Would you recommend your college major?

[Legbiter]

Nope.

[Ideologue]

 

It's funny because in engineering, they actually want to fill job positions.

[Admiral Yi]

You're an IT geek too Leg?

[Berkut]

I certainly would recommend my degree to anyone with the intelligence and interest in the subject.

[Camerus]

In academia history is an incredibly immature subject, several centuries behind more mature fields. Historians are clueless about how history works and don't even realize that they are playing at doing serious research and don't actually do it.

Do you want to know more?

How should history work and what would serious research look like?

Like science.

So how should the topic of, say, the bombing of Dresden in WW2 look like?

[Razgovory]

Nope.

The pointy hair boss has always reminded me of Cal.

[CountDeMoney]

The pointy hair boss has always reminded me of Cal.

Pfft, he's Catbert, Evil HR Director.

[jimmy olsen]

The pointy hair boss has always reminded me of Cal.

Pfft, he's Catbert, Evil HR Director.

Is the adjective necessary? Isn't it just sort of implied?

[Barrister]

Several days later, I'm going to go back to the original question - would I recommend my college (well, undergrad) major?

I entered university in 1992.  It was a glorious time.  Nirvana ruled the airwaves, the Blue Jays were supreme in MLB, and the environment seemed like the new hot area to study.  So I signed up to be an environmental science major.

Trouble was... this was only the 2nd year of the program.  Environmental Science as a major wasn't actually very well flushed out.  There were a few course courses, like Ecology, but not enough.  So you had to pick an area of focus within Environmental Science.  For reasons not clear to me, I picked Geology.

The two programs did not mesh well.  Geology was mostly taught by prof who had worked in industry (and god bless them for the year the professors went on strike - to a man my geology profs crossed the line).  My geology courses had a lot of pre-reqs that were NOT counted towards my degree - I had to burn a lot of electives taking core geology courses.  In the end I took more geology courses than I did environmental science, and I often fib slightly and tell people I have a geology degree (not actually very far from the truth).

Would I recommend environmental science as a major?  Tough to say, since my experience was 20 years ago.  Things have changed a lot.  Funnily enough last year I met up with a guy who is the son of my dad's best friend from 30 years ago.  I have vague memories of hanging out with him when we were both pre-schoolers.  Anyways, he got an Environmental Science degree.  It worked out in the end for him, and he's working in that field doing environmental compliance.  But he worked for several years in unrelated fields.

Would I recommend geology as a major?  I found it really, really tough.  Law school was a breeze in comparison.  I did actually manage to line up a job in my field for awhile - I had a mat leave position with a mining company in northern Manitoba.  It involved staring down a microscope counting mineral grains all day.  It was awful.  From what I could tell the job prospects for a geology undergrad were pretty miserable.  Now, getting a MSc or PhD in geology had some prospects - those guys could get serious job opportunities working for big mining or petroleum companies.

In the end, since I wound up going to law school and enjoying that, I wish I had just gotten a history degree.

[Ideologue]

(and god bless them for the year the professors went on strike - to a man my geology profs crossed the line)

I, er, I... Error.  Flaw.  Nomad.  Sterilize.  NOMAD.  STERILIZE.

[The Brain]

In academia history is an incredibly immature subject, several centuries behind more mature fields. Historians are clueless about how history works and don't even realize that they are playing at doing serious research and don't actually do it.

Do you want to know more?

How should history work and what would serious research look like?

Like science.

So how should the topic of, say, the bombing of Dresden in WW2 look like?

What do you mean?

[Warspite]

I did joint honours so in effect I had two majors -- politics and economic history.

It actually prepared me quite well.

Going on to do a master's in conflict, security and development (basically civil war studies) drew on a lot of my pre-existing knowledge. It was satisfying in my MA seminars to shoot down dreadlocked-development types by pointing out, for example, that economies traditionally have not modernised with civil society and good governance initiatives, which was something as a surprise for them. Was shocking how many of my peers didn't understand the importance of property rights and the accumulation of capital. Something I still find reflected when talking to Department of International Development staff today, actually.

Professionally, I draw upon both my subject matter knowledge from my majors as well as the more intangible tools of critical enquiry and essay writing.

I think a lot of majors get a bad reputation somewhat unfairly. Even a sociology degree can be useful if the university faculty take seriously their duty to teach logical thought and writing to its students. As an employer, I may not necessarily want your understanding of Durkheim but if you've been taught how to argue effectively and synthesise data from a variety of sources that can be golddust to me. Lazy profs teaching large classes are probably more of a problem for a student than the validity of the subject to the wider world.

[garbon]

Problem is that many employers will just look at what your degree is before ever seeing how you can synthesize data.

[Ideologue]

And where it's from.

It's a trillion dollar industry based 90% on signaling.  As the peacock's tail is to sexual selection, higher education is to the economy.

[Camerus]

In academia history is an incredibly immature subject, several centuries behind more mature fields. Historians are clueless about how history works and don't even realize that they are playing at doing serious research and don't actually do it.

Do you want to know more?

How should history work and what would serious research look like?

Like science.

So how should the topic of, say, the bombing of Dresden in WW2 look like?

What do you mean?

It's not a trick question. Let's say a historian using the current methods were planning on writing a book or article on the Allied bombing of Dresden in WW2. He would gather data from primary and secondary sources, and then use that information to create a narrative / thesis that, for example, the bombing was a war crime.

How would a research approach "like science" research that same topic and come to a conclusion? (Non-rhetorical)