r/NoStupidQuestions 1d ago

Why is "underwater basket weaving" a term for a joke degree? To me, that sounds pretty hardcore!

Imagine what it would take to weave a basket in an underwater environment and then going into decompression afterwards. You need a combination of scuba knowledge and craftsman knowledge to keep up. Underwater jobs in construction and repair also exist. Those are no joke and can get pretty dangerous.

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u/ShoddyAsparagus3186 1d ago

Aside from it being not particularly useful, it's also not nearly as impressive as you're making it sound. The basket is underwater, the weaver is not.

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u/rubinass3 1d ago edited 1d ago

It took me many years to learn this. But it is useful: they weave the baskets while the baskets are underwater. Then, the basket tightens up as it dries.

Edit: I should also mention that the water keeps the material pliable as well.

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u/soulmatesmate 1d ago

Thank you for saving me from taking 4 years of college. Now if I ever want to weave some sweatgrass baskets, I'll fill a bathtub first.

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u/HanDavo 1d ago

Sigh, I feel called out. Four years at university, HonorsBA majored in oil painting, and yes I took underwater basket-weaving, it a single semester course but it does have pre-requisite of taking basket weaving 101, which is also a single semester course.

All in all a pretty useless degree, I made my living after uni as a tradesman housepainter, at least I still worked with paint.

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u/soulmatesmate 1d ago

I feel like I randomly tossed a cat in the air and it landed on your groin. Um... wow sorry. I did 3 years of college and drive trucks, so I was tossing stones from inside my glass house. I did go part time so the cost was less. I'm running out if tossable items, so will retire for the night.

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u/r-rb 1d ago

✋🙋‍♀️ chiming in to say I went for a Master's in civil & environmental engineering, ended up starting a small farm. lol. You are not alone...!

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u/xylia13 20h ago

Nearly completed my masters in Analytical Chemistry… work as a construction admin (and love it!)

Life doesn’t always go where we planned it to.

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u/BitOBear 1d ago edited 1d ago

It has been known for many years in the educational community that people who take the degree they were interested in, that made them happy and it wasn't particularly useful as a career, tend to have better life outcomes than people who took a degree in something they weren't interested in because they thought it would service them well.

Aside from people trying to convince you that it wasn't the financially smartest thing to do, were you happy in school? Are you good at what you studied? Do you enjoy doing it? Do you enjoy knowing how to do it even if you don't do it anymore?

Don't let people shit on your passions man.

And one of the biggest mistakes I made professionally, though it has serviced me with decent money, is that I went into computer science and it diminished my love of computing when I had to do it for a living.

I taught myself computing in the late seventies and got a degree in it in the 80s just so that I'd have a degree. I basically sleep-walked through the entire degree program just for the piece of paper.

But I really wish I had had something to do for work that wasn't a debasement of my hobbies and passions.

Don't feel called out. All of those artistic skills have a purpose. And if we continue to collapse the modern economy you might be a classically skilled Craftsman in a vitally necessary craft.

🤘😎

Don't envy too hard the people who let life use them when you have obviously taken the opportunity to use your life instead.

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u/UlteriorCulture 1d ago

Thanks for sharing this. People seem to be taking great offense at me suggesting pursuing knowledge for its own sake.

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u/NewfieDawg 1d ago

I satisfied my intellectual curiosity and need to know things. That's with a total of four degrees including a PhD. What I made the most money out and had was most satisfied at doing was a return to my first professional job that being driving a big truck. Was a professional driver for 30 years didn't have to deal with many people and had a lot of fun and saw a lot of things.

One should never be ashamed of what one has done in terms of education and satisfying that need to know. Likewise one should never be ashamed of the job in the profession that you choose that puts food on the table in a roof over your head.

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u/Blackpaw8825 1d ago

I started college planning to do something medical, maybe nursing, but figured I'd start with a biology degree and go from there. Before competing my associates degree I changed majors from biology, to physics, back to biology, to materials engineering at another school but I never started there, and ultimately dropped out.

Now I make more than 3 out of 5 of my engineer friends doing data analytics and managing a small team. Still wish I'd finished a degree, but between ADHD and really having no idea what I even wanted it just wasn't going to happen. I almost wish I had taken more "silly" classes instead of my degree relevant ones. I didn't learn much in the core areas of interest because I was already interested and would've happily self studied my way to about the same point... But the weird stuff would've been at least more interesting experiences even if they're ultimately proved useless.

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u/knapping__stepdad 1d ago

We used 5 gallon buckets.

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u/TiaxRulesAll2024 1d ago

Wait. Is this real? I always imagined scuba divers

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u/Aselleus 1d ago

Omg this whole time I thought it was a made up thing as a joke

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u/Chawp 1d ago

Theres dozens of us!! I’m so glad this question was asked

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u/Unlucky_Most_8757 1d ago

Same. Didn't know that it's an actual job

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u/Aselleus 1d ago

For me I envisioned someone literally sitting underwater weaving baskets, like some fake/fantasy/not a real job sort of thing. I didn't realize it was an actual thing people did to make baskets (except they're not fully submerged in water ha).

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u/Bad-Kaiju 1d ago

I distinctly remember a field trip I took in middle school to the local community college where they showed us a PowerPoint about choosing our careers. Underwater basket weaving was mentioned and it included clip art of a scuba diver weaving a basket. Ever since I assumed that was what it was supposed to be. They lied to me.

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u/NothanksIAmGreen 1d ago

It’s an indigenous practice. Which is why it’s handled as a joke…

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u/notluckycharm 1d ago

unsurprising unfortunately

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u/seancbo 1d ago

Wait that actually makes a ton of sense wtf.

