a thesis, let allow a degree. It takes London Taxi drivers about 4 years to know their way around London (contrast that with San Fran, which is grid based yet the cabbies still don't know how to get from A to B). I don't (yet) know much Spanish, so I can't comment on that, and I'll let you have the point about the cultural void that is the 80s!!! ;-)

  • Pah (Score:1)

    by gavinhall ( 33 )
    Posted by veghead:

    We at the Univeristy of Bums on Seats have had
    similar quality degrees for years.

    http://www.cynicalbastards.com/ubs/
  • I have that issue, somewhere, but not handy, unfortunately. His first round of speculation was in the letters column, as I recall. If anyone has the issue, could they post up the letter he wrote?
  • University = Jobs? Nope.

    Bzzt. Wrong. I was an English major and I've got a very nice job now as a network administrator.

    Believe it or not, many employers want people who can actually write well and are knowledgeable about the world outside of computers.

    Maybe university is not for you but lets not go making ridiculously broad statements about the worthlessness of college.
  • If I recall correctly, Clarke was on the development teams for both RADAR and the first communication satellite (Early Bird?). Can someone correct me on this?
  • With luck, they'll be better Slashdot moderators.
  • I guess if L. Ron Hubbard could call himself a Sci-fi writer, anyone can...

    L. Ron Hubbard wrote one fabulous sci-fi book: Battlefield Earth.

    Now, Mission Earth sucked a lot, but Battlefield Earth is one of my all time favorites.

    Don't put down Hubbard for his sci-fi (unless it's Mission Earth, which is truly awful, not to mention 10 volumes long).

    Put him down for inventing the crack cocaine of religions.

    -Richard.
  • In fact, I don't remember any real S.F. movies
    in the last few years except Gattaca
  • I dunno, but I can't believe ohw many ignorant
    slashdoters there are. I had higher expectations
    of 'em. Except for Mary CW, and CountZero, almost
    all of you seem to think that "sci-fi" == science
    fiction.

    WRONG

    I once came up, on rasff, with a distinction,
    and had a number fo folks find it acceptable:
    skiffy (how fans tend to pronounce it) is
    a) people who think most sf is tv or movie
    b) reviewers, whose knowledge of science or
    sf, would fit in a shot glass, and leave
    plenty of room, and who think Godzilla
    movies are sf, and
    c) movie producers, whose ! ( IQ > shoe_size ),
    who think "it's got special effects; it
    doesn't need plot, or acting, or
    writers..."

    Real sf? It's 99.9% written (I probably own
    several times as many sf & f books as all the
    skiffy movies ever made), and has to have
    *some* clue of what their writing about...and
    has to tell a good story. I ought to also point
    out that a good number of both the authors and
    the active fans are computer folks, like me, or
    other techies, or technically-trained (my
    late wife, the chem/radiochem lab tech, several
    authors who are physicists, or chemists, a
    number of fan friends who work at Fermilab, and
    another fan friend who works at the Cape).

    And why treat sf seriously? Well...someone, I
    think Sam Moskowitz, once described the evolution
    of sf as:
    '20-'30's Prof. Whatisname invents an
    electronic chicken-plucker, and here's
    how it works;
    30'-40's Prof Whatisname invents an electronic
    chickenplucker, and has these
    adventures with it;
    40-50's Prof W. invented that thing, and
    here's how it affected society, and
    50- How that changed society affected the
    individual - what are the consequences
    of all that inventing.

    So...what were the consequences of videocams
    (e.g., Rodney King), or satellites (Mission to
    Planet Earth), or....

    Then, of course, there's CP Snow's famous essay
    on the two cultures, which are more seperate than
    ever...is sf not a bridge?? I don't suppose *any*
    of the folks who get the degree might go into
    science writing (say, like Isaac Asimov...)

    So...it's a throwaway, is it?

    Try again.

    mark
  • Richard writes:
    "L. Ron Hubbard wrote one fabulous sci-fi book: Battlefield Earth."

    He wrote another one -- I think it was another one, because the title "Battlefield Earth" doesn't sound like a relevant name for the one I'm thinking of. I can't recall the title of that one, because it was something like 25 years since I read it, but it was about interstellar traders, spaceship crewmen. The "McGuffin" was time dilation: Sure, a trip might take only a year or three to you, subjectively -- but you'd better think *damn* carefully about what goods you'll buy for resale at your target, because that'll be X-hundred years into the future, "objective" time.

