[POLL] Which degree or major would you rather study?

[The Fens]

Besides where's finance in the options? Or accounting!

Ha sorry about that. Missed it. The options I listed is loosely based of a particular university that clumped them all under a faculty of business. I've updated the poll options!

[Vassenor]

You know my moral problem with free tuition is that there's people out there who want to waste that public assistance on so-called 'degrees' such as art or music, or otherwise are planning a career for which they totally do not need a degree for.

Besides where's finance in the options? Or accounting!

I think a population sufficiently educated in critical analysis is a good thing.

[Pasong Tirad]

You know my moral problem with free tuition is that there's people out there who want to waste that public assistance on so-called 'degrees' such as art or music, or otherwise are planning a career for which they totally do not need a degree for.

Besides where's finance in the options? Or accounting!

Yeah fuck the humanities who gives a shit about the liberal arts amirite?

And in case you haven't realized it yet, nobody was asking about the free tuition stuff. And whether or not you think the arts are useless says more about you than the scholars studying the humanities.

[Esternial]

I'm pretty content with my current degree, though in hindsight I might've opted to switch to the Master in Bioinformatics rather than the Master in Biochemistry and technology, with a major in bio-computing and system biology.

I don't know enough for an actual IT job like software development, so I'm limited mainly to R&D biotech jobs...or a PhD.

[Forsher]

In another life I might have studied geology and biology. It would have been a quite different life, but that will be my answer.

I'm studying a double degree in Economics and Law. As part of my Economics degree I'm also minoring in Political Science and International Relations. Generally speaking, I'm really enjoying my course(s), but as I progress I'm starting to feel like my degrees will be useless in the future.

I might have studied Engineering or Medicine (which has far more prospects than anything else, so I'm told by those around me), but I dislike Maths, Physics and Chemistry. I might have studied Science (and eventually go into my interest of Astronomy), but I dislike Physics.

1) Are you Australian?

2) Why are you studying economics if you don't like maths? Sooner or later you will meet E(U), U(E(X)), the Weierstrass Theorem, e-balls, PDFs, CDFs etc.

3) Don't listen to Trumptonium. Economics is like the natural sciences in that to really do economics you really need postgraduate qualifications. In this sense, what you're doing now may rightfully seem a little pointless because the payoff is behind, as it were, a paywall. Law is like accounting in that a certain kind of person is really drawn to it. Unlike accounting, however, there are more law graduates than, ahem, lawyery positions. And, frankly, it is in some respects a fairly limited and vocational paradigm so given there are much easier ways of getting the kind of jobs law degrees lead to that aren't covered under "lawyer" there may be a sense of uselessness. Both qualifications (esp. together), however, opens up a number policy positions and postgraduate qualifications... tax policy, short of designing/managing/running sanitation systems, is probably the easiest way to change the world.

If your point was about automation? Don't worry about it... concentrate on trucking right and things will fall into place and how your qualifications can be leveraged will become clear.

What's your opinion OP?

Also everyone is already free and has the full ability to choose any field of study, well at least those who don't live in communist and third world hellholes

Such a choice does not exist... this is a hopelessly naive view of agency. For one thing, consider the many reasons why labour is not perfectly mobile.

This is one reason why I call the Law a limited paradigm. You can take a contract, right? But not if there is coercion. The thing is, in a very real sense, every decision that I make is based on a field of possibility that can collapse only in specific ways. For many real world problems and academic questions, this is a point of view that has to be acknowledged. If we were to try and use this concept in the Law, contracts would usually not be upheld by courts. That's not a good thing. You can expand the thinking of the Law quite a lot but fundamentally for there to be a Law I feel you eventually reach a point where you go, "that's not what we're talking about". And that's a reasonable thing to do, it's just that even in finance you get people wondering if deviations from expected global temperature changes affect share prices (I understood this to be a bit like looking at inflationary expectations).

(The other thing with the Law is, well, read a big court case, judges love dem dat authority. There's something very... medieval about it... and it strikes me as odd. Again, there are very good reasons for this but let's just say that it is probably a good thing that not all politicians have law degrees.)

You know my moral problem with free tuition is that there's people out there who want to waste that public assistance on so-called 'degrees' such as art or music, or otherwise are planning a career for which they totally do not need a degree for.

Besides where's finance in the options? Or accounting!