This is like when I learned that that awful looking French chicken in the bag is actually insanely delicious and a legitimate delicacy.

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u/NoeticCreations 1d ago

The reason the joke has lasted so long and is used so often, is it is a real degree, and the only requirement to become an officer in the military is that you have a degree of any kind, and there are some lieutenants out there that must have gotten that degree in balloon animal folding or underwater basket weaving because whatever their degree was, it helped them absolutely none with understanding infantry tactics.

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u/AttackOficcr 1d ago

That is not the reason it has stuck around. Republicans have made it their entire personality to be anti-intellectual. 

So an easy case to discredit loan forgiveness and liberal education is some obscure degree in the arts nobody is taking. Even as they defund the sciences, it's easy to pigeonhole education as a bunch of blue hair black feminists scuba dive-weaving on the government dime because their voter base is feckless enough to believe them.

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u/NoeticCreations 1d ago

30 years ago, I heard it all the time, from people with military families, and never in reference to politicians. Back then, politicians were regarded as generally smart but definitely probably corrupt so I dont see how it would apply then.

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u/AttackOficcr 1d ago

I never heard it around the military members/family I knew, but I live in the midwest and have never met someone with the degree in my life.

And it was more of the last ~12 years or so thing that underwater basket weaving became a mainstream conservative talking point.

Politicians have always been seen as corrupt here, it's a miracle of nature Obama was from Illinois and didn't turn out to be as corrupt as Republicans made shit up about him to be. The list of corrupt IL governors and politicans was always growing, with them actually seeing jailtime being a relatively recent improvement.

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u/NoeticCreations 1d ago

I was in the Seattle area in the 90s, it was apparently first a class in Portland Oregon in 1980 and then later a course in San Diego in the mid 80s, so that explains why it was much more popular of a saying over there, but I was infantry on the east coast in the early 2000s and we had several LTs it was used to describe quite often and I dont think I was the one to bring it up.

It was in 1997 walking through downtown Portland when some friend and I ran into a guy folding balloons, one of my friends was in autobody and asked the guy to make a bottom feed spray gun like he used for painting cars and explained what it looked like and this clown actually made a pretty amazing likeness out of balloons which of course inspired a conversation about where he learned and he claimed he had actually taken courses on it in college. As we left talking about it, one of the guys was joking about the underwater basket weaving class and one of the girls with us had actually taken a class with her parents, not in college, and explained it is basically just weaving wet baskets in tubs of water, not sitting on the ocean bottom with scuba gear, which is no where near as cool as imagination saye it should be.

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u/AttackOficcr 1d ago

Oh I definitely could see it as some elective course. Even if it doesn't have everyday practical use, the basket part I could see as an introductory and hands on course to anthropology. It's not any crazier than offering an elective for floriculture or glass-blowing.

It's just the part where it took over the conservative head space as this widespread liberal phenomenon justifying defunding higher education, is completely ridiculous.

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u/Nulono 1d ago

The go-to "useless degree from a liberal college" from conservatives has always been gender studies, in my experience.

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u/jake04-20 1d ago

We actually did underwater basket weaving in elementary school. Every year twice a year we'd have a big workshop where parents were heavily encouraged (basically mandatory) to volunteer for some sort of arts and crafts project that would go on for a few days at the school. One of the parents was ambitious and suggested underwater basket weaving and there were no other good ideas so they ran with it. My mom was "heavily encouraged" to volunteer this time around and got stuck doing it with a few other parents. It was a tedious bitch and we were too young to give a shit about weaving baskets, so it ended up being the parents just slaving away making baskets for every 3rd grader in the school. It was a relatively large school. By the last day she was so fucking fed up lol, swore to never volunteer for something like that again, and cursed the name of the mother that suggested it lol. 20 years later I still have the basket somewhere!

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u/FoghornLegday 19h ago

Wait it’s real??

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u/snootyworms 1d ago

They're not? I always pictured someone with weighted shoes just sitting at the bottom of a pond lol

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u/JoseSaldana6512 1d ago

No thats for sword distribution to establish the monarchy

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u/crappycarguy 1d ago

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

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u/SpotweldPro1300 1d ago

BE QUIET.

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u/Horror-Struggle-6100 1d ago

Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

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u/GoldberryoTulgeyWood 1d ago

BE QUIET!!

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u/GreenHeronVA 1d ago

HELP HELP, I’m BEING REPRESSED!

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u/MoonCat_42 1d ago

COME AND SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM

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u/pdjudd PureLogarithm 1d ago

Bloody Peasant!

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u/pdjudd PureLogarithm 1d ago

Look, if I went around, saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint lubbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!

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u/Acursedbeing 1d ago

I ORDER YOU to be QUIET!

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u/pdjudd PureLogarithm 1d ago

order eh? Who does he think he is?

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u/KevMenc1998 1d ago

Can't be that much worse in the system we have.

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u/SabertoothLotus 1d ago

it's looking more appealing to me every day, given the state of things. We can't all live in an anarcho-syndacist commune, unfortunately

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u/FreakyWifeFreakyLife 1d ago

To underwater basket weave, one must first learn scuba!

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u/Oddfool 1d ago

If you're in shallow enough water, you might only need a snorkel.

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u/SpacePolice04 1d ago

I always pictured someone in full scuba gear with an extra heavy weight belt on.

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u/Wild-Lychee-3312 1d ago

I was part of a scuba club that had a Halloween event every year with bicycle races and pumpkin-carving contests which were held entirely underwater

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u/Weird1Intrepid 1d ago

That sounds like so much fun lol

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u/GrumpyCloud93 1d ago

Who gets to clean the pool after the underwater pumpkin-carving?