    Not "great", perhaps, but quite OK. Must have been before he went flaky and invented scientology. (If that even *was* the act of a "flake"; I suspect it was a damn clever scam from the get-go...)


    Christian R. Conrad
    MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
  • Tank writes:
    "YOU ARE ALL SHEEP!!!
    Repent, Win2K is neigh!!!"

    Don't be a horse's ass -- if we're all SHEEP, then WTF has *neighing* got to do with anything?


    Christian R. Conrad
    MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.

  • Ahhh... yes, we must make sure the techies are as ethical as the graduates from Liberal Arts Schools like... erm... Political Science majors? Nono... Marketing people? Uh... Lawyers? Hm. Maybe not.

    The school I went to ( WPI [wpi.edu]) does emphasize the "squishy stuff" so that engineers turn out better capable of working within society, not just within their technical discipline. In theory, anyhow. Personally, I don't think any amount of schooling will teach you ethics. A sense of ethics is something that you choose to develop or not. Schooling in it can guide amd mold your ethics, but if you're a jerk, you'll be a jerk, no matter if you have a B.S. or a B.A.

  • To elaborate on previous posters, Clarke described a system of satellites in a geostationary orbit in "Wireless World" (a british radio journal) in October '45. (IIRC on the date)

    Erik

    Has it ever occurred to you that God might be a committee?
  • Blade Runner was a very good movie, and I think there was even some Science Fiction left in it :-). But the original book "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick (one of the very best SF authors) is one of the best books ever written! It's impressive that they didn't destroy it more ;-) Now, the worst they (Hollywood) ever did was filming Starship Troopers - another one of the best books ever and they managed to... The only saving grace being that they apparently decided to buy in the S-T name quite late in the process...

    Erik

    Has it ever occurred to you that God might be a committee?
  • Harlan Ellison wrote a screenplay based on "I Robot" by Asimov - in '74 or so... Came in book form a few yeas ago (as an illustrated screenplay). I've heard a rumor that it wasn't filmed because Star Wars made Hollywood think robots should be 'cute' or somesuch...

    Erik

    Has it ever occurred to you that God might be a committee?


  • Yeah, SF can be studied seriously, just like anything can be studied seriously. There is the question as to why you would want a degree in SF (skipping the whole issue of why you would want a degree in anything...). You might be interested in:

    • training in becoming an SF writer
    • developing scenarios of plausible futures
    • special effects techniques
    • social and historical significance of SF



    If you actually read the BBC article, the focus of this degree sounds like it's mostly about training students to be science teachers. They're supposed to learn how to use SF as a way of focusing the student's attention.



    It does seem to be a little extreme to focus an entire 4 year degree on this: calling it a degree in "science fiction" seems like a marketing technique for attracting undergrads. If you actually wanted to work in this field, wouldn't you want a degree in "science education" or something?



    But that said, it isn't the stupidiest idea in the world. For example, I probably learned more about tidal forces reading Larry Niven's story "Neutron Star", in spite of it's innaccuracies, than in any of the introductary science texts I'd seen (all of which seem to completely mangle the issue). It's often occured to me that if I were teaching kids earth science I'd take an approach like "Now, what would our planet be like if it's axis weren't tilted? What if it were tilted 90 degrees? What if the orbit was smaller or larger? What if the moon were a different size?" There's no question in my mind that Hal Clement must have been one of the greatest science teachers ever.




    Not that any of this matters really, since American kids don't want to study "hard stuff" like the sciences, and there appears to be a glut of scientists and engineers on the market, and if we run out of them we can always buy some more from China or India.


  • Every so often I here one of those
    can-only-happen-in-america stories about Unis.
    A course in:
    Surfing
    Computer games
    Something I forget
    and now Sci Fi
    and they keep happening in BRITAIN? Something
    specific in the system there? I mean all around
    the western world we are getting soft-option
    degrees, but I thought that was what arts
    departments are for. Sci-Fi is much cooler.
  • But he was rather proud of the fact that he DID coin the word "robotics".

  • Hmmmm...first a CS degree strictly in video games, now a literature degree strictly in science fiction. Note to self : Throw resumes from UK colleges in trash.

    The University of Miami has a course in basket-weaving. Does that make it sensible to throw out Harvard or MIT resumes?

