what was your "major" in university/college

interesting how engineering hasn't been broken down. mechnical engineering, electrical engineering, and chemical engineering are all different things.

+ civil engineering

phrenology

xp yeah i had guessed that those were the big four but there are too many others i wouldn't know how to deal with (software, bio, energy, etc.) + regional quirks (many people here are in mining engineering ¯\(°_o)/¯) for me to feel comfortable dividing it up like that

History ;_;

English specialist, film major, philosophy wipeout.

doubled in engineering. electrical and aerospace.

voted computer science but I went to a hippie school where I designed my own major so I did smatterings of philosophy, cognitive science, crit thy, blah, w/e

Middle English Lit + American History

LOL "art school" ;_;

Philosophy

history, but i was/am america's worst student

^^^ badly practiced history

Looking back, I'd like to have doubled in a language, maybe French.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqiMfPe6U7g

we've done this, haven't we? English lit, would do history or sociology if I had it to do over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqiMfPe6U7g

Law. Would probably have done something different had i known how little use it was going to be but it was interesting all the same.

journalism

we've done this, haven't we?

― horseshoe, Monday, 3 September 2012 14:42 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i couldn't find it

English.

but probably should've been a business major

"sooooooo.....what's your major?"

lol ilx and such. let's see how demographics shift over a few years.

I graduated from a college (The Evergreen State College) that did not have majors. So, 'other'.

political science/Econ double B.A., tho I will be dong an educational administration M.A. in the next few years

other science program (not physics/chem/bio) but if i could go back i'd do english then go to med school

wouldn't it be easier to go to med school w/ a sci ug?

nb: idk

BEng Electrical & Electronic Engineering followed by MSc Electronic Circuit Design & Manufacture. I now work for a utility but don't really do anything that is too directly relevant to either.

If I could go back I'd do something different. Maths, economics or architecture, not sure.

went to film school aka "you are making a mistake with your life"

arts degree may as well have been clown college as far as my family & their friends were concerned.
"arts? like painting?"

Voted for Computer Science, but that's what I should have done. What I actually did was C0mputer Inf0rmation 5ystems De5ign (G00gl3p00f3d because it's on my CV/resume)

I spent way too many years earning a degree in Anthropology and all I got was a burning hatred of Evolutionary Psychologists.

My art degree made a great substitute for the toilet paper I couldn't afford to buy.

English. Only finished 3 months ago, so still waiting to see how it all pans out.

Popular culture (basically an English degree with all the lit theory applied to film, tv, music, pornography, etc etc) with philosophy. Voted cultural studies as closest.

chem & physics but only finished chem

i wanted to be a quantum mechanic but lo and behold, you can't earn a BS in physics, you have to earn a BA, which basically meant another year of humanities electives (whee!) so fuck that, i dropped it

instead i became a very mediocre oceanographer, thx college

Journalism, English minor. What a horribly formed "joke."

mechanical engineering but became a control systems engineer by practice. Now I test power system engineering software.

Popular culture ... with philosophy.
― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy)

does that mean you are qualified to write a "The Philosophy Of... (Popular TV Show/Movie)" book?

BA: English Lit/creative writing MA: Women's Health

Silby did you go to Hampshire?

we've done this, haven't we? English lit, would do history or sociology if I had it to do over.

― horseshoe, Monday, September 3, 2012 2:42 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

HOLLER

Yeah, if I could do it over I wouldn't have done English. I think I would do sociology and then go to med school.

If I could do it over I would go the public health to med school route. Get all that torture out of the way before I was too old to know better, and then have a satisfying and high-paying career!

i somehow have a degree in psychology despite never being interested in psychology and never reading any original source material from any prominent figure in the field.

I double majored in English lit and Sociology, but I did my honours year in English only.

xp from what i've experienced that's the psychology standard. but at least you know lots of silly experiments that you can bring up to explain away any and all social phenomena.

i did philosophy and i'm still doing philosophy, maybe this'll be something to regret when i find myself on the job market, but not just yet.

I enjoyed my degree. Did a Graduate Diploma in Education to get a teaching credential which I hated & never pursued after graduation though - the only do-over would be not taking the Dip Ed & doing Honors in Middle English instead.