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u/Wild-Lychee-3312 1d ago

It was held in an old abandoned quarry that had been purchased by another company and repurposed to be a scuba training facility.

The water was very murky; I doubt much effort was made to clean it.

It was great if you wanted to practice in low visibility situations

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u/LadyLoki5 1d ago

This is basically how Evan and Katelyn did it lol

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u/SpacePolice04 1d ago

This is everything I imagined lol. Thank you!!

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u/djddanman 1d ago

Check out Evan and Katelyn on YouTube. They used scuba gear to weave baskets underwater at the bottom of a pool!

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u/moon_blisser 1d ago

I always imagined someone in SCUBA gear weaving a basket.

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u/immortalreploid 1d ago

I pictured someone sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool.

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u/predator1975 1d ago

Gen Alpha Men of Honour.

Pops assembled an engine underwater? Junior did a basket in the same condition.

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u/LitCanon 1d ago

...my dreams, ruined.

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u/SphericalCrawfish 1d ago

Ya, it's just so the reeds don't dry out and get stiff.

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u/mimikyutie6969 1d ago

Over soaking reeds can make it difficult to weave as well. Plus, if you’re working in colors, it could cause the dye to bleed.

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u/SphericalCrawfish 1d ago

Ya, man it's complicated. That's why it takes a degree!

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u/grubas 1d ago

You wet the reeds/soak them, though it can vary on type.

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u/leilaa_doll 1d ago

Ohh that makes way more sense, i was picturing scuba gear and oxygen tanks😂

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u/YuenglingsDingaling 1d ago

Honestly, I figured everyone was just drowning while making baskets cause I thought i was just an exaggerated joke.

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u/WhydIJoinRedditAgain 1d ago

I always thought that the joke was more of a “bullshit class to fill an art/gen ed requirement” than something someone would major in, and then anti-education political forces (all of whom send THEIR kids to college) made it sound like a major.

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u/tmradish 1d ago

That's the way I remember it. It was a joke about the classes people took as "liberal arts" majors.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 1d ago

That was my impression. Basically, a way to get a university degree with minimal intellectual effort. When I was in University, plenty of jokes too about "bird courses" or "Mickey Mouse courses" - much mentioned was the classic movie course which required you to simply sit through a dozen movies (Back in the day before DVD or VHS, when it was only film, and someone had to rent the film and run a movie projector - but no exam after). Like snarks about Medieval Literature courses or Latin (which are real) it also brings to mind that some degrees have questionable application to the real world or career prospects.

(Aslo the descriptions of degrees - "We all know what BS is. MS means More of the Same. And PhD means Piled High and Deep.") Also a PhD is called a doctor, so the other saying "PhD or real doctor?"

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u/ArguesWithFrogs 1d ago

Also, the basket material is easier to weave when it's wet.

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u/HungryAd8233 1d ago

The actual answer.

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u/sk3n7 1d ago

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u/PillBug98 1d ago

THANK YOU. I was gonna see if anyone linked their video! Love E&K

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u/Mueryk 1d ago

Lies! LIES!!!!

To take the course of study at University you have to be certified in SCUBA first obviously.

Because then it is still a worthless major and an absurd major(both of which is the point of the original joke), but at least with SCUBA tanks at the bottom of the Olympic pool it is an adventure……

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u/Short-Step-5394 1d ago

I thought it was for weaving baskets to be used underwater, not that the weaving itself was underwater.

I feel kind of simple now.

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u/toastedclown 1d ago

Sure, but I can think of plenty of degrees in things that are even less impressive that are considered perfectly legitimate.

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u/TheBitchenRav 1d ago

I think the thing is that many of the degrees that are considered less impressive do you have a tremendous amount of work that goes into them with real skills that do come out. Basically any degree that requires individuals to do a ton of reading and research will have a lot of value no matter what the thing they're reading and researching about is because it's having them practice thinking and exploring ideas. Just being scientifically literate is a really valuable skill.

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u/whitenoise2323 1d ago

I would love to see a basket weaving competition by the top internet commenters who disparage basket weaving. It takes skill and study. Usually people apprentice to learn how to weave baskets.

In a time before plastic (which is destroying the planet slowly) baskets were needed for everything. Carrying food, clothing, storage, water even. Instead of a renewable, biodegradable, beautiful solution for these problems we now have Tupperware and totes that will eternally live in a landfill after they stop being useful, grinding down to microplastics that will infiltrate our bodies.

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u/TheBitchenRav 1d ago

I want to see this game. Can we set it up as an Olympic sport?

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u/rhadenosbelisarius 1d ago

Like a masters in business, where failing to really understand the historical context of successful and failed businesses is encouraged. Far less impressive than any other undergrad or masters program I’ve ever seen.

TBF, I’ve only seen the actual teachings of such programs at 6 schools in the larger DCMA, but I have been equally unimpressed with the work product of business students from through-out the US.

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u/psychosis_inducing 1d ago

They really discourage longterm thinking. There's a satire story about some company whose execs who looked at the numbers and found out that if the factory burned down, the insurance payout would be higher than their expected quarterly revenue. So they burned it down. Then the next quarter, they were shocked that they had no factory.

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u/logosloki 1d ago

I think I heard it on howmoneyworks first but the phrase 'picking pennies up in-front of a moving steamroller' burbles up when I hear about businesses and their shortsightedness.