    Clue: I have here The (London) Times's 1998 University guide, which includes their attempt to rank the 96 accredited UK universities in order of quality. The University of Glamorgan, who are offering the SF course, is ranked 69th. The University of Teeside, who offer the computer games degree, is ranked 80th.

    Both universities are ex-polytechnics (further education technical/vocational colleges). A few years ago the rules were changed to allow polytechnics to register as universities. Some of them have given themselves somewhat grandiose titles ("The University of the West of England"!) or begun offering rather, ah, populist courses to attract more students. There's an excellent satire of this kind of thing ( The University of Bums on Seats [cynicalbastards.com]) which I see someone has already mentioned here.

  • Hollywood is able, once in a rare while,
    to turn out decent science-fiction movies.
    Witness 'Blade Runner', or 'Twelve Monkeys'
    maybe.

    The thing is: it's unusual. And all the more
    to be savored for it.
  • After all, when you get down to it, what's the difference between American Studies and, say, English? You're reading stuff, discussing it, and writing essays about it. My former roommate, American Studies major, is now making lotsa money programming for a big corporation. My current roommate, English major, is making less money doing research/analysis for a think tank. Both seem pretty content.

    University != jobs, but a good liberal arts education opens a lot of doors.

  • yep, and the "Twelve Monkeys" is a remake of a film called "La jetee". So even Hollywood seem to search into other countries films to find good Sci-Fi movies (and I say movies, not books).
  • I disagree, there is a certain amount of "action" in Neuromancer and most other books that I've read, which ones have no action? (that would make for a boring book, and I don't just mean guns)
  • People often overestimate the power of science fiction. Great writers like Jules Verne (submarines) and Arthur Clarke (satellites) have been responsible for some of the greatest technological innovations in history. (And let us not forget Isaac Asimov's robots...)


    "I came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. I'm all out of bubblegum."
  • or at lest submit better stories...

    let's just hope that some one improves, natural language recognition algorithms or us perl hackers will have to learn binary...
    nmarshall
    #include "standard_disclaimer.h"
    R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
  • I am required to take two advanced literary courses.. Which ones did I choose? One was Science Fiction, and the other.. Fantasy... Not exactly an entire major, but it does show that this isn't the first example of Universities taking this stuff seriously..
  • Acutally, Clarke conceived the communications satellite (especially geosynchronous).
  • Reading has had a prost-grad Sci-Fi program for awhile...since Fall '97 At least they can continue to escape the real world after their undergrad is finished If you want to check it out --> here [rdg.ac.uk]

  • We could also add in other crossovers. For example:

    • Science Fiction and Journalism: the ultimate pundit. (And the Anti-Berst)
    • Science Fiction and Culinary Arts, for those that actually WANT to be Neelix.
    • Science Fiction and Physical Education. (Hey, you need to get Ensign Nameless Redshirt from somewhere...)

    Just a few of the ideas. But no crossovers between pre-med and science fiction. After all, I'm an SF major, not a doctor!


  • And for those of you who will insist that degrees must be Immediately Useful and Practical, and that Reading Books Is A Waste Of Time? Shut up and go away.

    I think you misunderstand the objection people are raising to these degrees. It's not that they're impractical; it's that they're overspecialized. Courses on sf as a part of a literature degree are a Good Thing. A degree program devoted to nothing but sf probably is not, in the same way that a physics program devoted entirely to the Jovian planets is not.

    I'm intending to go to grad school for English, and my areas of interest are poetry (studying and writing), Icelandic sagas, and -- you got it -- science fiction. The school I'm looking at has a course on science fiction, and one on fantasy. They also have a sci-fi/fantasy writers' workshop.

    Good stuff. Don't be surprised, however, when your coursework and qualifying exam also cover other types of literature. Even in graduate school the conventional wisdom is that you should have a certain amount of breadth to your studies, if for no other reason than to be able to relate your work to what other people are doing.


    I'll ask the same question here that I asked about the video game programming degree. What advantage does this specialized degree offer over a traditional literature degree? Will the students in this program become better sf writers than students that take a traditional literature program and later decide to concentrate in sf? As before, I'm skeptical.


    -r

  • If UC Berkeley had ofered that three years ago, I might have stuck with teaching literature as a career instead of going into the wacky world of computing...

