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I can tell you that for my Bio degree I need 2 semesters of Physics and 1 semester of Calculus, and for my friend going for a Chem degree, she needs 3 semesters of Calculus and the 2 semesters of Physics. The hard sciences tend to be math heavy, if that is a consideration.
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Anyways I am going to check out the course lists of various degrees.
If anyone wants to recommend specific degrees I am definitely at a point where I could use that information.
If you aren't completely sure about what you want to do, I'd also recommend going to a large college. They will have a much wider range of programs which allows you to explore the field and figure out what you want to do. It's fine if you aren't sure at this stage. I went into college thinking I would major in CS&E and become a programmer, and came out with an English/Classics degree and a desire to be a professor.
As to a degree . . . what are you passionate about? What do you read about for fun? What interests you enough that you can spend the rest of your life on it?
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What do you see yourself doing? And is pay a consideration? There are some careers out there that people find rewarding (teaching, social work) that aren't going to be padding your bank account.
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For example I spent a while reading up on why a microwave makes lightning when you put metallic objects in it. That is the sort of stuff I usually look up, if I had to group what I look up into a category. That is why I chose science, it seems to be the closest to an interest.
Sociology is something frat kids and college athletes pick?
Man, I just don't understand all this hate for sociology.
Nah, frat kids and college athletes pick communications and a few other fairly specific majors (at least at my school).
Sociology is picked by people who are interested in sociology, and those who stumbled across a sociology class and discovered , "OH MY GOD this is an easy A!"
At the U of MN they have basically everything. It's true for all Big 10 schools for the most part, but for an example, I first applied to the U of MN with the intention of going for computer science. I then realized, after taking a programming course in high school, that I really didn't like programming. So I changed to Food Science, which is a more applied research degree. After taking that for a year, I realized I didn't like it but, due to one of the classes I had to take, discovered the degree that I stuck with and loved, offered from the Rhetoric Department. Not only did I change disciplines but I ended up in a program that is not at all common at small schools.
The other advantage to going to a big school is that if you DO figure out what you really want to do and the program at the school isn't so great, transferring your credits is much easier. A friend of mine decided she wanted to go into film and the program at the U of MN isn't so hot, but there's a really great program in Milwaukee, so she had no trouble transferring her classes over. Yet I took classes my senior year of high school at the local community college (for dual credit) and despite being in the same state, the U of MN gave me trouble when it came to figuring out just what those classes counted as.
As for the big classes/no friends thing, I think that's a misperception overall. When you're in general classes early on, you're going to be tossed in with students in other disciplines and the classes are going to be bigger at most any school due to the fact that they're general classes. When you get into your degree-specific programs, primarily in your 3rd and 4th year, you'll notice that you see all the same people and are in small classes. I regularly had classes with 10-15 people and got to know my professors well, which is great for referrals and letters of recommendation.
I think you'll have an easier time of it than you anticipate because you have some experience outside of school. Going right from high school into college can make those first classes really tough because you're not used to how the classes are structured. Having a few more years under your belt and some real-world experience will probably let you hit the ground running and stay on top of studying and classwork.
I don't hate it - it's just that in my university, half the intro sociology classes were full of Greeks (mostly sorority people actually) who were planning to major in it.
http://www.paulgraham.com/college.html
Relevant part:
UMass Amherst has the added advantage of being one of the Five Colleges, so he could cross register to take his early (and therefor large) classes at Smith (:winky:). He should just remember to avoid taking classes at Amherst. Those guys are dicks and a lot of the professors look down on the students of the other four. Hampshire's also nice, but all the buildings were clearly built as temp jobs to be replaced decades ago and I'm pretty sure the administration is smoking the ganja.
I should note that GPA isn't everything. I had some bad grades because I tend to laziness, but got into Brandeis because I roll 800's.
Just to add a different perspective. I went to what would fall somewhere along the small to mid size school range (8,000 undergraduates). I had friends at the large state school at my home state and I think I would have been lost there. I know it's not uncommon at super huge schools to finish in five years simply because you cannot register for the courses you need. At 8,000 students, I feel like my school was large enough to offer a decent course selection but also small enough to still cater to individual student needs.
He's basically saying that the social sciences are worthless and not worth your time?
I could not disagree more. I see this "hard science is soooo much better than social science" attitude all the time and it's still wrong. It depends on what you're interested in and what you want to do.
Saying to somebody "You should totally do whatever you want, except for these things I think are stupid" is not terribly helpful.
Departments and their quality vary by college and even by professor. Psych may be terrible at one college, but extremely good at another. Telling somebody not to take psych because it was bad at your own college is ridiculous.
How do you know that?
I said "how do you know that?"
For such a complex and subjective assessment, this mindset seems dangerously simple.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
You are right, I should clarify that this comment is based solely on my personal experience in the computer science and engineering field. It is my observation that the better paying and more interesting jobs tend to go to people from the best schools.