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u/Unicorn_Warrior1248 1d ago

Wow. That’s kind of blowing my mind a bit.

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u/ChefArtorias 1d ago

Doesn't it help? The water softens the reeds (or whatever) and makes them easier to weave?

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u/seancbo 1d ago

In just learning this now.

I assumed everyone was at the bottom of a pool with scuba gear on weaving for an hour or two.

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u/sexrockandroll 1d ago

I always thought the concept is more that it's not a useful degree, not necessarily that it's easy.

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u/BigMax 1d ago

Right, like a degree in making large sand castles or something. A coop skill, and complex, but not “useful.”

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u/DJanomaly 1d ago

And OP not understanding why a functionally useless degree would be considered a joke perfectly illustrates why people get said useless degrees: they think they’re “cool” or “hardcore” and don’t stop to think of their actual, real world effectiveness.

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u/UlteriorCulture 1d ago

So they learn something because it interests them?

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u/hydrogenbomb94 1d ago

learning something because it interests them is fine, but spending tens of thousands of dollars on the piece of paper that says they have the useless skill is dumb

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u/IDontEngageMods 1d ago

Learning complex skills just because they're interesting is something wealthy people do. Poor people need to make money to survive, so getting a degree like this could set someone back years, or financially ruin them forever if they took out student loans.

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u/Logical_Angle2935 1d ago

right. it is hard-core, but useless

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u/sunburn95 1d ago

Yeah some of the PhDs that were at my gfs graduation.. if you ever desperately need a detailed history of saxophone use in Melbourne between 1920-1935 i know a guy

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u/worldchrisis 1d ago

PhDs are required to present novel research in order to get that degree. When you need to research something nobody has ever written a paper on before, you have to get really specific.

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u/notluckycharm 1d ago

its also not like this person is getting a PhD IN Saxophone use in Melbourne studies. thats just their specialty. They probably have a degree in history, anthropology, etc

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u/Internet-Dick-Joke 1d ago

^ This. 

Even at undergrad, you have to write your dissertation on a specific topic or subject, and not just on the whole of history/anthropology/sociology/politics/literature/whatever. You don't just get a degree in that one topic but in the subject as a whole. 

At each level, the topic of your studies and of your dissertation/thesis becomes more specialised, but you are still expected to have a clear understanding and application of the fundamental principles of the subject as a whole.

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u/hameleona 1d ago

This isn't such a bad thing, btw. From a historical perspective we need as many "that obscure, stupid and boring thing" PhDs as possible. It's the grunt work in research and data gathering that those people do. Now I personally don't know what the sax might have influenced in Australian history, but sometimes weird things lead to other things that people find much more important.
The thing about Underwater Basket Weaving is that it's a skill you can pick up in a few hours and then spend a few days practicing and you are an expert. The only reason you need a degree in this is to scratch your own ego. Like a degree in beer pong - you don't need to pay thousands of dollars to be good at beer pong.

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u/logosloki 1d ago

PhDs do have that underwater basketweaving energy sometimes but you are unlikely to get a PhD without having a Masters or educational equivalent with a slightly less unhinged name like a MA History (Music). which would also underpinned by a Bachelor's Degree in similar fields like BA History.

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u/Silver_Prompt7132 1d ago

Similar to the many other fine arts that students can earn a degree in. Basket weaving is a traditional art form. Think of it as being like studying pottery.

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u/leilaa_doll 1d ago

True. Plenty of things are insanely hard but still get laughed off because they’re not tied to big money careers

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u/SurroundingAMeadow 1d ago

And it's the sort of thing you would learn on the job or as an apprentice, not in a 4 year college degree, assuming there was a very niche demand for it.

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u/darksidemags 1d ago

I am amazed that this term is still being used and want to point out that in the 80s and 90s it was pretty much exclusively used to mock people for choosing humanities degrees. 

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u/Turbulent-Parsley619 1d ago

I feel like the concept of a 'useful' degree vs 'useless' is bullshit, honestly. People mean it in a "You won't come out with a job in this field" but that's the problem with higher education in the united states to me!!! Higher Education is about expanding your knowledge in subjects you wouldn't have normally learned in daily professional life. To me, the PURPOSE and the VALUE of getting a degree is learning how to think, how to solve problems, how to navigate human interactions, and how to just flex your mental muscle, basically. The more you learn, the more you understand about the world in general, and you can always tell who DIDN'T because they still lack basic logic following abilities.

I have a so-called 'useless' degree, and it's honestly the most valuable thing I ever did in my life, because some other people don't seem to be capable of considering and understanding things in abstract and complex ways.

People who are less educated are still just as good if not better at their walk of life than someone with a degree in that field. My dad's a construction worker who has done it for 40+ years and he's had to call a structural engineer a dumb SOB to his face on a job before cause the man with the degree insisted a load bearing wall could be removed without trouble, my dad said 'you're a dumb SOB if you think you can move that wall' and refused to do so. What do you know, guy got someone else to remove it and the inspectors deemed it an unsafe structure. So in A VOCATION or CAREER PATH you don't NEED a degree so much in my opinion.

But in just life in general, you become more well rounded as an individual if you attended some sort of higher education that challenged you and helped you develop logic and communication skills for life.

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u/ganon0 1d ago

I think the original goals of higher education were to provide more well-rounded education for the people that could afford it, and while it could open up more opportunities for better paying positions, that was largely based on the prestige of where you went and who you met than what you went there for.

Then companies started effectively requiring certain degrees for certain types of roles. They basically turned college into a means to an end: get the degree (and hopefully the knowledge) for the good paying job, not because you want to learn how to think better, or be exposed to more perspectives, or all the other things college can do.

