[fallingknife]

Construction, mining, and oil extraction are also very much an active part of human experience. Doesn't mean that people need a degree to do it. In fact, people in these industries often work highly skilled jobs where they are required to operate heavy machinery where one mistake can kill people, and all with only a high school education. Degrees are completely unnecessary, and anything that can be learned in a university can be learned outside of a university.

It's nothing but an arbitrary choice that there is an art degree, but not a heavy machinery operation degree, and not the other way around. This is all class based gate keeping, and should never be formalized and funded by tax money.

[notahacker]

Construction, mining and oil extraction firms make plenty of use of people with geology and engineering degrees, particularly in jobs that involve doing research and calculations.

Seems fairly obvious why three years of sitting in classrooms and libraries isn't seen as a particularly useful way of demonstrating aptitude for operating heavy machinery.

[fallingknife]

And yet somehow it is for art and music?

[notahacker]

The practice of art and music is much more conducive to a classroom setting and peer group experimentation & discussion than the practice of operating mining equipment, yes. Though a degree has never been a requirement for being a practitioner in those fields, and much of the study focuses on the theory. Universities also welcome many people interested in studying the theory of heavy machinery, and award them engineering degrees.