    As it was, I ended up butting heads with professors who fell into the DWM or AMW camp (both of which hate sci-fi because it's a living art form). The pomo's would read sci-fi, but who cares what the read since they treat books like rappers treat 70's funk albums.

    *DWM = Dead White Male
    *AMW = Angry Minority Woman
  • The solution: do not watch hollywood movies (Read Here "The Matrix", "Star Wars",etc,etc,etc), the real movies are those of ignored directors, and other countries. Hollywood is for brain washing.
    Same to TV.
  • I dont know if clasiffy Blade Runner and Twelve Monkeys as S.F., yes, they are better than star wars, but, the core of this movies is the action (read: guns,guns,guns,guns.. the u.s.a. icon), the good movies and s.f. dont have action
  • Yeah, in Asimov criteria, Star Wars is only a remasterized Western Movie, is Sci Fi., not S.F.
    (real science fiction, you know, books (and not xfiles books :))

    there is few real s.f. movies in the world
  • Of course, Czech sci-fi author and playwright Karel Capek (1890-1938) -- author of the seminal War With the News -- "invented" the word "robot", in his play (Rossum's Universal Robots) (1921, aka R.U.R.). It is derived from the Czech word "robota" meaning "work" (esp. in the sense of forced labour), sometimes defined as meaning "worker". So now you know.
  • It's only natural that in this day and age, SF would begin to be taken seriously at last. All fiction is speculative, and SF takes the concept of speculation much further than contemporary novels.

    However, too often, SF speculation is mistaken for its true goal: providing matter for thought, presenting a particular paradigm, speculate on human nature itself. But all the neophite sees is, 'Hey, I like that method of space travel!' or 'Yeah right, as if men could live on Venus.'

    While SF does provide some startling predictions, it ultimately becomes secondary whether SF's predictions will come true or not. We're only beginning to understand this. Take, for instance, the incredible movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. Yeah, so Klaatu had a giant robot, came from either Mars or Venus and drove an atomic spaceship. Thing is, it doesn't really matter whether the science was on target or not. On target science is impressive, but off-target (excluding Solarinite a la Ed Wood) is excusable.

    Funny scholars are just beginning to realize it. I bet they'll consider SF the truly innovative literary genre of the 20th Century.

    "There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."

  • ofcourse science fiction isn't literature, that really makes sense. Just like fantasy isn't literature.. hey wait a minute.. what about Homer?
    what about Jules Verne's books? saying it isn't literature by default is just plain stupid.
  • Brown still let's you design your own degree. When I went there for a tour, the tour guide was majoring in "Freedom".
  • My friends mother did "American Studies" - she's a short-contract typist.

    University = Jobs? Nope.

    Mong.

    * Paul Madley ...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *
  • coming from the country with a degree in Klingon =)
    --------------------------------------
  • You can read about the program at the following URL, there is not much, but these people are certainly HTML savvy!

    http://www.glam.ac.uk/ScienceFiction/

    ttyl
    Farrell
  • Posted by Mary CW:

    Science fiction deals with all the big themes: who we are as a species, where we came from, where we're going, dealing with "the other," meaning of life, etc. Studying these issues is supposed to be what a liberal education is all about. And sci-fi certainly has more relevance for most people than, say, Dante, or Early Medieval History. (No offense, I did liberal arts myself).
  • I can't say this comes as a big surprise. The year I was there, they banned students from using Gopher, on the grounds that it was too powerful.

    They're an ex-Polytechnic (Polytechnic of Wales), and previous to that a Coal-mining college. In terms of staff, many I knew there were ignorant, arrogant or both.

    That they'd come up with a popularist degree course with a pretentious title fits perfectly with my experience there.

    (P.S. The canteen roof leeks something chronic, the Student Union is an expensive "fast"-food restraunt, with nothing but MTV on the overhead monitors, and the local area has a high crime rate against students. Unless you're in desperate need of a sci-fi degree, and nowhere else will do, it does not come recommended.)

  • I'd have to agree, they aren't impressing anybody overseas. "Hmm, you have a degree in science fiction... take cab #7 over there."



    --
  • Apparently, the creators of the degree don't realize that essays on topics such as "Will robots take over the earth?" are pointless, as this is obviously already the case. Take for instance the purely mechanical response of the pol-bots in Washington D.C., and the mindless following of the MTV-Drones. In fact, the truth has surfaced about /., and we now know that Rob and his cadre of site admins are nothing more that an elaborate set of perl scripts generated by a WinNT based AI developed by Microsoft, which was created by Bill Gates at the request of space aliens.

