Iron Chef won’t be on SBS tonight (schedule) for the second week in a row, and no word on when it might be back on. It’s been displaced by “Great Australian Albums – Woodface By Crowded House”. This is the second time this year that SBS has jerked its Iron Chef fans around. Back in January, Iron Chef was replaced – no warning – by the creepy (and crappy) American abomination called Iron Chef America – complete with an obviously Caucasian man dressed in a Chinese shirt waving a Chinese sword around in a tatami covered room, claiming to be Chairman Kaga’s nephew. Following “audience feedback”, Iron Chef America got axed and the original Iron Chef was restored. And now it’s been taken off with little explanation. I don’t know what the programming dudes up at SBS are thinking.
Speaking of programming, I’m still waiting for Nine to bring on the new season of Hotel Babylon. I loved the first season last year, and Channel Nine claimed to be continuing it this year – but no sign of it as yet, 8 months into the year. I might have to go find DVDs in the UK.
One of the most disappointing things for me this semester is that I am forced to do Criminology and drop Public International Law. To be honest, I have absolutely no interest in criminology, and very little in jurisprudence in general. It’s not because I’m intellectually opposed to jurisprudential theory. I just don’t have the sociological/philosophical grounding to appreciate it. For me, studying jurisprudence is like a blind man listening to a gallery curator describe a painting. I can hear and understand everything she’s saying about the difference between Modernism and Post-Modernism, but I can’t engage with the painting myself, nor can I try to paint a picture myself. In other words, interesting, but utterly useless.
What makes it worse is that I am forced to drop Public International Law to do Criminology, because the degree structure requires at least one jurisprudence subject – Criminology being one – and I need to do it now if I go on exchange next year. Public International Law is actually interesting to me, and probably the subject I have been most looking forward to in this degree. Now, chances are I won’t ever get to do it.
I understand the rationale behind the Jurisprudence requirement in a law degree. What I don’t understand is why they want to pretend they are offering a comprehensive education when it is anything but. To parrot Howard, it’s about choice, the freedom to choose. If I choose to learn nothing but black letter law with the odd dash of human rights, then I should be free to – just as another person who wants to do six units of jurisprudence is currently able to.
But then, the Sydney law program is much better structured than anything the E+B (Economics and Business) faculty can cough up, a fact of which I was painfully reminded during the investment banking interviews. I realised that, whereas 3 1/2 years of law has given me a reasonably comprehensive understanding of major areas of law, commerce has given me zilch. Up until 3 weeks ago, I had no idea what free cash flow was, or the difference between EV/EBITDA versus P/E, and the haziest idea about weighted average cost of capital. The problem there is that there’s too much choice – and no guidance from the faculty as to how you should make those choices. The problem is exacerbated for double degree students, who are restricted to doing one subject per major in their other degree — so you can’t do both Mergers & Acquisitions and Derivative Securities; and yet you have to do Trading and Dealing – probably the least educational of all finance subjects. The Finance pre-Honours program is even more of a joke. You get taught by a Horrible Creature from Outer Space, who marks on a whim and spends most of the class ranting against successful investment banks. Not a sight to inspire confidence in the honours program.
So kids, don’t be fooled by their so-called “international accreditations”. Do your commerce degree at UNSW.
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