THE BORE

General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: TVC15 on December 01, 2008, 11:17:04 PM

Title: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: TVC15 on December 01, 2008, 11:17:04 PM

???

Also, I have to take a math placement test.  Prole can confirm that last week, I discovered that I had completely forgotten just about everything concerning fractions.  And anything I learned in high school.  I still recall plenty from them there useless/easy discrete math courses that I took in college, though.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Brehvolution on December 01, 2008, 11:18:48 PM

I"d have to go with Psychology. You have a great test group at your disposal.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: TVC15 on December 01, 2008, 11:19:34 PM

I'm very interested in psychology, but the fatal flaw there is that I don't like other people, which kinda limits the usefulness of the field.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Greatness Gone on December 01, 2008, 11:20:04 PM

Sociology. Easy as fuck.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Human Snorenado on December 01, 2008, 11:20:05 PM

I said fake titties, but really anything on the list other than sociology is acceptable.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Van Cruncheon on December 01, 2008, 11:20:09 PM

seriously, psych is your thing. go far enough, and you can write your own prescriptions

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Van Cruncheon on December 01, 2008, 11:20:58 PM

Quote from: TVC 15 on December 01, 2008, 11:19:34 PM

I'm very interested in psychology, but the fatal flaw there is that I don't like other people, which kinda limits the usefulness of the field.

research, mang. also writing papers, fucking undergrads, and murder-orgies at faculty retreats on the coast

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: BlueTsunami on December 01, 2008, 11:23:33 PM

Yeah, the whole "researching mundane actions of humans" when it comes to Psychology, sounds grating. Now more low level neurological stuff would be me interesting (to me). Fortunately, I believe Psychology branches down that path. Sociology is :zzz

I say research new ways to score some shit

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Rman on December 01, 2008, 11:28:37 PM

Quote from: TVC 15 on December 01, 2008, 11:19:34 PM

I'm very interested in psychology, but the fatal flaw there is that I don't like other people, which kinda limits the usefulness of the field.

In my experience, most psychologist don't like people either.  :'( 

You could always focus on research, dude.  Don't you have like tons of ''research'' ideas to test out?

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Olivia Wilde Homo on December 01, 2008, 11:35:53 PM

What kind of Psychology would you be interested in?

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Barry Egan on December 01, 2008, 11:36:41 PM

If you're already going down the road of the 'soft' sciences, you should just go all out, come to my school and get a degree in continental philosophy.

Foucault.  Nietzsche. Hegel. Freud. Heidegger. :rock :rock :rock

:piss Reductionist Science :piss2

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: MyNameIsMethodis on December 01, 2008, 11:37:56 PM

Philosophy <3

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Phoenix Dark on December 01, 2008, 11:38:35 PM

Quote from: Professor Prole on December 01, 2008, 11:20:09 PM

seriously, psych is your thing. go far enough, and you can write your own prescriptions

only if he becomes a psychiatrist. which means=med school. Might as well become a dentist if you're going to med school. Then you could work for my dad

Sociology :piss2

math :piss2 :piss2

accounting :piss2 :piss2 :piss2

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: BlueTsunami on December 01, 2008, 11:40:05 PM

Would be awesome if TVC went into the medical field and become the Gregory House of some progressive Washington state Hospital.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Olivia Wilde Homo on December 01, 2008, 11:40:24 PM

Better than Engineering though.  Right now, I'd rather sodomize myself on a redwood than go through Engineering again.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: TVC15 on December 01, 2008, 11:40:39 PM

Quote from: Chipopo on December 01, 2008, 11:36:41 PM

If you're already going down the road of the 'soft' sciences, you should just go all out, come to my school and get a degree in continental philosophy.

Foucault.  Nietzsche. Hegel. Freud. Heidegger. :rock :rock :rock

:piss Reductionist Science :piss2

Foucault is what got me into sociology.  I'm not very interested in wasting money on a philosophy degree, though.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Barry Egan on December 01, 2008, 11:40:42 PM

seriously.  If you want access to drugs, you can pretty much get any degree you want since you'll have to go to med school anyway.  In fact, med schools tilt slightly towards student who major in arts degrees (as long as you take the proper pre-med courses, of course).  

