Has any student ever taken any Mickey Mouse courses?

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Asprilla500@reddit

We always used to call Media Studies a Mickey Mouse course, but given the state of the current media landscape and the progress of generative AI I now think it's going to be one of the most valuable courses available.

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PavlovsHumans@reddit

I did a Media Studies GCSE, because I was interested in the theory of media and how it’s presented. A lot of people aren’t taught explicitly how to identify bias or spin. It was interesting, and taken alongside the sciences and history (or even geography) it’s very useful.

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ImpressiveStorm8914@reddit

They only brought that in to my school for the lower GCSE years after I'd passed that time by and was doing A-Levels. I think it was called Film And TV Studies. I probably would have chosen it, given the option because I am a big film and TV buff but yes, it was seen as a Mickey Mouse subject. This was back in the 80s and likely is more useful now.

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HiphopopoptimusPrime@reddit

Lessons one of Media Studies. We compared broadsheets to tabloids. Looked at how manipulative and emotive the language in the Sun was.

Then we learned about Rupert Murdoch and his goal of reducing journalism down to sensationalism.

You’ve identified the very reason the media called it a Mickey Mouse subject. They don’t want people knowing how condescending and manipulative they are.

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metal_maxine@reddit

We did the broadsheets/tabloids thing in English Language. We got to cover the death of Princess Diana in various newspapers.

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AdApart5035@reddit

I did A Level Media Studies and it's the only qualification I have that's helped me get a job. I learned to video edit during the course and the was one of the required skills for my first proper job. I thought it was a great course, and it was certainly the first time I was encouraged to critically examine what media properties were trying to sell me.

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The_Nunnster@reddit

Left secondary school 5 years ago and yeah Media Studies was often looked down upon and mocked by those who didn’t do it, both pupils and teachers alike. People often used to dismiss it as just sitting around watching a film all lesson.

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Clownzi11a@reddit

I didnt do it but friend at the time did. They were taught how each newspaper has editorial slant and you need to get what is actually happening from range of sources while taking that slant into account.

Now i always use a news aggregator. So i do not think that is Mickey Mouse. It is useful info.

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Kremm0@reddit

I think it's considered mickey mouse as a lot of people would pick it for an easy ride because of what it was, not just the people who were interested in it. It also wouldn't lead to a path for vocational or highly technical jobs, so I can see why it was considered as such despite some usefulness.

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caiaphas8@reddit

I learnt that in school without doing a GCSE in media studies though

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Dutch_Slim@reddit

History basics innit. Primary/secondary sources and bias.

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Serious_Badger_4145@reddit

History is optional though? I mean I learnt it through history too but that doesn't mean I don't think it should be a mandatory part of English for every child

Anecdotal belief that you have awareness of media biases etc doesn't actually mean a lot on a national basis and I think a lot of recent events clearly show the benefit of children spending more time learning this stuff

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Dutch_Slim@reddit

History is mandatory y7-9?

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Serious_Badger_4145@reddit

Along with a ton of other lessons. They don't get many hours of history in a year. 3 years of part time study (a lot of schools have one humanities slot that switches between history and geography) when they're too young to fully understand how it applies to every day life isn't enough. It's a foundation but they need more. Everything I learnt about propaganda and examining sources came from gcse and a level.

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Asprilla500@reddit

I know at GCSE level at my kid's school they were teaching identifying logical fallacies which is pretty useful.

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EconomicsPotential84@reddit

My high school/sixth-form had a specialist media arts center, basically a mini television studio, and had a theatre on the school site. Loads of people from my school now work in media and theaters. A lot of waiters too though......

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Serious_Badger_4145@reddit

I've been thinking about this! When I was at school the higher kids did English lit at gcse and the foundation kids did media studies which is bonkers now you think about it! Everyone should have been studying media, it should have just been part of pshe

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pintsizedblonde2@reddit

It was always one of the better degrees if you based it on employment stats.