Okay, see that makes more sense to me. "Tend to" != "will definitely" though. Good school/ranking probably would increase his chances for X job with $Y salary by Z%, but this is a huge variable and not a "will definitely". Things that might skew Z%:
- professional networking
- personal drive
- study habits
- location of school-to-businesses
- quality of residence
- studying resources
- future goals (grad school, industry, etc.)
all of which likely have more bearing on success (which may be X job with $Y salary) than "best ranked", which is an objective, linear (and ultimately flawed) ranking of said complex/subjective system.
Edit: removed subjective example of success conditions. silly me.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
Pros:
- more facilities and resources
- better chances for networking
- national spotlight = more focus on accountability of students
Cons:
- chance for larger class size = impersonal prof/student relationship in the classroom
- potential scheduling conflicts
- no one to hold your hand, so to speak
If you're a responsible and independent person able to take care of yourself, then the Pros of a larger university should outweigh the Cons.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
Yes, no one drinks at small schools and all professors (all 2 of them in a department) are always available for the students.
Or, perhaps, the fact that there are 50,000 students there means that it's incredibly easy to avoid bars and drunks because even if *half* of the student body are drunks, you still have 25000 people. And because of the large number of students, big intro classes tend to have 3 or 4 teaching assistants that are more available than even the best professor at the best university.
I personally liked going to a big school because it felt like I was living in a city and had more of a real-world feel. Not only were there a lot of people from different walks of life, different cultural backgrounds, and different age brackets, but they lived on campus, off campus, and commuted. And they were not just comrades but competitors.
When you get a job do you think you'll have a nice HR department that holds your hand, a manager that's happy to see you whenever you have a question, and coworkers who require no work to get to know? Or do you think you'll be tossed into a job where you have to show some confidence and be self-motivated, put effort into finding friends, and figure out how to work through tough projects on your own using the resources available (instead of running to the boss)?
You don't want to go to a small college - but those have less then 4000 students. Think of all the liberal arts colleges in the northeast.
So you can choose between mid size and huge. I'd go with mid size (10-20K students). It's big enough that you'll never stop meeting new people if you want, but small enough that you get a good sense of community once you're established, and they have all the programs etc. that the huge state schools have.
What the fuck is with the aggression, dude? Did I kick your dog on the way to work?
I went to a big university, myself. I had a good time. However, the couple of times where I really needed something technically explained (e.g. spherical calculus) and it would have been simpler to go to a prof to get an explaination, I had to sit and spin because the queue was 200 people long who also didn't know what the guy was saying cause he had his back to the class the entire time.
On the contrary, I think telling people "it depends on what you're interested in and what you want to do" is ridiculous and dumb. That is why, after all, we have all these unemployed college grads. They went and majored in something useless and are now working at coffee shops or restaurants at minimum wage, except now they are tens of thousands of dollars in debt and stressed out of their minds.
A college education is an investment. It is expensive and takes 4 years of your life. If it does not significantly improve your financial situation then it's worthless. If you're interested in psychology then go to the library and read psychology books. If you want to have good job prospects after college, then go major in something worthwhile.
Only exception, obviously, is grad school. If someone is planning on going to grad school then majors like psychology or political science can be good starts.
You do realize that plenty of people who major in these "useless" things get jobs in their fields too, right?
So you think that the only purpose of a college education is to make you money? Like, the only way the value of something can be measured is how much money it makes you?
What you think is worthwhile and what somebody else thinks is worthwhile can be completely different.
What? Yes, the working world is different than what school could or should be. With your logic, there's no reason to start kids even younger for the working world, so best to just host pre-school on an island where the kids have to forage for their own food, because they should "show some confidence and be self-motivated." The difference between college and work is that the end-goal of work is a work product. The end-goal of college is an accomplished student.
I went to a 1,000 student college and I am a vastly better writer and communicator than almost everyone I encounter from a large school. The attention, criticism and scrutiny from professors in a small environment hones your skills far better than being foisted onto some useless grad student who resents being trapped in a room with a bunch of brain-dead state U kids.
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Is your arrogance also something that your 1000 student college gave you as well, or were you always like this?
Most people send their kids to college so that by the time the kids graduate they are ready to start their working careers.
The big indicator for what to pick is how you learned in school. For example, I learned in class, never touched my textbooks, and asked so many questions that my teachers occasionally had to send me into the hall to keep the class moving. Because of this, I knew to concentrate on the Little Ivies.
Huh, and here I thought the purpose of schools was to teach.
Do you have any idea how work intensive it is to teach writing and the use of style? It is probably the biggest poster child for the 1:1 child:teacher ideal (there's a name for it, but I can't seem to remember it). Honestly, your response is also a poster child for large universities are not more able to prepare for the real world, as you would have learned to take disagreement without resorting to ad-homs if they were.