Yeah fuck the humanities who gives a shit about the liberal arts amirite?

And in case you haven't realized it yet, nobody was asking about the free tuition stuff. And whether or not you think the arts are useless says more about you than the scholars studying the humanities.

If you think about thinking about it rationally, if you had a free university education you would actually expect a greater alignment of jobs with their requirements (i.e. careers that don't need degrees would ask for them less often). At the moment, asking for a degree is a way of screening applicants to ones you think are driven enough to take on a lot of debt. You possibly make a slight tradeoff because underemployed people tend to lower productivity (due to boredom being a communicable disease), but it at least means you can infer something about the "type" of applicants. If university was free, people with degrees might just have been aimless wanderers who went to university for want of a better alternative. This happens now, of course, but you can rationally assume the debt weeds them out.

If you think about thinking rationally, that is. (Compare the 2/3 of the average game where 9/10 thinking about it rationally is actually means thinking about irrationality.)

I assure you costa has no knowledge of STDs

I think the more salient point is that Costa hasn't been to university.

That being said, my friends and I have a joke that our presence in a building lowers its net worth. And our debt doesn't even have interest.

[Sovaal]

Biology

[Gig em Aggies]

well if I could be very good at math then I would most certainly do Aerospace engineering but I'm not besides I'm about a month and 2-3 week away from graduating from University w/ a BA degree in History and a minor in Criminal Justice

[Christian Bail]

I'm planning on going into skilled trades rather than college

[Forsher]

I'm planning on going into skilled trades rather than college

Fair play, but if you did want to get a degree, in what would you major? What would an alternative universe you want to read?

[Thermodolia]

None. The only thing universities give us are STD's and huge amounts of debt.

It's called a condom for the first part. As for the second part, true.

The second part can be largely avoided if you get scholarships or have things like the GI bill. If I ever go back to school that what I'm using; the GI bill and the CIA scholarship program.

[Thermodolia]

You know my moral problem with free tuition is that there's people out there who want to waste that public assistance on so-called 'degrees' such as art or music, or otherwise are planning a career for which they totally do not need a degree for.

Besides where's finance in the options? Or accounting!

Which is why we restrict the free tuition to those who are studying STEM, medical, or legal professions.

[The Archregimancy]

<looks at his BA, MA, and DPhil degrees>

Archaeology, apparently.

[Forsher]

<looks at his BA, MA, and DPhil degrees>

Archaeology, apparently.

*is that what kind of doctor will you be Facebook page*
*examines profile*

*Cardiology.

(I've seen the page in action twice. Both times it said cardiology. The first time I was impressed, dude in question is thinking of cardiothoracic surgery, the second time I concluded it was a joke I didn't get.)

[United States of Red Dawn]

Law and Political Science; God, how I wish I had. Because the two go hand in hand, and there can be a lot change made with them together. I did study to be a Paralegal but dropped it.

[Pilarcraft]

Law and Political Science; God, how I wish I had. Because the two go hand in hand, and there can be a lot change made with them together. I did study to be a Paralegal but dropped it.

If I ever travel abroad, I'm definitely planning on studying those two lol

[Aellex]

You know my moral problem with free tuition is that there's people out there who want to waste that public assistance on so-called 'degrees' such as art or music, or otherwise are planning a career for which they totally do not need a degree for.

Besides where's finance in the options? Or accounting!

I think a population sufficiently educated in critical analysis is a good thing.

You can get that and a degree that will land you an actual job, you know?
I mean, today, there is no STEM degree that do not require you to have some hours of your mother tongue, up to two foreign tongues and some philosophy in top of it.
That is plenty enough scholastically speaking, the rest is only up to you.

[Valgora]

You know my moral problem with free tuition is that there's people out there who want to waste that public assistance on so-called 'degrees' such as art or music, or otherwise are planning a career for which they totally do not need a degree for.

Besides where's finance in the options? Or accounting!

Which is why we restrict the free tuition to those who are studying STEM, medical, or legal professions.

What if someone double majors in biology and music?

Also, having a degree in a science is not required to get into medical school. Yes most people who go have a biology degree; however, someone with a music degree can get in, same with an accounting major, any major will do.

Not only that but what about things like sociology, anthropology, history, political science, english, writing, linguistics?

Free tuition should apply to everyone regardless of major.

And going to college is going to increase critical thinking no matter what degree, so having people who use/have used/whatever critical thinking is a good thing.