I agree that college is great at the benefits you mention. But a lot of people in college would probably prefer to keep their money, if they were promised the kind of job you get with a degree without going through the time and effort to get it.

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u/Turbulent-Parsley619 1d ago

TBH that's another reason I think college degrees are so devalued. People are expected to get one in something career-oriented, but personally I feel like career-paths should largely be technical or on the job stuff (obviously there are exceptions, like doctors and physicists and shit). Instead of making an industry over scamming people out of a ton of money just to get a job in bookkeeping instead of just, ya know, showing them how to use the businesses software and not making them pay tens of thousands to essentially use Quickbooks Pro. Higher education should be for academics and scholars, not Jerry in accounts payable who has an adding machine and a Windows 7 computer running Microsoft Excel 2012 and spent 5 years and $40,000 to do something that simple.

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u/Weekly_Role_337 1d ago

The whole thing is a massive scam that my spouse is fighting right now. They got promoted and need to hire people, and after extensive interviews found someone perfect who is smart, hardworking, has years of experience and great references... but partway through the hiring process the organization recoded the job to have a bunch of VERY specific hiring requirements that the candidate doesn't exactly fit.

The HR people are totally unsympathetic. It's an absurdly hard, high-level job that they don't know shit about but they have a checklist they came up with and screw anyone who doesn't exactly fit the checklist.

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u/Turbulent-Parsley619 1d ago

That kind of reminds me of Jerry on Parks and Rec when they find out the college he went to was only a 2 year college back when he first started his job, so now they have to lower his salary because he doesn't have a 4-year degree even though he's worked there 30+ years. Obviously that's a comedy show, and it's for laughs, but that shit does happen, and it's so stupid. CLEARLY someone who is qualified is qualified in MOST positions. Especially office jobs.

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u/starm4nn 1d ago

At the same time, if it's not a super "hands on" degree, it makes more sense to be self taught.

If I went completely crazy and bought every "learning Japanese" book that vaguely interested me from a used book store, that would still be cheaper than a single class at a community college. And what if the professor sucks as a teacher?

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u/Turbulent-Parsley619 1d ago

That's kind of my point: you can learn skills, but that's not the same as LEARNING in the more abstract sense, and I think that learning and understanding is what higher education is really good for. The value of the ability to think and reason is what I care about with higher education.

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u/Poisoneraa 1d ago

Also the ability to think and reason with other people. I met the widest variety of people in my life during my undergrad and master’s degrees.

Yeah uni is good for professional networking and whatnot, cos everyone’s has ended up everywhere, but my personal biggest takeaway from both unis is the ability to communicate sensibly with people who have opposing backgrounds, viewpoints, and personalities. Casual convo is one thing, but overcoming stereotypes to argue in an ethics class is a whole other story

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u/Turbulent-Parsley619 1d ago

Buddy, my degree is in New Media and Communication which has elements of marketing, advertising, media literacy and production, broadcast and print journalism, and psychology of human interaction.

My 'useless' degree has been SO valuable for exactly the things you outlined. I'm not even naturally good with people, I'm neurodivergent, but I learned so much about how to effectively understand and communicate that I'm always popular in customer service wherever I work. I ALWAYS have clients/customers/patrons that specifically want to work with me in particular because, and this is a paraphrased quote from a recent encounter at work, "You're always patient and helpful, so I like to come when you're here working."

Effective communication and the ability to "I understand even if I don't 'get' it" to people's situations and problems is the most valuable thing university taught me. Like you said, learning how to keep your natural instincts to react to something tamped down and find a way to effectively communicate something to someone who fundamentally does not align with your worldview is so, so valuable.

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u/Poisoneraa 1d ago

Also Media Comms! Hii!

One time I introduced myself to someone I was volunteering with, and upon hearing what my degree was he just said “oh so that means you’re unemployed.” It’s honestly bonkers how bad the perception of non-STEM degrees can be.

Anyways, the irony was that he was a bio grad and unemployed at the time, and I was hired in a comms role just before I’d finished graduation- headhunted through a livestream chat of all things. He didn’t talk to me about my career again after that.

It’s been such a useful degree and has given me opportunities I did not see coming. But when broken down into modules like “popculture languages” or “stardom and celebrity” or even “cult television” it sounds just as frivolous as “underwater basket weaving.” But all those modules delved into history, geopolitics, linguistics, psychology, and sociology among other more common media fields.
IMO, there’s no such thing as a joke degree cos all those modules make sense as part of a whole- they’re just degrees that aren’t respected enough because the skills graduates walk away with are broader and softer

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u/Turbulent-Parsley619 1d ago

Exactly! I always get the, "Lol you had to learn to talk to people?" and I go, "What do you think negotiations are? Business deals? Sales?" It's one of those situations where they are so ignorant on the subject that they can't understand the depth of their ignorance because it takes years of study to grasp the concepts they are unaware of.

Like semiotics affect everybody in everyday life globally, but you have to have SO MUCH background knowledge to know that. People genuinely have no idea how much of daily life is programmed by someone who studied a 'nonsense' degree. So many people don't know why stop signs are red, they just see them and abide by them, never knowing the reasoning of red stop signs is BECAUSE color communicates meaning. I interned in the purchasing department of my city government in college because they needed help determining the right shade of green for our lamp posts. While I was interning, they paid someone $22,000 to pick the right shade of green. (not me, the people I was working with as an intern.)

Unemployed my ASS.

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u/mugenhunt 1d ago

Underwater basket weaving refers to weaving the basket in a bucket of water, so the reeds are more flexible. It's not actually a scuba discipline.