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Boudicat@reddit

I had to do media studies extra curriculum in the early 90s because it was considered Mickey Mouse. Went on to work in AV production. Tbh it was at least as useful as my English degree, if not more.

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ReplacementOne8118@reddit

Ha ha yes u did communication and media . First thing when u told people they said did hit get that free in a cereal box !

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CherryHavoc@reddit

I did General Studies at A Level which is not a well-regarded course. Part of the reason I did it was that it was only an hour a week of lessons so it felt like it didn't hurt to have.

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Cha_r_ley@reddit

I was so confused by this- when I met my English flatmates (I’m Welsh) in Uni, and we were talking about our A Levels, I sad the ones that I’d done (4 subjects for AS, 3 for A2), and my friend said “…and General Studies?”

I had no idea what she was on about. Apparently it was compulsory but I’m not sure if that was specific to their schools? I’m pretty sure all of them did it. To the best of my knowledge it’s just not a thing in Wales so that was really weird to me.

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AnonymousOkapi@reddit

It was compulsory to sit the exam at my school but not to go to the lessons, depending on your schedule for everything else. Didn't go to a single lesson, got an A.

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SpikesNLead@reddit

It was supposed to be compulsory when I did my A Levels. I had to write an essay about the role of Royal Family. The teacher, who I didn't know was a staunch monarchist, gave me zero marks because I was critical of the monarchy. Turned out that if you stopped turning up to the lessons then it stopped being compulsory.

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Hippadoppaloppa@reddit

It was compulsory at our school. I actually quite enjoyed it!

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Kremm0@reddit

Yeah it was compulsory for us and a complete doss, as you couldn't revise for the exam, and it was only an hour a week or whatever. Good for the free UCAS points I guess!

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squamouser@reddit

I did it 20 years ago - it was compulsory at my school. In the lessons we eg put up a Christmas tree, watched The Mummy, made beans on toast. I got an A.

For some reason we also had to do AS level RE, but for that we didn’t have any lessons, just sat the exam. I did the best, got 150 out of 600, which was a U but a “good U”.

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DeadLetterOfficer@reddit

General Studies turned out in hindsight to be my most valuable A-level course but only because my teacher was a semi-retired philosophy lecturer and went so off piste and ended up teaching a load of philosophy, logic, rhetoric and general critical thinking skills and was so passionate about it.

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Alone_Bet_1108@reddit

Yes, this! If you weren't sure what to specialise in study-wise it was invaluable. I got so much out of my course because I too had a teacher who taught us how to critique, evaluate, and the benefits of wide reading and research.

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Aggravating_Cloud657@reddit

I had a compulsory generally studies AS level and then the next year we did compulsory critical studies course. It wasn't a proper lesson, just a half hour during a form tutor session once a week. Noone took it seriously, I couldn't tell you what I got in the exams.

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Wasps_are_bastards@reddit

Same, it was almost a free a level

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AlyMormont@reddit

I did General Studies A Level and the school didn’t even bother with lessons, we just sat the exam! Piece of piss tbh, I definitely remember getting 100% of one of the papers with no real prep.

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BlurpleAki@reddit

I had a friend who somehow failed General Studies. They had the absolute piss ripped out of them on results day when everyone found out.

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Confudled_Contractor@reddit

Did GS, free UCAS points.

I couldn’t tell you what we did as it was so meaningless I have forgotten everything.

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Euphoric-Wall-2576@reddit

I did General Studies to get out of doing sports. It was worth it.

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hasimirrossi@reddit

I did that too. Free A Level basically.

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Fred_Blogs_2020@reddit

Same here, an easy way to fill in my timetable, getting an Alevel that didn’t help me get into uni 🙄

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Stefgrep66@reddit

NVQ level 3 in social care.

I was a support worker for a Housing association in various supported housing projects.

After working for the company for about 7 years we were told support workers had to do a L3.

I'm not an academic guy, but this course sucked the marrow out of my bones, it was relentlessly dull.

And what really pissed me off, was it added no value to me as a worker.