[Telconi]

Law. I would love to go back, unfortunately life had gotten in the way. Maybe in like 3 years once Mrs. Telconi finishes her degree.

You know my moral problem with free tuition is that there's people out there who want to waste that public assistance on so-called 'degrees' such as art or music, or otherwise are planning a career for which they totally do not need a degree for.

Besides where's finance in the options? Or accounting!

I think a population sufficiently educated in critical analysis is a good thing.

We already offer far more education for free than most student's utilize or retain, you really don't need to go to a university to learn critical thinking and reason.

[Engleberg]

Currently working on getting into neurosurgery, so of course I've already done biology for my major.

[Dooom35796821595]

I want a major in something fun.

Like high explosives.

I think the applicable security service would like a word with you.

[Forsher]

I think a population sufficiently educated in critical analysis is a good thing.

You can get that and a degree that will land you an actual job, you know?
I mean, today, there is no STEM degree that do not require you to have some hours of your mother tongue, up to two foreign tongues and some philosophy in top of it.
That is plenty enough scholastically speaking, the rest is only up to you.

0 foreign languages is up to two... You might have been lucky enough to live somewhere that has a history of teaching a second language but this is not the case in the Anglosphere (for the most part), except in non-systematic and very individual fashions.

Nor is it true that "STEM" is a good way to get jobs. Maths is... a broadly applicable field but there aren't so many jobs out their for mathematicians per se and those that are... require research experience (i.e. postgrad). It is easier to find work for statistical and data science skillsets/knowledge... but neither of these fields are quite encapsulated within "science" or "technology" or "maths" or all three (c.f. market research, actuarial analysis, demography etc.). Becoming a maths teacher is probably a decent option if employability is a concern... maths is a subject that is eternally crisis struck (I suspect because there are few majors in maths who just do maths and because there are few maths majors in general). Point is, M is a mixed bag.

Engineering always has jobs. When people say STEM I'd say at least 50% of them are actually talking about engineering... and some of them won't even know this is the case.

Technology is unusual. It's not really a thing. It's often not even something you need a degree for. Probably really just engineers who make/design stuff used by consumers and IT professionals... not sure of generalised state of that labour market.

Science is where things really fall apart for STEM-love narratives. Jobs are difficult to get and actually fairly rare. They require further study to obtain or are low paid and wage-slavish. The work itself is often routinely derided on the grounds of applicability and as a result employment is overly contingent on being able to secure funding interests.* The lot of the research scientist doesn't track well with the STEM trope.

Other kinds of scientists are out there but I'm falling asleep so name in and I'll find a position on them.

Oh, and critical thinking is probably just a buzzword too, but I've forgotten why.

*Cue the military funding jokes.... it's a bit like that cartoon of the lawyers where one says to the other, "Remember, we can only do all this pro-bono because of how much the anti-bono pays".

[Salandriagado]

Where the fuck is Maths?


Maths, anyway. You can tell by how I did have a completely free choice, and did choose to study it.

[Salandriagado]

You know my moral problem with free tuition is that there's people out there who want to waste that public assistance on so-called 'degrees' such as art or music, or otherwise are planning a career for which they totally do not need a degree for.

Besides where's finance in the options? Or accounting!

Which is why we restrict the free tuition to those who are studying STEM, medical, or legal professions.

What are you going to do about the first half of the degree (in the US), where nobody has declared yet?

I think a population sufficiently educated in critical analysis is a good thing.

You can get that and a degree that will land you an actual job, you know?
I mean, today, there is no STEM degree that do not require you to have some hours of your mother tongue, up to two foreign tongues and some philosophy in top of it.

That's just not true at all. In particular, I did precisely zero study of my mother tongue, foreign languages, or philosophy during my STEM degree.

[Western-Ukraine]

Ideally, I would pursue a physics degree. A chance to utilise both an interest for science and mathematics. In reality though, I have many more interests and duties in life. Pursuing a degree in medicine secures a stable living for me most likely, however, while catering to my interest in biology and research. A physics degree would result in much more uncertainty, however successful many physicists become.

[Methodological Individualism]

Natural sciences, mainly because controlled experiment is at least a remote possibility.

I actually studied social scien(tism), where it is still quite popular to believe that statistical hypothesis testing in the absense of controlled experiment can possibly be meaningful.

Oops.