    YOU ARE ALL SHEEP!!!

    Repent, Win2K is neigh!!!
  • After all the Brits graduate with the degree in Sci-fi, I'll be more than happy to take their money in my new (unaccredited) graduate school.

    I will offer courses in in-demand fields of study, such as Cursive Writing , Fully Exploiting the Power of the Ubiquitous Times New Roman font, Expert Coupon Clipping and How to Start Your Own Graduate School.

    Sign up now, as seating is limited.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Hey, I agree completely that those are all valid issues. In school I majored in computer science and "society-technology studies", which is basically a glorified way of saying "studying the place where people and machines meet." And I got to read plenty of Frankenstein and Vonnegut (Player Piano, hello?). I'll happily debate the issues you mention. But I see it as a facet to my overall education, not the goal. I put a spin on a practical degree, and now I work in the industry. I focus on educational issues, evangelizing Linux and open source, that sort of thing. What's somebody with a scifi degree going to do, exactly? Edit a scifi zine?

    Duane

    P.S. - Who the heck said (in another post) that Asimov's robots influenced technology? Most of the robot stories I read these days go out of their way to talk about how *ridiculous* the three laws are. They're a nice literary device, absolutely, but they have nothing to do with real tech.

  • Hmmmm...first a CS degree strictly in video games, now a literature degree strictly in science fiction. Note to self : Throw resumes from UK colleges in trash.

    Ideas for new UK degrees:

    • (math) Prime Numbers
    • (language) Spanish Verbs
    • (history) The 80's
    • (geography) Finding Your Way Around London
    :)
  • Science fiction has been censored, ignored, and dismissed as "not-serious" by academics for far too long.

    Censored? Hardly. Ignored and dismissed? Doubtful. Relative to most other genre fiction, sci-fi gets a sizable amount of attention. The fantasy/sci-fi works of Poe, Lovecraft, Orwell, Italo Calvino, Vonnegut, Doris Lessing, Jorge Luis Borges and Philip K. Dick are all considered fair game by academic literary critics.

    There's trash, to be sure, but there are "classics," and there is a vast middle ground between the classics and the trash.

    The name for this vast middle ground -- and it is indeed vast -- is "mediocrity." There are worse things than to be a mediocre but entertaining writer, of course, but those who fall into that category shouldn't expect to become subjects of serious attention from academics.

    And let's face it, much of what we now call "classic" was not perceived as such at the time. Shakespeare's Macbeth was the Friday the 13th of its day, more or less.

    Er, no, it wasn't. Though Shakespeare wasn't acclaimed as the great genius of English literature during his lifetime as he is today, he was recognized by his contemporaries as a significant talent. Excepting possibly those who wanted the theatres closed altogether, I don't believe anyone at the time considered "the Scottish play" to be artistic dreck on the order of Friday the 13th.


  • OK, so having the article use "Will Robots Take Over The World?" as a sample essay topic was bad form. Then again, I was a communication major, and I had my fair share of inquiries as to whether it was really true that we spent most of our classes watching Leave It to Beaver re-runs and Ricki Lake.

    It was nowhere near that simple. Some classes did study Ricki Lake, or the ads that get displayed on the Super Bowl. However, I also learned how to write for print and broadcast media and how to operate sound and video editing equipment. I also took courses on communication ethics (this was one place where discussing Ricki Lake made some amount of sense, unfortunately), the psychology behind advertising and public relations, and I wrote a 25-page research paper tracking media coverage of specific environmental issues during five different years (over a 40-year span) that had major environmental news stories.

    Returning to the topic of a science fiction degree, there's much more to study than "Will Robots Take Over the World?" Off the top of my head, at work, I can think of:

    1. Common ground between science fiction and actual science, especially studying older science fiction and comparing the "predictions" to current reality.

    2. Artificial intelligence and the myriad ethical issues it brings up, starting with Asimov's Laws of Robotics and going on to projects like Ghostwheel, and how we should react and "help" (or not) if our creations suddenly gain self-awareness.

    3. The end of work. Again, more ethics: Is it ethical to create an intelligent race of slaves? What does this say about the value (or lack thereof) of human creativity? In this era of Wal-Marts on every corner, this is pretty relevant, I should think.