The company sent me on various courses over the years in thing like substance abuse, financial planning, income based and dissability benefits, housing benefit, and child tax credits. All were good and all had a practical application for the jobs I did, I actually became quite conversant in housing law. I was pretty formidable and good at my job.

I wouldn't wipe my arse on that NVQ, and as a matter of fact, it was one of the contributing factors to me leaving the company, and at 50 years old, that was a risk to a guy with few qualifications and little in the way of skills.

Mickey mouse frankly does that course too much credit!😒

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Beautiful_Spread7866@reddit

My degree is in Psychology which I would class as a Mickey Mouse degree

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Ururuipuin@reddit

Not uni level but my eldest went to grammar school with a high percentage of families that originated from the Indian Sub continent.

They offered a gcse in community languages which basically meant they could do a gcse in the language they spoke at home

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metal_maxine@reddit

Had a friend who spoke French at home and did French GCSE - she struggled to reach the level the teacher expected. The teacher was also her mum. Apparently, everything she knew was oral/colloquial and she had got away with it up to that point but now really good grammar was needed for those top grades...

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Kremm0@reddit

That's the worst!

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barkley87@reddit

I did German at uni and there were so many native or bilingual speakers on my course. Seemed unfair to the rest of us.

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ImaginaryParrot@reddit

This isn't the win that most people think it is.

Many often fail because they can only speak the language (very well) but only write it at a rudimentary level. Formal grammar etc. isn't learned via osmosis

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terryjuicelawson@reddit

It would be interesting to see the equivalent of a foreign GCSE in English to see how we would fare. They'd also need to understand the questions so a high level of both languages is needed.

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Immediate-Platform59@reddit

I got an A* in Spanish GCSE with no studying and having left Argentina at age 8. My grammar and spelling was not great but I still got a good mark. I did nit do the A-level because it required you to read and analyze some novels and I didn't have time for that with doing the 3 sciences and maths for A-level.

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Ururuipuin@reddit

It isnt to the same level as a normal langugae gcse and is able to be passed with no formal training. One girl in eldest year got 2 or 3 extra gcses and the ucas point from them.

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ImaginaryParrot@reddit

I just opened up a GCSE past paper for Hindi.

You definitely need formal training to even read the question.

Unless someone has sat you down and tutored you in how to read and write in the language you're only going to pass the listening section.

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Ok_Anything_9871@reddit

Doesn't hurt to have official recognition of the skill but it would be much more appropriate to get a qualification that is designed to assess the level of ability for a natural language speaker. Schools are incentivised to lock in those A*s though.

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Soft-Reference-3197@reddit

No. But I did a dissertation on Donald Duck if that helps

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Kremm0@reddit

That's quackers!

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Awkward-Pumpkin-7742@reddit

I’m going to need more info on that 😂

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AuroraDF@reddit

I did an exchange semester to the US where one of my courses, which I received credits for, was 'social dance'. That is, learning to waltz, foxtrot, salsa etc My degree was in psychology.

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Gingers_got_no_soul@reddit

Social dancing is a mandatory class in Scotland! Usually in the month or two before burns night, you do ceilidh dancing once a week. Everyone in every year does this, from primary to high school

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AuroraDF@reddit

Yes, I did this too. Never got any exams in it though! Lol I'm talking about in university. For credit.

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Kremm0@reddit

"It says here on your university application that whilst you got a D in Maths, you did get an A in Scottish Dancing. Welcome to the University!"

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Gingers_got_no_soul@reddit

Lol I never even saw your avatar soz

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Darrowby_385@reddit

I had to do some at work including some gibberish, blindingly obvious guff, about unconscious bias.

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Chris-Mass-@reddit

I did the Donald Duck one...

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Cakeo@reddit

I'd like to see someone beat cake decorating for most useless class. Needed to fill a slot in the timetable, got to bake and eat cake once a week.

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kalendral_42@reddit

I was the only person in my school to do Latin GCSE - no idea why or how they decided they wanted to put 1 student out of everyone through that, but I passed.

