In September 2009, 30 students from around the world would begin a new Master of Arts Degree course in Beatles Studies, at the Liverpool Hope University in England. The full name of the programme is MA in The Beatles, Popular Music and Society. It is an academic discipline that would investigate the legacy of the Beatles music sensation, and study the social conditions from which the songs emerged. Dr Mike Brocken, leader of the programme, says: “There have been over 8,000 books about The Beatles but there has never been serious academic study, and that is what we are going to address. Forty years on from their break up, now is the time and Liverpool is the right place to study the Beatles.” The course would consist of four 12 week taught modules for one academic year. It would be available on both full and part-time basis, and as is usual with all graduate programmes, students would be expected to complete a dissertation on a topic of their choice. The new MA programme is open to everybody, especially fans of the Fab Four, and those who have interest in music and how it influences social trends.
The programme has received so much publicity from media institutions around the world. Most newspapers in Britain reported it when it was launched. Radio and FM stations in America and Canada have also given quality airtime to discuss how the programme would benefit its graduates. Quizzed on how competitive the Beatles graduates would be on the job market, Dr Brocken said: “I think any MA equips people with extra study and research skills. MA’s of any description are vital for the work place. You will find that once you have done a Masters degree, it separates you from the pack.”
Dr Brocken is an academic of repute. He is a professor in music, so he knows a thing or two about Masters Degrees. Does a Masters degree really set you apart from the pack? And is every Masters degree worth pursuing? A blogger on the Registrarism website writes: “It’s a decent enough pitch and given that you can get a Masters in just about anything, there’s no reason not to do the Beatles. WhiIst I think he could be a bit more confident about its unique status in the world, it is a bit misleading to suggest there has been no serious academic study.” Another glogger on the OITA international plaza site adds: A few years ago several colleges in Japan started a new major for those who love Manga and anime. It looks as though the people of Liverpool are also starting a new course for those who love the Beatles.”
Another wesbite lists the Lieverpool MA Beatles programme among odd college courses. A Kaplan Test and Admissions site identifies a recent trend where most of these unusual courses draw their themes from pop culture or sports. They may be the brainchild of professors who want to share their passion with students. There are courses such as Daytime Serials: Family and Social Roles, in which students analyse the themes, plot, and characters of daytime soaps, and discuss their dramatic importance and other literary issues. This course is available at the University of Wisconsin in America. Another popular institution of higher learning, University of Iowa, offers a full time course in The American Vacation. The programme studies the holiday culture of Americans. Students would be expected to know a thing or two about how many hot dogs holidaymakers eat in summer, and whether having sex in canopies offends our sensibilities, and stuff like that. Students who find underwater Basket Weaving 201 too ‘freaky’, could try their brains on the Art of Walking at the Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. In this course, all the students do is go walking with their professors on parks with his dog, to read their text books. And, if that does not sound like something a very serious student would like to do, the Prudue University course in Death and the Nineteenth Century, which deals with the nineteenth century treament of mortality, would always be a welcome alternative.
Choosing a course at university has always been a difficult thing for many students, and even their parents. For some unguided students, the decision haunts them even after graduation. Some two years ago, the educational authorities in England were so concerned that nearly every English pupil wanted to do a course in Media studies. The kids were shunning physics and other ‘tasking’ courses that did not fall under the ‘cool’ label. On primetime TV, some concerned parents questioned the prospects of a graduate of media studies on the job market. As it turned out, many Britons thought Media studies is an amorphous area. You don’t become a journalist after completing the programme. A journalism school would be a better option. Maybe a career in Public Relations. Well, that too, is a very grey area. For sure, a course in media studies would teach students how to analyse media trends and other areas of interest. Back then, there were attempts to make the not so cool courses attractive to the English kids.