    4. Science as religion or as replacement for religion. Perhaps along with this the correlations (or lack thereof) between "technology" and "magic."

    There's probably a lot more, but I have to get back to work. But seriously, folks, this is not as silly as it sounds.

  • So maybe Macbeth-as-Friday-the-13th was a slight overstatement. (BTW, I like Shakespeare, but have an intense dislike for that particular play, after once seeing a production of it that LOOKED like a cheap horror flick).

    Perhaps a better comparison would be to Pulp Fiction, or to a Steven King novel.

    Shakespeare may have been recognized as "talented," but at most the recognition while he was alive would be similar to that given to King or to Quentin Tarantino.

    Theater was popular entertainment. And yes, a hell of a lot of people wanted the theaters closed. In fact, there's this lovely succession:

    1. Plays are evil. (Puritans)
    2. Fiction is evil. (Ditto)
    3. Acting is an "immoral" occupation (You can still see this today if you look hard enough.)
    4. Recent fiction is Bad; you should only read The Classics.
    5. Science ficiton will rot your brain. (VERY prevalent attitude at the time that for instance, Ray Bradbury was doing his best-known work; as this thread shows, it still persists.)
    6. Role-playing games are Satanic.
    7. Goths, gamers, geeks, and other high-school misfits are all going to kill you.

    All of the above comes from the same basic idea: "If it ain't in the Bible, it ain't true." Admittedly, those peddling the above aren't as likely to say so in so many words anymore ... but it certainly is out there.

  • Too bad you weren't there in the late '60s/early '70s. From what I've heard, they were doing some nifty design-your-own-degree programs.

    Then again, I don't know what it's like there NOW, but considering that they are at least the only American university ever to have awarded a degree in Magic, they may well have gotten scared of doing "independent study" degrees.

    ;)


  • You aren't the sort of person I'm complaining about here. Just so you know :)

    The folks that get to me on this issue are the ones who think that it's just fine and dandy to overspecialize in the IT flavor of the month, or in some really narrow and obscure "classic" field, or concentrate entirely on math and science that the general public doesn't understand WITHOUT the knowledge of how to make it understandable. Yet specializing in science fiction is "fluff," and specializing in mass media studies is "sitting around watching Leave it to Beaver all day."

    THOSE are the people I'm taking issue with. And I know a hell of a lot of 'em, both from the math/science/CS side and from the literary side.

    That said, there are two ways to have a useful science fiction degree. One is to have it as a possible concentration within English. The appropriate analogy here is a technical theater degree. Yes, you may really want to be a light/sound designer, but you still have to take the survey of technical theater course, you still have to take Shakespeare and classes in contemporary plays, and you may even have to take an acting class or two.

    The other possibility is to have this degree be an interdisciplinary study. The appropriate analogy here is environmental studies (and indeed, there may be some cross-over). An environmental studies program may include courses based in biology, chemistry, geography, psychology, sociology, and even English, as well as an interdisciplinary "specialty" course or two. However, you still need the appropriate background before beginning the courses in the various disciplines (no taking Advanced Ecology without a foundation in basic biology, and probably chemistry and calculus as well).

    The advantages this could offer? Motivation to take the background courses in order to get to the specifics. Someone who is going to work hard to get a degree they WANT to get, not one that they think will hand them big bucks on a platter. Honestly, which would you rather have working for you?

    (That, BTW, is the difference I see between specializing in science fiction and specializing in video games.)


  • I was an English minor in college. I would have been a major, but I ran out of time/money and came up a few courses short.

    I'm intending to go to grad school for English, and my areas of interest are poetry (studying and writing), Icelandic sagas, and -- you got it -- science fiction. The school I'm looking at has a course on science fiction, and one on fantasy. They also have a sci-fi/fantasy writers' workshop.

    Science fiction has been censored, ignored, and dismissed as "not-serious" by academics for far too long. There's trash, to be sure, but there are "classics," and there is a vast middle ground between the classics and the trash. And let's face it, much of what we now call "classic" was not perceived as such at the time. Shakespeare's Macbeth was the Friday the 13th of its day, more or less.