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Bildi on December 01, 2008, 11:46:14 PM

Quote from: Thanks But No Thanks on December 01, 2008, 11:38:35 PM

accounting :piss2 :piss2 :piss2

It's a common misconception, as in actuality accountants are rad.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Phoenix Dark on December 01, 2008, 11:56:10 PM

Quote from: Bildi on December 01, 2008, 11:46:14 PM

Quote from: Thanks But No Thanks on December 01, 2008, 11:38:35 PM

accounting :piss2 :piss2 :piss2

It's a common misconception, as in actuality accountants are rad.

How come the classes suck so much? Granted I'll be able to find a job real easy once I graduate, and the pay is great...but accounting :piss2

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Fresh Prince on December 01, 2008, 11:58:18 PM

Pyschology. imo most sociology students end up working in policy or doing office work. Pyschology + something useful would be the go.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: TVC15 on December 01, 2008, 11:59:02 PM

Quote from: Genghis Cohen on December 01, 2008, 11:50:29 PM

Eschatology.  And painkillers.

I don't think I'll really need to study eschatology.  Once word of my research becomes public, people will just assume I'm the anti-christ, and I'd like the public to think I'm a natural phenom at it and that I didn't need to study up.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: TVC15 on December 02, 2008, 12:25:36 AM

Anyway, here's where I stand:

I find psychology very interesting.  I have for years and years.  If I didn't have some bad experiences with psychologists and psychiatrists back as a teenager, I think there is a very strong possibility I would have been interested in pursuing the field.  As hinted at before, I'm not interested in helping people or anything like that.  If I were to pursue it to a professional end, it would have to be as a researcher or something like that.  Maybe with my background as a writer and editor I could land a position on a mag or something.

I find sociology very interesting, but I fear that the aspects of sociology I like (think, say, the critical theorists of the latter half of the 20th century) are both not seen as relevant today and not exactly the dictionary definition of sociology.  People like Barthes and Foucault and Baudrillard belong to like a half dozen other fields in addition to sociology, so it's really only a small piece of what I'm interested in.  With that said, sociology is probably the closest one could get to what they did without engulfing oneself into a half dozen different disciplines.

When I stand back and look at my interests and see how interested I am in media, and power structures in society, and how fucked up the educational system is, I think those map close to sociology.  Or at least how I've mapped sociology.  And of course, things get even more complicated when you realize that there's a lot of sociology in psychology and a lot of psychology in sociology.

In the end, I think I'm skewing towards psychology because I have the sinking suspicion that taught sociology isn't what I'd like.   Statistics show that 75-80% of sociology degrees go to women, which means that the way sociology is taught is probably not very interesting or rigorous.  So I guess I'll go with psychology and keep reading my faggy French dudes when I'm going to bed.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: drew on December 02, 2008, 12:27:53 AM

psychology

sociology is more interesting but less $

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: TVC15 on December 02, 2008, 12:32:22 AM

Cohen, gimme some wines to drink.  I'm on a kick.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Oblivion on December 02, 2008, 12:34:40 AM

Quote from: TVC 15 on December 01, 2008, 11:40:39 PM

Quote from: Chipopo on December 01, 2008, 11:36:41 PM

If you're already going down the road of the 'soft' sciences, you should just go all out, come to my school and get a degree in continental philosophy.

Foucault.  Nietzsche. Hegel. Freud. Heidegger. :rock :rock :rock

:piss Reductionist Science :piss2

Foucault is what got me into sociology.  I'm not very interested in wasting money on a philosophy degree, though.

Dude, you'd be wasting money on a Soc. degree as well. (and I say that as a history major!) It's the token major for jocks who need something in place of a REAL degree just to graduate from college.

Go with Psych. You could make some good money with dat shit, plus it sounds like you're into the subject anyhow.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Greatness Gone on December 02, 2008, 12:42:27 AM

Sociology is so not boring.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Mr. Gundam on December 02, 2008, 12:47:04 AM

Quote from: TVC 15 on December 01, 2008, 11:19:34 PM

I'm very interested in psychology, but the fatal flaw there is that I don't like other people, which kinda limits the usefulness of the field.

