# mickey mouse degrees university degrees regarded as worthless not to be confused with disney college program mickey mouse degrees (or mickey mouse courses) is a term for university degree courses regarded as worthless or irrelevant. the term is a dysphemism originating in the common usage of "mickey mouse" as a pejorative. it came to prominence in the uk after use by the country's national tabloids in canada bird courses refer to courses "requiring little work or intellectual ability" but the canadian term has no connotations of irrelevance. also any specific course can be a bird course for some but not a bird course for others. so the canadian term is not equivalent to the british term # origins the term was used by the minister of state for universities margaret hodge during a discussion on higher education expansion. hodge defined a mickey mouse course as "one where the content is perhaps not as rigorous as one would expect and where the degree itself may not have huge relevance in the labor market"; and that furthermore "simply stacking up numbers on mickey mouse courses is not acceptable". this opinion is often raised in the summer when exam results are released and new university courses revealed. the phrase took off in the late 1990s as the labor government created the target of having 50% of students in higher education by 2010 # examples comedian jay leno quipped that "in college philosophy majors study if the glass is half full or if the glass is half empty. see this prepares them for careers later as waiters." in 2000 staffordshire university received negative press coverage when a module on the sociological importance of football which had been designed for students taking sociology sports science or media studies was portrayed as a "degree in david beckham studies". a professor for the department stressed that the course would not focus on beckham and that the module examines "the rise of football from its folk origins in the 17th century to the power it's become and the central place it occupies in british culture and indeed world culture today". in july 2015 uk independence party mep louise bours referred to the module on question time but as though it was a full degree course. other degrees deemed "mickey mouse" include "golf management" and "surf science". durham university designed an optional module centred around harry potter to examine "prejudice citizenship and bullying in modern society" as part of a b.a. degree in education studies one thing these courses share is that they are "vocational" which are perceived to be less intellectually rigorous than the traditional academic degrees defenders of these courses object that the derogatory comments made in the media rely on the low symbolic capital of new subjects and rarely discuss course contents beyond the titles. another factor is the perception that the take up of these subjects and the decline of more traditional academic subjects like science engineering or mathematics is causing annual grade rise in the united kingdom # a-level subjects and "soft options" the a-level in general studies is seen as a mickey mouse subject as well as a-level critical thinking with many universities not accepting it as part of the requirements for an offer additionally although not considered mickey mouse subjects as such some qualifications are not preferred by top universities and are regarded as "soft options". a 2007 report stated that the sciences were more challenging than subjects such as media studies which might be taken by students to get higher grades for university applications. an american example is a degree in physical education. these have been issued to members of the college's athletics teams to make them eligible to play; otherwise they would fail to pass traditional subjects # see also **+** academic inflation **+** diploma mill **+** jodeldiplom_ **+** list of advanced level subjects **+** mrs degree **+** scholarly method **+** underwater basket weaving categories **+** academic degrees **+** academic scandals **+** criticism of academia **+** dysphemisms **+** mickey mouse **+** pejorative terms // republic of bob