I also did a ‘Research & CV Skills’ course at uni - basically a whole semester learning about how to create bibliographies, citations & CVs.

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MrsKToBe@reddit

I wish I had kept Latin on. I did A-level Law and now I’m studying nursing- the bits of Latin I do remember have been really helpful. There was I seem to recall five who took it- one is now a dentist, one is a vet, one a doctor and there were two who are now lawyers.

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kalendral_42@reddit

Some of came in useful when I was working in a rare books library, but weirdly it was learning Russian & Dutch on DuoLingo that I found more useful

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ReplacementOne8118@reddit

I did Latin too ! I loved it !

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DoIKnowYouHuman@reddit

Do you mean CV Skills in the way I think it to mean curriculum vitae? If so I think that’s good and shouldn’t wait until uni…the recruiter at work had a full blown rant about the use of emoticons on CVs a couple weeks ago and had us all fuming by the end of it

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kalendral_42@reddit

Yes CV skills but they’d already covered them at GCSE & A levels & were covered in several other modules at uni - as were the research skills so a separate module was kind of pointless

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DoIKnowYouHuman@reddit

I feel like there might be a generational or other gap in our schooling, I didn’t get any guidance on writing a cv until the jobcentre when I finished a levels in 2006

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kalendral_42@reddit

We had a whole class at GCSE where we had to do a bunch of psychometric tests that were supposed to tell you what you should be when you grew up & how yo get there (I have a vague recollection that it was called Century). We then had to do CVs, cover letters & interview practice based on the results

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DoIKnowYouHuman@reddit

Sounds like you got a great head start! Although if those psychometric tests were the whole Meyers Briggs stuff then I hope you had some critical thinking and psychological and sociological learning before hand.

I do vaguely remember a multiple choice thing that suggested I’d be best suited in a caring profession, didn’t listen to it then, and glad I didn’t now knowing what those professions have gone through over the last two decades

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kalendral_42@reddit

It was a whole bunch of psychological, aptitude & multiple choice tests from what I remember. I think my top 3 professions came out as Teacher, Journalist & Librarian.

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AdFancy7957@reddit

Mine came out as actury.6

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DoIKnowYouHuman@reddit

Are you doing any of those (or vaguely related) now?

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kalendral_42@reddit

I was a teacher of TEFL for a couple of years & a librarian for almost 20 years - still chartered & looking for library jobs, but they are few & far between so currently doing call centre/customer service/finance & admin stuff. About to be made redundant for the 2nd time in 2 yrs so god knows what I’ll end up doing next.

Did you end up doing anything related to your test results?

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DoIKnowYouHuman@reddit

Yeah that is an industry in decline, but seems you’ve been using the core skills well despite not being in the right workplace recently

Oh no, I did hospitality management for a good while, then went into business admin with a focus on analytics…getting closer to the data and further from humans day by day 🤣

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kalendral_42@reddit

Well with the job market the way it is at the moment (& as someone currently working in a customer service field) I would say getting further from humans is a good idea.

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DoIKnowYouHuman@reddit

Humans are the worst thing about humanity 🤣

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openlightYQ@reddit

I did Latin GCSE too, never met anybody else who’s school even taught it. We were either put into French or German based on whichever side of the year we were randomly placed into in Year 7, then in Year 10 onwards we could choose between the opposite language or Latin. Had no interest in ever learning German so took Latin, definitely a waste of time for all of us involved, would have rather had an hour in the library twice a week to work on coursework instead. That being said, when we did enter the field of work, it turned out all GCSEs were essentially a waste of time anyway so no matter.

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Dave80@reddit

Similar, if we picked Latin, that couldn't be the only language we did at GCSE, we had to a modern one, too. I did much better at Latin than French.

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kalendral_42@reddit

I had already signed up for my 2 requisite languages - German & Spanish - then in year 9 all of a sudden I was doing Latin as an extra.