    While I was in school, I wrote as many papers on sci-fi and fantasy authors as I could get away with. The one I'm happiest with compared the book and movie versions of The Wizard of Oz, and showed how the story was distorted from a children's fantasy story into a story about the dangers of fantasy and the "need" to be content with the "real world." [I think it's a horrible corruption of L. Frank Baum's work, but I digress.]

    Run, don't walk, and get thee a copy for Ray Bradbury's Zen and the Art of Writing. I can't remember the title right this second (at work and don't have the book in front of me), but the book includes an excellent essay on the suppression of speculative fiction in schools.

    Sure, a degree in science fiction may not be the most useful thing in the world, but is it really any less an indicator of intelligence than a degree in, say, medieval studies? I think not.

    And for those of you who will insist that degrees must be Immediately Useful and Practical, and that Reading Books Is A Waste Of Time? Shut up and go away. I mean that in the nicest way possible. ;)
  • BTW, Asimov certainly didn't invent robots.

    Certainly not, but Asimov's Laws of Robotics are commonly regarded as Science Fact, and have a clear influence on Robot and Artificial Intelligence design now and in the future.

    He (and many other Science Fiction authors) has made us think about technologies that are either in their infancy or not yet invented, and this has altered the way we have gone about implementing certain technologies. Science Fiction is often an early influence of future Scientists. When new technologies are introduced, often the only terms we have capable of describing them come from Science Fiction literature. The media plays a large role in this, why else is the Gibsonian term "Cyberspace" nearly synonymous with "The Internet" although in fact, the Gibsonian Cyberspace is actually much more than the current technology level of the Internet. When we do finally have a "shared consensual hallucination" that is our interface to the global computer network, what will we call it? Cyberspace, of course. A word created by a Science Fiction author. (Who, interestingly enough had never even used a computer when he wrote "Neuromancer")

    Science Fiction and Science Fact are so intermingled in today's world, and this will only become increasingly true as Science Fact continues to catch up with Science Fiction. As a matter of fact, the very idea that Science Fact is attempting to "catch up" with Science Fiction only illustrates my point further. Therefore, a working knowledge of Science Fiction is imperative to living in and understanding today's technologies, as well as tomorrows. As such, I believe that all schools should offer courses in Science Fiction, if for no other reason then to help non-geeks understand the terms used to describe technology.

    -Count Zero-
  • I will always remember my Science Fiction class in High School. That and Mythology where my two favorite classes. I am glad to see a college that is beginning to take a serious look at Science Fiction, and that emphasizes the link between Science Fiction and Science Fact. So much of what the general public thinks about Science Fact is in actuality derived from Science Fiction. How many non-geeks watch a movie and think that Mac's are the world's most popular computer? Or that "hackers" float around "virtual cities" to crack into corporate computer systems that have high-voltage electricity arcing between the towers? Artistic License makes for some neat special effects and a nice escape for those of us who know the truth, but can often confuse the unwashed masses who have no clue about technology.

    I would love to be one of the first people to earn a Doctorate in Science Fiction. But alas, I shall just have to be satisfied with the label "Geek" as I can not afford to attend college in the UK.

    -Count Zero-
    (Yes, I am a fan of Gibson)

  • Oh My, What Can They Do? (Score:3)

    by fable2112 ( 46114 ) on Tuesday July 13, 1999 @08:16AM (#1805276) Homepage
    What's somebody with a scifi degree going to do, exactly? Edit a scifi zine?

    What, exactly, is someone with any other sort of English degree going to do? Someone with a specialized degree in science fiction is probably going to do fairly similar things, and in certain cases are going to be even better suited to it.

    1. Teach. There's the obvious one. A sci-fi specialized HS English teacher probably has the jump on one that is specialized in a given stereotypically-uninteresting-to-teens area.

    2. Technical writer (which is what I do). Again, someone specialized in sci-fi, who has done it properly, is likely to have the edge over someone specialized in Victorian poetry or whatever, simply because the sci-fi specialized person is likely to be (or at least to be perceived as) more comfortable with technological terms than someone with a more "traditional" English specialization.

    3. Write! As a career, even. Not viable for most people, but the possibility exists.

    4. With an appropriate minor or double major, a myriad of possibilities open up. A major in science fiction, if done correctly, should be a great lesson in "thinking outside the box." The lessons it teaches would be a great asset to (off the top of my head) computer science (obviously), environmental science, psychology, law, engineering, and possibly even medicine.

    :)

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