Just last week (And this is no make up), I bumped into a lady at my favourite pub in downtown Ottawa. She had, as she later confided in me, downed couple of bottles of the staple, what she calls her most trusted alcoholic beverage. She was all flirty, often touching and whispering about nothing. But this was a very career-focussed journalist. Fact is, there is something awkardly undesirable, almost hypocritical about most professionals in the inky fraternity. They always advise against the prospects and the financial security in the field. Like me, this young girl, probably 23 or 24, and quite new to the trade, had fallen into the ‘don’t go there’ trap. She has already started advising people not to bother signing on to take a journalism degree. She can’t make ends meet as a researcher with a local paper in Ottawa. Her boyfriend, a freelance journalist, is also finding things quite tough. As we sipped along, I asked her: “What would you rather have done if you hadn’t become a journalist?” Almost impatiently, she submitted: “I shouldn’t have done jourmalism in the first place, I think I followed my boyfriend because I thought it was cool.” We spent the rest of the evening talking about how medical students in North America are also complaining bitterly about the debts they pile up in the course of the programme. Lawyers are also not having it easy. Before we hugged goodbye, (the full circumference of her very ample bosom grabbed me, upping my Christian faith in the process), we had managed to deposit a very important fact in our subconcious: There is no such thing as a very bad academic programme. Those who do the programme must do well to make it count towards their goal in life.
Right opposite the pub is an open area, where youngters who know how to play tricks with fire and apples while sitting on their bicycles, often display their craft. These guys are incredibly talented. They throw four or five apples into the sky, apply fire to two wooden sticks and throw them along side, all into the sky. Before the apples fall into their ever ready hands, the wooden sticks are immediately sprinted up, so that they don’t clash with the apples. A fast-paced music plays at the background, as a volunteer goes round collecting money from spectators ‘who wanna see more’. There are also circus artists who show great skills with their body, often sitting on each other’s palm while suspending in the air. You would think they are wayward boys who do this for fun. Well, they have degrees in their fields of work. The circus artists have postgraduate degrees in the field from a college in Ontario. They have great public relations skills, and they speak brilliant English. You would ask: Did their parents sponsor them to take degrees in such fun sports? Who would employ them with such qualifications?
Well, maybe it is not all about the money. Education has several uses, and I don’t ever remember reading anywhere that it is supposed to enrich. Farming is better. The great Conficious once said: “Choose a job that you love and you would never have to work a day in your life.” That means, to enjoy a good career, you must study what interests you. Money or the career prospects, shouldn’t be the motivation. So, if you love music, why not settle for a Masters in Beatles at a good university? In the same way, those who love to constantly appriase their finances would be good in accounting careers. And once your interest guides your decision, you would always be successful. Well, not necessarily.
As always, Confucious is right, but only because it is the ideal thing to do. Most prostitutes love what they do but they work everyday. The modern way of doing things often dicate what people should learn to love and love to learn. Prof Brocken may be right that degrees of any description are worth the time, but frankly, what would anybody do with a PhD in Bereavement Studies? That is the kind of discipline a British university was prepared to admit me to do. It was going to be a fully-funded programme with additional perks in the form of bursary assistance. But that is not what I had applied for. I had wanted to do a programme in social policy, and maybe do a dissertation on poverty alleviation in the developing world. Of course, I considered the career prospects as a Dr of Bereavment. Maybe I would have been an expert in counselling bereaved people on how to cope in the event of a loss. I could also write obituaries for a newspaper.
Well, at least I had a choice. Back in the days in Legon, students did not have much of a choice in deciding the discipline they wanted to take, especially if they didn’t make a particular grade. Students with good brains for accounting were ‘forced’ to settle for courses in classical history and civilisation, and archeology. Many of them forced themselves on the courses, in the same way that they were forced on them. But that was after they had tried unsuccessfully to change it at the registry. Some of them left for less prestigious universities like KNUST, otherwise known as Kumasi Legon, and Cape Coast Legon. Some very brave students, especially the vain ones who wanted to impress their girlfriends that they had made it onto the competitive courses, shamelessly joined in the lectures on such courses. Some managed to stay on. The trick was simple: Your first assignment got you onto the database. The unlucky ones were flushed out.
With so many private universities around (we will discuss them another day), nobody is forced to settle for a very academic-sounding course that only promises a career in the academia. If All you Need is Love, as one of the Beatles songs go, you are encouraged to sign on for it at the Liverpool Hope University. Otherwise, learn to be a good circus artist.
Benjamin Tawiah
btawiah@hotmail.com
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