How did you do in your exam at the end? Mine was in the same day as my Spanish exam & after I’d finished both I realised I may have answered a chunk of each exam in the wrong language - I think a chunk of my Latin exam was written in Spanish & a chunk of the Spanish one was in Latin

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neuralconstellate@reddit

lucky, it was the only language I was interested in doing further than Year 9 (also did French and German), and when there's less than say 15/20 students, my school scrapped the whole subject

even Geography was scrapped!

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kalendral_42@reddit

My school had never done Latin before, or since as far as I’m aware, so I had to work with an independent Latin tutor as none of the teachers could teach it. Still not sure why they did it.

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MrsKToBe@reddit

My first degree was some kind of Combined Honours thing. My A-Levels were not good (one was down to poor teaching, one due to the entire year being taught the wrong syllabus and the other, my strongest subject- possibly down to the fact that my dad was rushed into hospital at 2.30am the morning of the exam) so that was the best I could do. I dropped out at the end of Year 2. I finally got my degree in English from the OU nearly 20 years later.

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ReplacementOne8118@reddit

Oh and there was a class ( shocking ) in the early 70 s jn a private school I attended, there were etiquette lessons …. They had stopped them when I got to the age to have participated . Very Victorian !

And who remembers seeing lessons ? By the time I had finished my gyosy skirt they were out of fashion .

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anabsentfriend@reddit

Seeing lessons sound like they would set you up for life as a Gypsy, and you almost have the skirt for it.

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WarmForbiddenDonut@reddit

European studies as a GCSE back in 1991/92

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metal_maxine@reddit

I did General Studies for A-Level, which was probably mostly useless but not as useless as Level 3 Key Skills, which was part of Curriculum 2000, which sucked. The Government had pushed the whole A-Level format change through far faster than the boards had actually produced the syllabuses, papers or anything (very little notice AFIK - we took History with WJEC despite not being Welsh because they were the only board with any information).

Level 3 Key Skills was useless. There was an "Application of Number" course that seemed to be pegged at the higher end of GCSE maths and stats. I didn't do the English paper because I was doing English A-level. Everyone failed the IT paper because the teacher had asked the board about the standard, was told it was basically GCSE level, and so ran it as GCSE catch-up classes. It wasn't - it was much harder and at least one person ran out of the room crying. The whole thing was a purely pointless pass/fail where the classes just ate your time.

It was the "students don't have skills for workplace" crap mixed with the "students are over-specialising and dropping entire subject areas so we must save them from themselves by forcing them to do the subjects they sucked at again until they get it right" garbage.

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CacklingWitch99@reddit

What a waste of time key skills was. I was doing maths A level and still had to go to the application of number classes

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metal_maxine@reddit

Ours got let out.

Thankfully (at least for me), the teacher leading the classes handed out a mock paper in the first lesson and asked for it to be done and handed in (presumably so she could see where she needed to concentrate) and I was the only person who bothered, so I got a free afternoon every week while the rest of the class sat through catch-up maths. There was also a coursework/ stats task which was boring as hell (I used house price data) and I doubt many people bothered with that either.

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Serious_Badger_4145@reddit

I don't think they were mickey mouse per se but there's a few that I do question the value of in retrospect. Boat building was a common gcse at my school. Woodwork was a completely seperate thing. in boat building you build a canoe type wooden boat

After the goverment introduced maths at level 3 instead of doing any actual maths certificate a load of new ones were introduced including a 'certificate in qualitative reasoning' literally. Certificate saying you can see numbers and think about it. The exam had pictures of supermarket labels and asked which was better value. which. I mean that is a useful life skill but it's hard to understand how it's equivalent to a levels and something you should make everyone at further education college do once they have a maths gcse. The maths gcse was definitely significantly harder yet was supposed to be level 2?

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bpbill@reddit

I did Marine Activities which meant soebdung my Friday mornings sailing,canoeing etc.

