Foreign Perspectives

Clearly there are topics that are largely of interest to males and those that are largely of interest to females but which is which isn’t always as clear ahead of signing up for a course as you might expect.

For instance, languages are usually very much seen as a female thing. However, the mix of the sexes on my courses was generally around 75/25 in favour of males. Even on the English language course that I did last year (generally taken as part of an English Language & Literature degree) there were quite a number of us guys on it.

Although the current Child Development course is basically filling in a slot of a psychology degree, considering children is generally seen as womens’ work (yeah, I know, a stereotypical sexist generalisation but still largely true these days), what really struck me was that it looks like it’s something like 90/10 in favour of females. To be fair a lot of them are coming to the course from the perspective of being teachers or otherwise looking after kids professionally but if anything it’s a course that the guys could do with going on.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Since lots of people would really love a quick-fix to their weight problem, it’s a little odd that the sales side of diet pills is very much in the category of “weight loss pills click here” advertising.

Even more oddly is that there’s almost as much in the way of advice based advertising sites as there are sites devoted to particular types of diet pills. Those are definitely needed in that not only are the range of diet pills out these days is massive but the number of different ranges is almost as large: is it a fat burner you’re looking for or is it something to turn up your metabolism or perhaps something else altogether?

It is a little puzzling as to why the advertising needs to be so much “in your face” though…

Popularity: 2% [?]

If you look back at the films featuring cruises from 20 or more years ago or an oldish travel programme you’d think that there are only luxury cruise vacations.

However, these days that’s far from the case as cruise companies have greatly broadened their offerings to include a number of options in the budget range. The difference from the luxury cruise holidays of yesteryear aren’t as great as you might expect. Granted, you’ll find that the cabin on offer is probably going to be basic so rather than having a bath it’s going to be a shower and rather than carpet you’ll find plain flooring. Outside the cabin though you’ll generally find much more on offer than even the most luxurious cruise liner would have offered as recently as a few decades ago.

Different too are the routes on offer. In the era of the luxury-only cruise the routes could be lengthy affair but these days the standard two week vacation time means that lots of short duration cruises are in the catalogs and since long haul flights are also available today you can find 10 day cruises on offer right around the world.

So, don’t let that high price image of yee olde worlde cruise has put you off, check out the latest prices. Chances are, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Popularity: 2% [?]