I went back to college 3 years ago (Im 35 now). Im currently studying New Media and English literature. I did Journalism after I finished secondary school but dropped out after a year.

in some ways i regret my major (english lit.) bc it really doesn't contribute tangibles to a lucrative career outside of the college. i do think there are communication skills + cultural skills you can get from it, but they're hard to quantify (nomath). at the same time, i regret none of the classes i took in my major and i feel like my life has been enriched + made beautiful by spending 4 years of my life reading + discussing beautiful world literature.

yeah, i mean, i loved the shit out of college but in retrospect i think 32 English classes was a poor choice.

made it 6 mths into comp sys, ended up doing business. oh the regrets

x-post otm

i regret that ulysses class where all anyone would talk about was fucking mime

high school english was such an enthusiasm abattoir i did not take a single english class in college

huh what does ulysses have to do with mime

nothing or almost nothing evidently, but what could ulysses conceivably have to do with mime

i regret that useless class where all we did was mime fucking

haha there were a lot of theater kids in the class; they brought their interests to the table

other: nursing.

molly bloom giving a climactic series of thumbs-up

high school english was such an enthusiasm abattoir i did not take a single english class in college

― a hauntingly unemployed american (difficult listening hour), Monday, September 3, 2012 7:48 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i am so sorry. :( hope i'm not doing this to my kids

well also i had kind of an Attitude about it

anyway it depends how many dioramas you are assigning them

haha there were a lot of theater kids in the class; they brought their interests to the table

― horseshoe, Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:03 AM (3 minutes ago)

haha this was so easy to do in lit classes! nearly every lit prof I had like wanted you to be bold and go off course int he discussion. I guess. I guess that's whay it happened so often. I had some 20th century Brit novel class which was just a lot of post-colonial stuff, genocides, and we had two presentations one day: mine, about tapirs, which was specifically meant to soothe my extreme genocide burnout. And another guy's which was basically turn the lights off and do meditative breathing exercises for half an hour. His may have come from the same inner place as mine.

FOr the final paper I made a fake zine called "Rock and Roles" which was about gender in pop music and had 0% to do with anythign – actually it talked a lot about mimesis, which had been a big theme of the class (also for no reason afict). I made the zine under the hypothesis that the professor would really appreciate my bold approach to ignoring rubrics! ANd I was right. I took three classes from this guy, it went real well with my smoke weed every day approach to life I had at the time. Thinking back on this I would not change anything.

horseshow you should read Readicide by Kelly Gallagher

your professors must have loved you, abbs.

xp i will!

also would like to read "Rock and Roles" if you have it lying around somewhere!

a fake zine called "Rock and Roles"

A+

I don't think I have it anymore! I made it when I was working at Kinko's so it was full color, too, pretttty sexy.

i have a BFA in Creative Writing (courses included journalism, non-fiction workshops, poetry workshops, critical thinking/cultural studies, photography)
took a bunch of fine arts courses (art history, music history, film, totally avoided theatre (even tho i was into it in hs) and studio art departments) to get the BFA rather than a BA, plus English Lit, etc. Artsy artsy. Occasionally i missed doing math or titrating stuff, bc i had had serious thoughts about science majoring, but mostly i was happy and worked pretty hard when i wasn't biking or camping or at a party.
did the work-study/co-op option, worked 5 semesters, made money, got work experience
applied to law school in my last year of undergrad, got in, ran away from that
have always had degree-related jobs, even when i was in grad school (media studies)
still, somehow, really enjoy the high of writing (though not the procrastination/stress route to doing it. constant battle.)

I think if I had to go back and change my major it would be to something even MORE useless like drawing. I kind of regret not taking more art classes. Actually it is obvious I totally regret it because I cry and feel all these deep longings every time I read a bio of a drawer I like – Schulz, Gorey (though Gorey was self-taught!).

we did frankenstein in high school and the big assignment was you had to make, like construct, a "monster", and then present it to the class w backstory or something, and my friend and i made a movie in which, not wanting to do the assignment ourselves, we decided to create a monster to do it for us, but the monster (a hefty bag with water in it) escaped and we set out across town looking for it. at the end of the movie it started raining hard and we jumped around in puddles w a girl who was also in the class while a title crawl explained that we had failed to complete the project. we got a B.