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VeeMon21@reddit

My school had ACTV. Basically any kids that were seen as not bright enough to do any subjects outside of the core ones we're pulled out to do other things instead. They tried pitching it to my parents as my brother has AUDHD. It was pitched to them as physical education for those who are better placed outside the classroom. As my dad so eloquently put it at the time "you want him to do the special Olympics rather than get an SEN diagnosis". Somehow my dad wasn't convinced that throwing beanbags and riding space hoppers would help my brother.

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realitycheck38@reddit

Do you mean a speaking scouse language course

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Battleborn300@reddit

Anything arty is a mickey mouse course, So that includes art/history/drama/ media studies/music and all that ilk. These are hobbies, and studying them doesn’t make you better in them, if anything it probably puts you off a passion, because in all of these types of subjects you are generally more interested in specific areas, which may not get covered.

Quite frankly beyond year 8/9 or around 12/13 these subjects shouldn’t even be taught in school. The same goes for RE. I guess there is a whole list of subjects tbf.

My best mates son is taking ‘business studies’ at GCSE, there is no teach who can teach business studies to a 15 year old. Because anyone with genuine advice and knowledge worth making note of, isn’t teaching a shitty subject in a shitty school. Having had zero life experience outside of teaching a shitty subject in a shitty school.

In answer to your question, I didn’t take any Mickey mouse course haha

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SpectralDinosaur@reddit

I took a Computer Science course focused around Game Design back in 2006. It was the first year the university ran the course and it was very clear they did it to jump on an emerging popular bandwagon and not because they knew what they were doing.

We didn't touch a PC for the entirety of the first year. In a Computer Science course.

I dropped out after that, changed Uni, and did a bog standard CS course focused on programming instead.

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Mr_Coastliner@reddit

I did 'Critical Thinking' in A-Level where the head teacher would teach that one. A whole year then I found out there's no test, it doesn't count towards any grades, it was just a course for the helluva it.

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neb12345@reddit

tbf some of my most important lessons where from classes like this, I have no qualifications in latin, Project based learning, or metacognition but what I learnt in those classes has served me more than anything I learnt in english literature

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ImaginaryParrot@reddit

I loved that one. Felt useless at the time but it's very much needed in today's media landscape

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wardyms@reddit

I did an AS Level in this in 2004, there was an exam and it counted as UCAS points.

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Weak_Importance9651@reddit

I did this at Swansea college at 6th form age, and still have a City and Guilds certificate in my National Record of Achievement!

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neb12345@reddit

English literature and Psychology

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ConfidentCarpet4595@reddit

Adventurous activities course, it was a dumbed down version of pe where once a week we’d effectively just have two hour self directed gym sessions and once a week we’d go do something different like rowing walking running climbing rafting swimming etc but it was just a course to fill the time table. No attendance was taken and the activities were voluntary if you didn’t fancy taking a full day off school to go hillwalking in the highlands you could just hang around in the gym doing weights or whatever

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Gnarly_314@reddit

For the first year of my Maths degree there were the compulsory units for 2/3 of the units and then whatever you wanted for the other 1/3. Due to the Maths timetable there was a limited choice so of those available to me I chose Sociology.

I attended Sociology lectures, tutorials and exams but did nothing outside of that. Amazingly, I passed the course with a C. What I hadn't known at the time was that if you got good grades from your Maths courses and exams and failed your third subject that you would automatically upgraded to a C if you had attended lectures as expected. No idea if I fell into that category or not.

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Alien_Goatman@reddit

I got all the way to university studying film production just to realise that I’d never be able to do it as a job as my communication skills suck. Wish I had stuck with it now - soon to be a retail shift leader..

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Confudled_Contractor@reddit

I did a course called Leisure for Life at GCSE. Just weekly outings to places to do activities, pitch n put, abseiling, bowling all sorts of random stuff. Did learn to ride a horse though.

Better than triple science I guess.

