• Blakey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    4 days ago

    Yeah, that makes sense. In science at least, you aren’t doing anything new in undergrad. Anything you say has to come straight out of someone else’s work, because you aren’t actually doing any! If I, as an undergrad, say something about genetics that I haven’t gotten from someone else’s paper, what reason do I have for thinking it’s true? I haven’t done any genetics research so it’s effectively a guess. You are still expected to apply the knowledge you get from your sources to the topic at hand, but you just aren’t in a position to say anything too novel. It’s one of the reasons I suspect STEM degrees are probably on average easier than arts degrees tbh.

    • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 days ago

      you aren’t doing anything new in undergrad.

      That can be said about every undergraduate degree tbh lol…it’s a matter of demonstrating you learned the material. Humanities professors have already read your essays before you wrote them a decade ago.

      Part of it is training you to do actual research that will be new once you go into grad school or become a professional in your field. You can’t go from writing 1,000 word essays to writing a 75,000 word thesis overnight.