It's a lot easier to shun people in Psychology than Sociology.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Phoenix Dark on December 02, 2008, 01:05:11 AM

that's what Putin said

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: TVC15 on December 02, 2008, 01:06:40 AM

My requirements are that an entire bottle of it has to get me drunk.  I drank an entire nice bottle of pinot grigio and I barely felt it.  The next night I did a moderately priced zinfandel and I didn't get high at all.  I'm like immune to alcohol.  I need something with kick.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: TVC15 on December 02, 2008, 01:29:51 AM

I have heard of neither of those.  Will I have to go to a fancy wine store for those or will they likely have em at the grocery store?

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: drohne on December 02, 2008, 01:32:56 AM

what fields of learning haven't been corrupted by french theorists at this point? the hard sciences maybe? i voted for painkillers

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Don Flamenco on December 02, 2008, 02:12:58 AM

I did soc undergrad, graduating in 3 weeks.  so my school supposedly has the best soc program in the country, but I definitely would not do it again if I could go back in time.  

That's good that you have an interest in the fucked up power structures in society--you get to hear plenty about that in a variety of topics. It gets repetitive as hell. Unfortunately, in the wrong hands, this can lead to an awful class where it's thinly veiled bitching.  I was really into it at first, but I began to think more critically and found myself feeling like I was getting a lot of unchecked rants thrown at me by professors and TAs.  A lot of the classes here have a discussion component where you get to listen to other people attempt at coming up with their own theory-supported rants as well.  On the other hand, other courses are very heavily based in statistics.  

As for research, if you're very self-motivated, you can put together a senior thesis or an independent study, but you'll probably just have one research method focused course as a requirement.  Research goes on more at the graduate level here, though there are opportunities to get involved.  

I don't think guys like Baudrillard, Foucault, Zisek or other multi-disciplinary thinkers were mentioned once in any of my soc classes. I learned of them through friends in other disciplines.  Few of the courses offered here are based in theory only.  If they aren't grounded in hard data, then observational and historical sources are used.  When theory is discussed, it's usually Weber, Durkheim, Comte, or Marx. Some higher level courses go a bit more into theory.

but all in all, it's a dead end unless you plan to go right to grad or law school--soc does exercise your brain and teach you some good critical thinking and writing skills.  On the other hand, psych at least gives you job opportunities.  I would go with psych or something else, while reading some of the soc classics on the side.  Both are fine for people who don't like other people, though you'll always run into kids who expect you to want to save the world and be highly socially active, probably more so in soc than psych.

 

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Barry Egan on December 02, 2008, 06:49:52 AM

I wonder what job opportunities you guys are thinking about when you recommend psych?  There's no way you'll get a research job without getting at least a masters in psych.  Research in general is an extremely competitive and devastatingly underfunded field in the US. 

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: tiesto on December 02, 2008, 09:30:53 AM

What about art history, seems like it would be a bit up your alley?

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: drozmight on December 02, 2008, 11:14:11 AM

Come be an En garish major with me here at U.

Right now I'm trying to figure out what the fuck Percy Bysshe Shelley's trying to say in "Mont Blanc" in regards to the idealism/empiricism conflict?  Man, I'm not a fan of Romantic poetry (the course is almost over though).





Do Psych man!  Seems like it'd be interesting.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: CurseoftheGods on December 03, 2008, 12:46:11 AM

I did psychology in undergrad, and I loved it.

Sociology is boring as fuck.

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Tristam on December 03, 2008, 01:42:32 AM

 :piss Continental philosophy :piss2

:bow Analytic philosophy :bow2

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: ch1nchilla on December 03, 2008, 02:04:25 AM

 :bow $ :bow2

spoiler (click to show/hide)

psychology

[close]

Title: Re: okay I need to make a decision. Help a lad out.
Post by: Barry Egan on December 03, 2008, 08:06:17 AM

Quote from: Tristam on December 03, 2008, 01:42:32 AM

:piss Continental philosophy :piss2

:bow Analytic philosophy :bow2

:bow Wittgenstein :bow2

:bow J.L. Austin :bow2

:piss every other analytic philosopher :piss2