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PictureTakingLion@reddit

I wish my school would’ve offered that, there weren’t many options for Mickey Mouse courses at the school I went to sadly, weekly outings to do random shit sounds awesome

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HalfAgony-HalfHope@reddit

I did a thing (cant even remember the name) at GCSE level where you did several modules - one was office studies, one was sports and leisure, childcare etc. I thought it sounded intetesting so I did it instead of business studies GCSE and it was a massive waste. It was meant for kids who would struggle with a full qualification. I got a distinction in each module with zero effort. A potato could have passed the course.

Oddly, there was another thing in place of history and geography that I also wanted to do, where you did a bit of both (again, meant for kids who might have issues with a full course). My history teacher was like, no you need to pick one because you'll waste a GCSE spot otherwise. He was right and I wish someone had pushed me away from the first thing.

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likeyournamebutworse@reddit

Everything that wasn't maths and english has proven pretty useless.

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Cool_Doubt2152@reddit

Fashion Buying, withdrew last minute from what I was going to do (Forensic Psychology) and changed to what I was most passionate about (fashion, but not design/making things side)

Best decision I ever made. I was the first and one of the only out of my friends to get a job first in the field I studied in. Part of my degree had a placement year (salaried) so I got to do that job (at entry level) for a year at a major high street retailer before graduating, and worked in the industry until 2019 where I moved to beauty. Now work in e-commerce for another high street retailer.

People when I was younger (who didn’t actually know what they were talking about or what a Buyer even was) would tell me it’s a hard industry to get into, there aren’t many jobs, that the culture is like the devil wears Prada… it’s been none of those things.

It’s actually taught me a lot of resilience, how to cope with high pressure and fast pace without imploding, how to make quick decisions, how to negotiate, I’m better at maths from having to understand margin, profit, duty, import taxes, retail price structures etc, and how to work with people from all different walks of life and backgrounds on a daily basis because our suppliers are all over the world. It’s hard and it’s not for everyone, you need thick skin sometimes, but wouldn’t have done anything any differently.

Ultimately going into a career path of something you’re passionate about will benefit you ten times over going into something because it looks good on paper.

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Blue-flash@reddit

At sixth form, I did a GNVQ module in ‘improving your own learning’. I’ve just looked it up, and 25 yrs later, it doesn’t look that ridiculous.

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Captlard@reddit

GCSE Geology?

Loved it tbh. Some great field trips!

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MapOfIllHealth@reddit

We did a “community participation” award where we had to volunteer coaching younger kids in sports for a certain number of hours to get the award.

Basically the PE teachers got to hand over the after school clubs to us year 12’s for a few weeks, so I now understand why we did it.

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RevolutionaryOil8785@reddit

Micky mouse courses? I think they are ok.... But walt disney

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tbarks91@reddit

I felt A-level ITC was a bit hickey mouse because it was essentially just in-depth learning of using Microsoft Office. Turns out its the learning I've used by far the most in my career, particularly re advanced features of PowerPoint and Excel

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TurbulentEffect99@reddit

I did a module called introduction to IT or something. It was intended to make sure people were familiar enough with computers to do the various bits of coursework. The first week, we had some homework which was to write your name and a few bits in a word doc and email it to the tutor. I spoke to the tutor, and he basically said he'd email out the homework each week, and if you could do it, you didn't need to turn up to any lectures.

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MINKIN2@reddit

It's kinda needed now. This "iPad generation" has so many people who are quick with their thumbs around a touchscreen but can't do what we considered "basic IT skills" even 20 years ago.

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TurbulentEffect99@reddit

Possibly now. This was 20 years ago though.

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Urban_Peacock@reddit

Probably Citizenship for GCSEs and Critical Thinking at Alevel. Citizenship would have been Greta if they taught us a bit more about the political system, taxation, bylaws etc. instead of generic phse stuff. I skipped all the classes for critical thinking because they clashed with my music lessons and weren't accepted as a subject by any of my offer unis anyway. Pick up the course material from the teacher a week before. Another friend who went on to study medicine attended every single class and properly studied for it. We both got a C. It was a truly awful course with esoteric questions around how to identify a red herring...