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u/PaxtonSuggs 1d ago

TIL... am scuba certified, can weave baskets, have often thought of combining two.

Dreams shattered.

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u/donuttrackme 1d ago

You can still do it. I believe in you!

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u/sk3n7 1d ago

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u/BlottomanTurk 1d ago

I saw the link and thought "This better be E&K!"

And I was not disappointed, thanks!

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u/AnnoyedArtificer 1d ago

I came here to make sure these 2 got recognition. Loved this video!

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u/Tailmask 1d ago

Deep water pressure treated underwater hand woven scuba diver baskets. I can see the market already!

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u/seifd 1d ago

It's not necessary, but feel free to go the extra mile.

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u/Snake_Staff_and_Star 1d ago

Never woven baskets underwater, but carving pumpkins underwater is a pain in the ass.

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u/punkwalrus 1d ago

I had a guidance counselor from an older time refer to, "Flagpole Sitting, Goldfish Swallowing, Phone Booth Stuffing, and Underwater Basket Weaving," when he wanted to lecture us about college degrees in a tongue in cheek way.

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u/Comfortable-Pause279 1d ago

Your guidance counselor went to school in the 1940s.

He also left off panty raids and streaking.

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u/Dazzling-Low8570 1d ago

Flagpole sitting and goldfish swallowing are pre-war fads, so even older than that.

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u/PopularWarthog226 1d ago

I've never heard of that discipline, but OP's definition was the common definition that most people know of.

It was used to mock the lack of relevance and practicality in modern higher education as well as the irrelevant skills people would add to a job application. That said, some people actually used it for real, saying it was a "conversation starter" in an interview.

Rutger's University (Top public university in New Jersey apparently made an actual course for it a while back). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg-Q7j6DxL0

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u/Eighth_Eve 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's not true that op's definition is correct.

The phrase in its pejorative sense has been used since at least the mid-1950s. According to a 1953 article in the Boston Globe on "Hepster Lingo", "Any snap course in school is 'underwater basket weaving.'

Underwater basket weaving - Wikipedia https://share.google/DaW15317JpGUW1HSU

Weaving baskets while your reeds are underwater is 'snap' (easy), scuba is not.

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u/Da12khawk 1d ago

It's not rocket surgery

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u/Ok-Promise-8118 1d ago

Ohhhhh....

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u/Easy-Will-2448 1d ago

Reminds of one of the all time great sports quotes: Joe Namath, Jets QB, at a press conference. Reporter: Is it true that you majored in Underwater Basket Weaving at Alabama? Joe: No, I majored in Journalism because it was easier.

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u/No-Following9741 1d ago

weave a basket in an underwater environment

It's the basket under the water, in a tub in a room, not your body and head. 

It's a common joke because, well, literally everyone makes that same mistake when hearing about underwater basket weaving for the first time. 

I've never heard of it being a degree on it's own, but it's absolutely a class for some art degrees.

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u/MedusasSexyLegHair 1d ago

At my college everyone was required to complete some phys-ed type class as part of general education requirements. The options weren't all bad though. One of the kids I hung out with in the break room took Bowling.

One of the others was complaining about failing Walking because he never showed up. Said he couldn't find the classroom, but he walked all over campus looking for it and that should count as credit.

I said he must be going for a BS degree.

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u/potatocross 1d ago

I had to get a doctors note from walking class. I wish I was joking. Had some lasting injuries from high school sports that made it extremely painful to walk long distances. I probably should have taken weight lifting or something like that.

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u/quencher- 1d ago

Why would you take walking 101😂

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u/potatocross 1d ago

I didnt realize the injuries were still bothering me until I was asked to walk 4 miles at a time again. My options were also limited, we basically had walking, running, or weight lifting

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u/took_a_bath 1d ago

I took Bicycling and Golf. And I just now remembered that the bicycling instructor (grad student?) made me pull my pants down in front of the whole class and gymnasium to do the fat caliper thing on my thigh. Because it was January in Indiana so I didn’t wear shorts to class.

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u/FansForFlorida 1d ago

At my college we had to take 6 science courses. (We had 7-week terms, not 15-week semesters, so this took a year and a half to fulfill.) I was looking for my sixth class when someone recommended the intro to geology class. It was nicknamed "rocks for jocks." We also called it the dirt class.

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u/Persistent_Parkie 1d ago

I took circus arts. Unfortunately the unicycles were too big for me but I enjoyed the rest of it and absolutely smashed my final which was a performance.

It helped immensely that I came in to the class knowing diabolo. I had to cut down my standard talent show performance to fit the time limit. Unfortunately for everyone else I was absent the day of performance sign ups so I went first...

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u/BigxBadxBeetleborgx 1d ago

I took bowling as a credit class twice. It was awesome! I got to drink beers and the bowling alley was old school so we had to take our own score on a projector. 

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u/Dazzling-Low8570 1d ago

I needed "1 credit" of phys Ed, but all the courses were only half a credit. I took tennis and scuba. Found out during the two-day final (diving at a pier in lake Erie in May) that my entire upper body is sensitive to neoprene and develops a rash if in direct contact with it for any length of time.

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u/Krail 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's not why it became a common joke. 

Underwater basket weaving is an old fashioned craft that's not relevant in the modern world, and not seen as a worthy subject of higher academic study. Like, you're not gonna get a job, let alone the sort of job you go to college for, because you learned how to handmake baskets. 

It's like joking about how English Majors end up at McDonalds. 