I was a biol major for a while but I was totally fronting with it. I love science and all but part of it came from an 'I'm growing up' embarrassment at humanities, art, feelings, pretensions, etc, you know – all that stuff that if I am being honest means the world to me.

BA: English Lit/creative writing MA: Women's Health

Silby did you go to Hampshire?

― (✿◠‿◠) (ENBB), Monday, September 3, 2012 7:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes! yes I did.

Awesome - it's a great school. I just remembered where you are and your description of it made me figure that must have been the one. :)

its probably a good thing that time machines don't exist cause then this country would be flooded w/ doctors

i just want to be a marginally employed person who can apply a knowledge of statistics to my understanding of race, class and gender!

lol

I just really like science and weird health stuff and want to help people. Also, I'm actually pretty good at it.

But mostly I just wish I'd had the foresight to choose a major/career pat h that wouldn't have resulted in a lifetime of soul crushingly boring desk jobs that make me want to die.

most of those career paths involve *not* going to college, I think

BA: english lit/creative writing (small state school in central new york)
MPL: urban planning (giant football school)

i should have gone to business school.

I am kind of jealous of people who have read many great works of literature & are able to discuss them on a high level.

i have adhd. i never remember the books i've read.

I wanted to write videogames. Then I realized I could make more predictable money modeling military logistics. Now I write software that allows evil corporations to pretend they aren't so evil.

I have resisted grad school but I just read an article about global executive MBA programs that just sound super fucking cool

do they prepare you to rule the world?

if i hadn't already followed my dream into a sinkhole i would go for an mba -- try to find one of the less douchey programs out there, like a "sustainable mba" or something.

they introduce you to other people w/ connections and you do kegstands w/ them for 2 years

xxp: pretty much; they do things like "2 week unit in Shanghai, followed by 2 week unit in Mumbai, followed by 2 week unit in some other random place, followed by a week at wherever the school your program runs from is, rinse and repeat"

a large part of it sounds like a massive money sink but a larger part just sounds like a really cool experience

like, if I'm gonna get a vanity degree, I want the one that has me globetrotting

I've always felt that sending kids to live in a bunch of different countries over 4 years would be a better learning experience then sending them to some random rural place w/ a big football stadium

it's hard not to learn things in foreign countries, even if you hate learning things, you have no choice

haha otm

pilgrimage rites are great social ritual

I think maybe even more important that choosing a different major, if I had it all to do over again I would not have gone as a straight out of HS 17 year old. I would have taken at least one year off first. I was too young.

I am kind of jealous of people who have read many great works of literature & are able to discuss them on a high level.

― crüt, Monday, September 3, 2012 8:49 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

go read this, or, better, don't

I think if I had to go back and change my major it would be to something even MORE useless like drawing. I kind of regret not taking more art classes. Actually it is obvious I totally regret it because I cry and feel all these deep longings every time I read a bio of a drawer I like –Schulz, Gorey (though Gorey was self-taught!).

FWIW, drawing classes kinda robbed me of the joy of drawing. I used to do it voraciously but now hardly ever. And I don't feel that much more skillful, TBRR.

I am kind of jealous of people who have read many great works of literature & are able to discuss them on a high level.

It is a great way to enhance parties for yourself/your conversation partner, and to ruin them for everyone else!

I guess my #1 regret about college is I really wanted my own DIY hedonist rumspringa, and I wanted to go to college, but I think combining the two made them both take 2x the time they needed to.

I had my rumspringa for 8 years, then did college. Best decision ever.

its probably a good thing that time machines don't exist cause then this country would be flooded w/ doctors

― iatee, Monday, September 3, 2012 8:40 PM (46 minutes ago)

posts very much out of character!