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AdDependent5136@reddit

Strange, we also had to do citizenship and a lot of the

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CosetElement-Ape71@reddit

A-level in General Studies ... I think we did it in our lunch breaks; there were no dedicated lessons as far as I can remember!

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CacklingWitch99@reddit

I did Compact. I have a certificate for it in my Record of Achievement that I’ve never been asked for in a single interview

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fourthaccountlucky@reddit

I think I have an a level in GSE- general studies education..or something like that. They were trying to make up for the fact as levels fucked us over, so y 5 a levels turned into 2 + a shit load of AS levels. Completely fucked up.

I now have an extremely expensive Micky mouse degree in some type of business thing from Brookes.

And another degree and two MA's.

Want to get a PhD...just time and money

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metal_maxine@reddit

Curriculum 2000? That was a mess. Ended up doing Welsh board History because none of the other boards had syllabuses available in time. Govt was stupid enough to push the whole thing through before it was fully baked.

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Cha_r_ley@reddit

My school had an option for year 9 - you could either do German, or CASE - which was an acronym of something. CASE was basically problem solving skills I think (I did German). Once my friend showed me her homework and it was a page with a bunch of riddles on that they had to figure out.

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wardyms@reddit

In year 8, year 2000, our PSE type lesson was named ‘Whole Brain’. At the beginning of each lesson the teacher put ‘Search for the hero’ by M People on and we’d all sing along. The lessons seemed to be skills to to help with revision and studying. It was odd.

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metal_maxine@reddit

We had a history teacher who wanted to see if the Mozart effect extended to Boney M. We did our Russian history to Ra Ra Rasputin after a lecture about all the places the song was wrong (all of them). I think he just liked Disco music.

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Dave80@reddit

When I was at college, 'general studies' was mandatory. It was as vague as the name suggests.

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BlurpleAki@reddit

Did a degree at an FE college (accredited by a real Uni though, which is the institution I put on my CV) and the whole thing was Mickey Mouse.

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Fun-Meal-9839@reddit

It wasn't a Mickey Mouse course but, during my Master's degree, we had one unit where you just had to turn up (and do a quick presentation) to pass.

A big part of that unit was Intellectual Property Law, which was literally the only subjectd on the course that I really struggled with.

I turned up, got my pass and vowed not to waste a second of my time revising that potential exam question.

Made much more sense to go into into the exam knowing I could choose 3 questions out of 5, rather than 3 questions out of 6.

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t_beermonster@reddit

My college enrolled everyone, without their consent or information, on A level general studies.

Those of us already doing 4 real A levels didn't turn up for the exams.

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Adventurous_Spot1183@reddit

We had a learning to learn course. It was a massive waste of time

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Disastrous_Let7964@reddit

We had that same thing but it was mandatory through years 7-9. They called it 'enrichment day' which was when years 10-11 fucked off home early and we were all forced to do some random shit that did nothing for our education.

I remember precisely nothing except the one day they brought a professional archer in and had us using proper bows. They did that exactly once and never again.

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Tennonboy@reddit

Yeah! But I Disney want to do them! 🤣😅😂😆😁

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openlightYQ@reddit

I’d say Citizenship/PSHCE. Taught by our form tutor who was also very opinionated, so I think even if we were supposed to learn anything of substance, she definitely was the wrong one to teach it). I don’t remember one thing we learned about in all the years doing it. Didn’t prepare anybody for adulthood, for finances, social issues or anything, just a total waste of time 2 hours a week.

All it did was push all of us into further education (even forcing us to write personal statements and then sending them to universities) when over half of us never wanted to go, but they made it seem like that’s just what we have to do or never get a job. Pretty sure every one of us that did end up in further education just now have student loan debt and are all working in jobs that don’t require any further education. Later found out our school was “twinned” with several local universities so I’m sure that has something to do with why so many of us have huge student loans with useless degrees now.

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Norman_debris@reddit

I have an English degree from a lower-tier uni, so yeah.

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qualityvote2@reddit

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