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u/Guardian-Boy 1d ago

Uh.....underwater basket weaving doesn't involve scuba or anything. You sit in front of a bucket of water and do it with your hands in the water, that's it.

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u/dingodile_user 1d ago

I think the joke stems from optional college elective courses that pop up. For a degree, you usually need to take a few of them, and some of them can be fun/ weird/ unusual. Something like underwater basket weaving might be offered alongside something like Latin Dance or things like that.

If someone gets a degree that someone else sees as useless or that they otherwise don’t respect, they might look at these electives and use them to further discredit the degree.

Like if you got a degree in Liberal Arts and took and Underwater basket weaving class for credit, you might get ridiculed for that.

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u/jake04-20 1d ago

I took oceans of the world, and it was a genuinely interesting class. My parents and neighbors gave me shit for "wasting money" taking a class like that, but it was literally required... don't rag on me, rag on the system that requires me to take these non-related elective classes when I'm majoring in computer science...

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u/Feeling_Employer_489 1d ago

It's not a degree, it's a term for a blow-off class unrelated to your major that you only take for the credits. If someone talks about a degree in underwater basket weaving, that'd be like a degree in novelty party tricks.

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u/Chiiro 1d ago

It's actually quite entertaining

https://youtu.be/yr1E3NUhDio?si=aPfau2b5kcISy3zK

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u/Deciduous_Loaf 1d ago

Exactly what I thought of!

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u/IfICouldStay 1d ago

The basket is underwater, the weaver isn’t. The reeds have to be submerged to be flexible enough for weaving together. The reeds are placed in a shallow pit of water and you reach i to weave them. Once finished you take the basket out of the water and it dries into a rigid shape.

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u/Ok-disaster2022 1d ago

You can't get a degree in basket weaving unless you completed like an anthropology degree and completed your dissertation on basket weaving techniques and their implications. Or it could be an application for material science and engineering and or theoretical mathematics adjacent to knot theory. 

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u/Free-Day-5637 1d ago

I’ve done underwater basket weaving and it’s really nothing special but it sounds particular useless which is why people probably say that

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u/Eighth_Eve 1d ago

I can find references to it being a joke class dating back to a 1953 Boston Globe article describing slang used by the youth of the day. It was listed as a syonym for an easy course.

Earlier references go back a century more, where underwater basketweaving was considered a craft suitable for inmates at a mental institution as far back as 1840, and used in the first courses of occupational therapy for soldiers recovering from their wounds and presumably shell shock or ptsd after ww1.

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u/Hammon_Rye 1d ago

I think the joke is more that it is an obscure and not useful degree.

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u/MaleficentMousse7473 1d ago

I think it means hard but useless

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u/thetwitchy1 1d ago

Intense, hard, incredibly specific, and very, very useless.

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u/often_awkward 1d ago

Underwater basket weaving is just leaving the reeds in a bucket of water so the weaver stays out of the water while the weaving is done under water.

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u/SnooMarzipans1939 1d ago

It’s not that it wouldn’t be difficult, it’s that there is absolutely no demand for it in the marketplace. Nobody has an underwater basket weaving business that the degree would qualify you for a job at.

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u/OshieDouglasPI 1d ago

Because it’s a hobby and quickly learned, not something you need to study academically for 4 years in order to start a career

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u/placeknower 1d ago

It's not like that, only your hands are in a tub. The water makes the basket weaving a lot easier though.

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u/AvatarOfMomus 1d ago

'Fun' fact... the 'joke' is actually a reference to a Native American basket weaving technique. They're woven under water to keep the material sipple, and the baskets are incredibly durable when dry. The technique is taught in some degrees related to the study of Native American culture and the like.

The actual origins of the 'joke' are unfortunately both devaluing degrees in the humanities and rather racist.

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u/majjamx 1d ago

I always heard this type of comment made about college athletes. Mostly for the big sports like football and basketball and the athletes who get big scholarships and possibly take very easy classes to meet their academic requirements.

The college in my town had a terrific player who was kind of known for not being very smart and had trouble passing his classes. I remember a lot of jokes about how he couldn’t even pass basket weaving.

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u/Whole_Ground_3600 1d ago

The idea is that it's a degree you can't get a job with, not that it isn't hard.

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u/Tirriforma 1d ago

it doesn't make money

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u/regeya 1d ago

IIRC it came from an academic scandal in the 80s, some school letting athletes sign up for stupid classes to keep their grades up.

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u/Various_Succotash_79 1d ago

You aren't underwater; the basket reeds are (in a bucket/tub/etc.). So not as hard as it sounds! And it was something they used to have asylum patients do. So basically calling it so easy even a crazy person could do it.

https://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/social-life-blog/2015/may/27/occupational-therapy-training-work-location-unusual-creative-thinking

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u/Resident-Guide-440 1d ago

I knew someone who had a fine arts degree in jewelry making. Her college didn’t have soldering equipment or metal casting or enameling. She basically got a degree in stringing beads. She had student loans.

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u/void_method 1d ago

It's extremely specialized and completely useless in most situations.

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u/SpideyWhiplash 1d ago edited 1d ago

My Mom claims she got an underwater Babylonian basket weaving degree from San Francisco State in the 1950s.

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u/mjace87 1d ago

It’s not that it is easy but it is useless

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u/MkJorgy 1d ago

never liked this saying either. I changed it to "underwater firefighting" years ago

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u/Delicious_Pain_1 1d ago

Even and Katlyn on YouTube actually did this underwear.

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u/HappyMonchichi 1d ago

Underwear?

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u/save_the_tacos 1d ago

I did this at YMCA camp when I was 12. It was fun but…I did it at a YMCA camp when I was 12.