Most popular majors
at Bay Area universities
Stanford
1, Computer science
2. Human biology
3. Engineering
4. Economics
5. Biology

UC Berkeley
1. Electrical engineering and computer science
2. Political science
3. Economics
4. Psychology
5. Business administration

UCSC
1. Psychology
2. Business management economics
3. Literature
4. Molecular, cell and developmental biology
5. Anthropology

SJSU
1. Psychology
2. Biological sciences
3. Business administration/accounting
4. Business administration/management
5. Kinesiology

Cal State East Bay
1. Business administration
2. Psychology
3. Health sciences
4. Biological science
5. Pre-nursing

http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_21175486/computer-science-becomes-stanfords-most-popular-major

business is the most popular major nationally by a pretty big margin, psych is prob the most popular major at 'respectable schools'

fart history

International Fart Studies (leads to a Masters of Professional Farting or MPF)

major in history, minor in english lit

tbh i wish i'd toughed it out two extra semesters and done a double major, just bcz i wound up enjoying english classes (last-minute minor change from poli-sci after realizing i couldn't bring myself to take another fucking class about polling) way more than i ever assumed i would.

if i could go back i'd probably try to major in math or some hardcore science but that would necessitate also going back to maybe third grade and turning myself into a better math-er

My undergrad degree is in history, but I also knocked out the basic pre-medical requirements (which in the US is basically 1 year of Inorganic/General Chemistry, 1 year of Organic Chemistry, 1 year of Physics, 1 year of Biology, usually 1 year of math, +/- English, Biochemistry, Stats, etc) during undergrad, because I wanted to be a doctor until midway through undergrad, when I became unsure which of like six things I wanted to do with my life.

I have an MA in History of Medicine, which was basically chosen because I wasn't sure whether I wanted to write or do medicine, so I decided to try a thing where I was writing about medicine. I decided I wanted to do medicine for realsies a couple of months into grad school.

So now I do that, with two degrees in history to my name.

NO one else but me going to own up to not having gone to uni at all, then? :/ I did do a 2 year dip arts at a TAFE later on in life, Im not sure if that counts, TAFE is a weird beast here. sort of like prac/community/tech college I guess?

I feel so uneducated all of a sudden! :(

Eng lit

Second major in philosophy wound up being a minir

okay, so how many of you don't have college degrees?

i am uniquely qualified for 21st century life in that i have (the equivalent of) a minor in canadian studies

what are your thoughts on that recent maple syrup heist in quebec? do you think the country will rebound?

i think someone made a big mistake crossing les assassins des fauteuils roulants

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

ignorant foolishness that math and statistics are grouped together.

film, so i went with "other"

getting an mba in accounting now though

slavic studies, so cultural studies. i minored in history and sometimes i wish i'd flipped the two around but oh well

man, double major in english lit/american history and double minor in africana/film really took me far in life

Poll is missing an option for literature other than English.

I majored in German Literature, minored in English and linguistics.

math

psychology

started to do a double w/english and got sidetracked by the student newspaper. for years i regretted dropping english but in retrospect psych was a well rounded major, requiring multiple courses in every area: biology-based and statistics as well as social psych and clinical/therapy. I worked as a research assistant on a big developmental study where we interviewed parents, that was good training for journalism. my mentor during junior/senior year was a british hippie freudian who taught a literary "life history" approach to personality. so i would probably do it again.

Maths & Economics

my major in biochem taught me valuable scrabble words along with all that sci. wish i'd doubled in a language.

I did psychology. It was OK but I mostly wasted my time at university. If I had the choice again I'd have done something like computer science. And actually gone to lectures.

Art History, which seems selfish but I had wanted to go into museums or teaching.

english lit. i did my first two years at community college and loved the experience, ~30 people to a class and great instructors who took a personal interest in how i did. it left me with a vague dream of teaching at the CC level someday but going back for my MA isn't in the cards atm.

Maths & Economics

― Only milkmen burnley have (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Sunday, September 16, 2012 11:11 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hey cool, me too

mount cleaners: what are you doing now?

Did grad school for a long time but never finished, worked in publishing in various capacities for a while, currently stuck in administrative / executive assistant mode but will probably work in non-profit when I finish my graduate work.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

lol

ya but when moookie says lol, what is he *really saying* to us?

if you don't know . . .

follows that i'm one of the business dudes, obv

ilx a bunch of lit nerds shockah