The beauty about writing an essay about nothing is that you don't have to actually do anything. There is no need for any introduction, explanation or conclusion. It is the perfect subject and in the future I feel sure that education institutes the world over will offer the subject as a degree.
Whilst studying nothing you get 3 or 4 years at university, funded largely by the government and your parents. This should be seen as an advance from the government for the huge taxes you will be paying for the 40 odd years that you will work once you've finshed your course. I say huge taxes as, afterall, people with degrees get a higher salary on average than those without.
You can also learn nothing in any area. I have chosen to learn nothing about Government and Politics, but I am just as sufficiently qualified to learn nothing in any subject area that I choose.
The point is that this is what degrees are becoming - exactly nothing. As a larger percentage of the population goes to university it seems that you now need a masters degree to stand out from the rest of the crowd. Currently the highest qualification available is a PHD, but how long can this last. As the elite need to be recognised as so by attaining higher qualifications, more people are doing masters courses and in turn more are doing PHD's, leaving the question of what next? Maybe the government should stop offering degrees to every individual that wants one and instead show it as a real level of education again, something that one can be proud of, and not just a bit of paper that can be achieved by a couple of good essays or projects and no real work in the meantime.