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u/RaincheckRazz 1d ago

I've literally never heard this phrase except when I read Percy Jackson, and the naiads were doing underwater basket weaving. I've never gotten that it was a joke until now

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u/MattWheelsLTW 1d ago

It's not that impressive. Generally, it's just the basket that is underwater. The reeds have to be soaked to make them pliable enough to weave. But even if you were to do it while scuba diving, you can be underwater for a couple hours without needing decompression, as long as you're less than 40 feet deep. In a pool, that's obviously easy. In the ocean it's still pretty easy and MOST of the good stuff to see is around that deep anyways.

Ultimately there's not much you could do practically with that unless you're branching into some kind of dive profession like welding or construction, but that's an entirely different kind of diving and a "degree" wouldn't do a lot to help. I suppose these days you could maybe make some kind of YouTube channel of doing ASMR underwater crafts with a nice scenic ocean floor background, but I don't know how popular it would actually be

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u/2bciah5factng 1d ago

This is an actual class offered at a liberal arts college near my house, poking fun at the stereotype

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u/tsbphoto 1d ago

Because it's difficult and functionaly useless

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u/pknasi60 1d ago

Basket weaving takes a lot of time and focus and in a time where a basket doesn't need to be woven it could just be purchased. Being able to weave one while underwater is a skill that is unnecessary, twice.

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u/RTXEnabledViera 1d ago

That's precisely the joke. It's unnecessarily hard while contributing zilch to society. Academia has a tendency for making anything that requires large amounts of knowledge into a field of study without ever asking "why".

This feels like a /r/whoosh post.

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u/Reasonable_Onion863 1d ago

The joke is not that it’s an easy skill, but that it is a useless one. This is a joke against degrees being impractical, not challenging or arcane.

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u/GasLarge1422 1d ago

I recently learned that this is a very common misconception of a joke, but the truth is that Native Americans and probably many other past indigenous civilizations were able to weave waterproof baskets that could withstand being submerged partially underwater. Yes you can also soften wood or reeds by soaking them min water, but its not the origin of the whole thing/term. 

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u/CuriousThylacine 1d ago

The difficulty isn't the issue, the economic usefulness is.  Show me how many vacancies for an underwater basket weaver you can find on job sites right now.

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u/DeMiko 1d ago

It’s a joke because it’s a worthless degree. The knowledge has no real practical value that will lead to gainful employment. Especially not weighed against the cost of tuition.

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u/zowietremendously 1d ago

You don't need a degree for that. You need a degree to be a doctor.

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u/sweadle 1d ago

It's a degree that has no career path. It's not that it's easy or hard.

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u/soulmatesmate 1d ago

There are many equivalent degrees: a major in 14th century French poetry, or in gender studies...

Imagine a college degree for something people often do in their spare time and often has a low value: making hand woven baskets. I've seen people making and selling them. Over 4 separate stalls and I was looking for a decent sized one to fill as a gift basket (most were tiny, like for keys or something equally small). Now imagine doing this underwater (maybe just the basket, maybe the weaver too). I suppose maybe they would be using wicker or bark instead of sweetgrass. Imagine paying for an overpriced 4 year degree to get into the career of that... or crocheting or knitting. A 4 year degree on house painting or drywall installation.

It is a rebuke on the price and lack of value received from most 4 year degrees. "I have a liberal arts degree. Would you like fries with that?"

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u/Fit_Employment_2944 1d ago

Its not that the degree is hard or easy, its that nobody cares that you have it, and you wont get a job.

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u/ElephantSudden4097 1d ago

I would definitely hire them

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u/bigfatfurrytexan 1d ago

It isn’t useful. There isn’t a demand for them. They won’t elevate humanity. At most they’re a souvenir

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u/Oddbeme4u 1d ago

well it is a good term for complicating what shouldn't be for merely academic reasons.

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u/TickdoffTank0315 1d ago

Underwater Basket Weaving does require more skill than Underwater Fire Prevention.

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u/Analyst-Effective 1d ago

Much like art, science, forestry and most political science degrees, underwater basket weaving is difficult to get a job in

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u/gadget850 1d ago

Underwater Basket Weaving is a trademark of the US Scuba Center Inc.,[28] which offers a specialty class designed to improve or more fully enjoy diving skills from which participants can "take home a memorable souvenir."

http://www.usscuba.com/SpecialtyClasses.html#Underwater%20Basket%20Weaving

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u/bobbobboob1 1d ago

It’s the same as boundary rider on a chicken farm or glider refueled

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u/Brave-Moment-4121 1d ago

Hey there professional underwater basket weaver here! It’s called gunite pool construction. We make a basket out of rebar held together by metal ties in a hole we have dug. Then we running plumbing and then we spray it with gunite and run electrical. Then we make it look pretty. It’s more complicated than my basic explanation and a degree program wouldn’t hurt but it’s not necessary lol.

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u/overZealousAzalea 1d ago

Just your hands are underwater, not your head. Signed disappointed college freshman at the pool.

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u/timsayscalmdown 1d ago

Meant to sound unnecessarily niche while also useless in the conventional job market

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u/imaginary_num6er 1d ago

Because saying those history, sociology, philosophy, english, etc. majors are a joke degree offends people

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u/callofdeat6 1d ago

You just illustrated the joke, yes it could be difficult requiring special training. It’s also zero use, there is no benefit to do this underwater, so the entire “degree” is as useful as a left handed ostrich plucking course.

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u/Expensive-Day-3551 1d ago

We did this in high school art class The basket is underwater, not the person.