Mostly I was always arrogant. I didn't mean to imply that I am Hemingway. I'm not a particularly good writer. It's just that most schools do an abysmal job of teaching these skills, so most kids out of college write terribly. If you've ever had the misfortune of reading undergraduate essays, you'd see what I mean. A small school means that smarter, more experienced people (i.e. professors) are spending more time scrutinizing your writing. I've known kids at flagship state schools that didn't have to write anything longer than five pages for most classes, let alone anything approaching a senior thesis. Not to mention the benefits of getting professors that will truly be mentors, the professional connections that entails, and the enhanced value of networking when alumni share a stronger common bond. I can't say how nice it is that there are no grad students to deal with. With no grad students competing for resources, I was able to wrest about $10k from the school in extracurricular travel to europe and asia, study abroad trips, and research grants.
I get that there's some character-building involved in subjecting your children to wrist-slittingly dysfunctional registrars or making them take five years to graduate because they can't get the classes they need. I don't think it makes you more professionally ready than going to a place that will better nurture your analytical skills via more rigorous work. So for the OP, he should be looking at a place that will add value to skills he can't readily pick up at an entry level job - effective writing and thinking - rather than "roughing it" by dealing with the difficulties of an anonymous and overwhelmed state institution.
I think the OP should be looking at Carleton, Macalester and St. Olaf, probably in that order.
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I think you made some good points, but there are a couple things I'd like to comment on.
1. Smaller school will make you a better writer because you'll get more help (from professors)
I can't say I find this particularly true, judging by the experiences of my friends at small and large schools. Small schools are probably more likely to have professors who will devote more time to helping you, but that's somewhat of a risky hope because if the professor isn't the sort to spend extensive time with you outside of class then you're kind of screwed.
In contrast, at a larger school, you may have less of a chance of a professor staying afterward, but you have a much greater chance of having external resources. My campus had an entire building devoted to helping students with their writing. They offered free courses, free peer editting, free skills teaching, etc. Rather than hoping your professor is as good at teaching writing skills as he/she is at writing, you can go to a center where people are trained to help you learn to write.
2. "because they can't get the classes they need" (at large schools)
This was kind of a mind boggling point, to be honest. Pretty much unaninmously, my friends have had much better experiences with class selection at larger schools. The first, and most obvious, point is that there is a ton more class variety. The selection I had available to me, both within my major and across majors, was astounding in comparison to my friends' smaller school selections. Second, I had friends who had to skip out on taking certain classes they were interested in because the classes they needed only had 1 section available per semester at their small schools. In contrast, I only started taking major-related courses halfway through my second year and still finished all of them within 3.5 years, leaving me an extra semester to take really interesting and diverse other classes.
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Moving on, some things to consider:
1. How much money will you have available for college and where will your stats (grades, SAT scores) allow you to go? Go ahead and send apps to colleges "out of your range"--monetary and gradewise--because who knows . . . but you need at least one college on your list that you KNOW you can both get into and afford to go to. It sounds like you're in Minnesota. U of MN is a great school, but be sure to check out the average incoming stats of freshmen and make sure you have a good chance of getting in. Some state flagships are hard to get into.
2. Financial aid . . . when schools talk about this, remember IT CAN INCLUDE LOANS. So a school offering "$40,000 in financial aid" may really be offering your the opportunity to be loaded with crippling debt by the time you graduate. When schools boast about their great FA, take it with a grain of salt until they actually offer you a great deal. (That said, some schools do give great scholarships/grants, including schools with high tuitions.) Also, fill out the FAFSA. Fill it out early.
3. Picking a major . . . Most students change majors several times, so don't worry about it too much. If you're undecided about what major to pursue, I would look for a large-ish school, as small schools tend to have a smaller pool of majors. I will say this: college can be a path to a career (something you love) or a job (something that earns you enough money to live and, hopefully, do the things you love). Some liberal arts majors tend to direct people towards "just jobs." A lot of anthropology majors get hired into jobs that have nothing to do with anthropology, for example. Be realistic with yourself about what your expectations are. If you major in anthropology and WILL ONLY BE HAPPY DIGGING UP FOSSILS OF EARLY HOMINIDS, then you're going to have a much harder path ahead of you, and probably less money. Neither path is "wrong", you just have to decide what your priorities are, what will make you happiest.
Generally speaking, high schools skip straight from mechanics to literature, so the colleges have to teach you how to develop a clear, consistent style, especially when style is field-dependent. For example, the sciences stress a style most akin to Henry James but with a higher frequency of the passive voice to avoid personal pronouns. I, on the other hand, developed my style by reading lots of older English literature (Arthur Doyle, JRR Tolkien, H. G. Wells) and translating Caesar's Commentaries, resulting in a style with more clauses per sentence than North Pole Penitentiary.
I'm really not sure where your comments are coming from. When I was in high school, 5 years ago, we definitely spent a lot of time on writing essays in our English class. We wrote essays of various lengths, various styles, various purposes, various audiences.
Now, I'm working part-time doing remediation with kids in high school, and their English curriculums are packed with essay writing. The teachers present tooooons of graphic organizers to help the kids understand how to structure essays, paragraphs, etc. To top it all off, I'm doing this work in a different state from the one I attended high school.