Today I read an article which made me cross. Nicky Morgan, Minister for Education and Equalities had said that Arts and Humanities ‘limited career choices’ (http://www.thestage.co.uk/…/education-secretary-nicky-morg…/). So I wrote to her. She might reply. I doubt it, but hell, I feel better.

Dear Ms Morgan,

I have no science A Levels. Not one. I have a BA Hons (English and theology with Arabic), and a BSc Hons (though the science of Nursing, while admirable, does not an astrophysicist make). While I would happily blather about Shakespeare for hours, don’t ask me to understand the Periodic Table. I won’t.

But somehow, I’m halfway through one of the toughest and most competitive scientific courses, studying Graduate Entry Medicine at St George’s, University of London, and rumour has it, they may even let me operate on people one day. So, with all due respect, I am one of many clear examples that your attitude to the Arts as ‘limiting career choices’ is little more than misinformed, poorly researched twoddle. Please don’t assume that all my experience prepares me for is a life of staring wistfully into the distance, contemplating exactly what Sylvia Plath intended at the end of the third stanza. Being an arts graduate gives me superior communication skills. It allows me to relate to patients in a way the average lab-based scientist may well struggle to. Graduate students in general have been shown to make excellent doctors, and guess what? Lots of us have never dreamed of the Higgs Boson Particle. See the below article for more information.

So please, stop attacking the arts and humanities, and consider allowing teenagers to live and learn a bit before expecting them to sign up to a life that might not be right for them.

http://www.theguardian.com/…/studying-medicine…

Kind, but somewhat frustrated regards,

Hannah ‘Pops’ Barham-Brown

BA Hons (Dunelm), BSc Hons (Northumbria)

LONG LIVE ‘NODDY’ DEGREES. I’m grateful for mine (which is fortunate, as I’ll be paying for it for many years to come…)