It seems to me that I’ve been posting a lot about course selection and possible major choices.
Today, I attended an information meeting about a mentoring program (which is primarily directed at the life sciences, but ah well, whatever.) While I was listening to the presenter talk about how important it is to have a direction in life, she said something that really shook me out of my stupor.
Some people don’t know what they’re going to major in. Some people have no idea. At least you know you’re all in Science.
It immediately reminded me of the difficulty of choosing between Arts and Science. Everyone who reads this blog should be familiar enough with the arguments; I won’t go over them again. What that quote really triggered was the memory of a conversation I’d had with my English prof–we were chatting about my status as a Science student and I told him I was considering an English minor. Naturally, being an English prof, he didn’t see anything wrong with that :biggrin: But then he said: “After all, it’s not vocational school.”
I didn’t think much about it at the time. But it struck me, right in the middle of that presentation, that he was absolutely right. University isn’t vocational school. It’s about taking control of your education.
Strange. I like chemistry; I’d like to major in it, but all the same, I’m still wondering what I can do with it. “Research” is really just something I say to mask the fact that I have no idea what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. The average person spends 70,000 hours at work. That’s a lot of time.
Sad, isn’t it? As much as we would all like to rhapsodize about how we’re at university because we like to learn, the fact remains that ultimately, most of us are studying for the money (or glory, fame, prestige…) Or at the very least, security. The two can exist concurrently, but we like to think we have noble ideals that aren’t concerned with such mundane, prosaic things as money.
(On the other hand, I think that’s just my bias showing through. I hate commerce and economics, and I would never take a job in that sector.)
Neale Says: