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Considering a change of subject
Vic
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Here comes some backstory. I'm a 22 year old student living in Stockholm, Sweden and studying for a masters degree in Biotechnology.
I kind of rushed to start school, missing my opportunity to take a sabbathical year by applying to the Royal Institute of Technology right after finishing our equivalent of college. In part I guess this was because of indirect encouragement from my father, but it was also in some way a chance to not have to take a major decision about my life. While I had no huge enthusiasm for biotechnology I found it to be an interesting subject, and the diploma from RIT (KTH in swedish) would be a great merit even if I chose to do something else after I was done.
Now here I am, three and a half years down the line and a bit more than one year behind on my education. I am struggling with depression, bad economy, and from my lack of romantic relationships. Basically I am kind of a wreck. And at this time in my life, I have discovered a new interest. I have always loved intellectual debate, and now after spending part of the summer and autumn listening to several lecture series on tape about philosophy, religion and psychology I have found that I have a real passion for these subjects. I find that I feel really engaged and alive while having discussions with my friends on subjects like politics, religion and sociology. I am in fact finding these subjects much more interesting and engaging than my courses at schiil.
But... can I just leave these three years spent on Biotechnology behind me and consider them wasted? Furthermore, if I were to choose to get a degree in philosophy and psychology, what would my career be?
I have considered a few options, but I feel lost and uncertain. With all the problems I am struggling with, not the least of which is my general lack of ambition and engagement in my own life it feels somewhat irresponsible of me to make this major decision without looking deeply into what it will actually mean.
The first option as I see it is to stay at KTH and later expand my field of expertise to encompass psychology and/or philosophy. Basically I would first alter the courses I take to focus on the ethics of biotechnology, neurology (study of the mind and brain), neurofarmacology(study of how the brain reacts to medicines), and genetics. Then I would complement this with psychology and sociology. I would (in theory) have an excellent understanding of the human mind from the level of its basic chemistry all the way up to how our societies work. Cool ion paper, but I am not sure what damn jobs I would get after those 8-9 years in school.
The second option is to give up on Biotechnology and start studying philosophy, psychology and sociology full time. I have no idea what future this kind of an education would allow me to have.
And the third option would be to give my damnest to get through my education in biotechnology, get a job in something biotechy and then make philosophy and psychology my hobbies.
If any of you have knowledge or experience of academic life you think might be helpful, or have studied or majored in philosophy or psychology, I would love to hear your views.
I kind of rushed to start school, missing my opportunity to take a sabbathical year by applying to the Royal Institute of Technology right after finishing our equivalent of college. In part I guess this was because of indirect encouragement from my father, but it was also in some way a chance to not have to take a major decision about my life. While I had no huge enthusiasm for biotechnology I found it to be an interesting subject, and the diploma from RIT (KTH in swedish) would be a great merit even if I chose to do something else after I was done.
Now here I am, three and a half years down the line and a bit more than one year behind on my education. I am struggling with depression, bad economy, and from my lack of romantic relationships. Basically I am kind of a wreck. And at this time in my life, I have discovered a new interest. I have always loved intellectual debate, and now after spending part of the summer and autumn listening to several lecture series on tape about philosophy, religion and psychology I have found that I have a real passion for these subjects. I find that I feel really engaged and alive while having discussions with my friends on subjects like politics, religion and sociology. I am in fact finding these subjects much more interesting and engaging than my courses at schiil.
But... can I just leave these three years spent on Biotechnology behind me and consider them wasted? Furthermore, if I were to choose to get a degree in philosophy and psychology, what would my career be?
I have considered a few options, but I feel lost and uncertain. With all the problems I am struggling with, not the least of which is my general lack of ambition and engagement in my own life it feels somewhat irresponsible of me to make this major decision without looking deeply into what it will actually mean.
The first option as I see it is to stay at KTH and later expand my field of expertise to encompass psychology and/or philosophy. Basically I would first alter the courses I take to focus on the ethics of biotechnology, neurology (study of the mind and brain), neurofarmacology(study of how the brain reacts to medicines), and genetics. Then I would complement this with psychology and sociology. I would (in theory) have an excellent understanding of the human mind from the level of its basic chemistry all the way up to how our societies work. Cool ion paper, but I am not sure what damn jobs I would get after those 8-9 years in school.
The second option is to give up on Biotechnology and start studying philosophy, psychology and sociology full time. I have no idea what future this kind of an education would allow me to have.
And the third option would be to give my damnest to get through my education in biotechnology, get a job in something biotechy and then make philosophy and psychology my hobbies.
If any of you have knowledge or experience of academic life you think might be helpful, or have studied or majored in philosophy or psychology, I would love to hear your views.
Vic on
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Outside of that, it really depends how long you've got left, a degree in biotech/biochem can be put to use everywhere, so it's not going to close any doors. Just from what you've written, I'd be tempted to drop the masters and walk out with a Bachelors in Biotech, then do something different for my masters (like bioethics).
Doing a meaningful science major is much more useful in anything you'd like to do than philosophy. Anything interesting in human behavior explored by philosophy (philosophy of mind, language, especially) has been co-opted by science and made their purely philosophical applications obsolete and untethered from reality. If you want to understand how the human mind works, stick with biotech and investigate neuroscience. At a "macro" level, sociology might be fun. Biotech and psychology aren't mutually exclusive, but if your biotech is math/science heavy, it is less generally accessible, and thus more in demand and more useful than a "soft" psych degree. I don't want to troll, but IMHO while psych may have useful empirically derived insights about human behavior or therapy, in terms of actually explaining how the brain works, it's only useful when it is essentially doing what biotech and neuroscience do - imaging, empirically testing and exploring the biological bases for human behavior.
Anyone can go on about these intellectual topics. I would consider it a recreational topic or do things with hard science that let you explore the brain better in your graduate work, but stick with biotech for now. What jobs do philosophy majors get? 1% might go into academia, the other 99% are baristas, or something else unrelated to philosophy.
Really? Really?
OP: Don't listen to the person above me.
It seems to me that there are a lot of factors contributing to your overall outlook and your desire to change academic paths. Before you decide to do anything you should think about it, which you've already got a head start on. How far away from your Masters degree are you? I don't know if Sweden has comparable time frames, but a Masters degree usually only runs about two years in the US. Is that about right? How far through your Masters are you? There's no reason that you can't accomplish everything that you want to and receive a Masters in Biotechnology, especially since a Masters degree is, in my opinion (and I have a Masters degree). not that much work.
Edit: After reading up on the subject it appears that I had no idea about the actual meanings of the term. I am actually studying to become a "civilingenjör", literally "civil engineer" which is an educational standard in Sweden, four and a half years of full time studies including the basics in math, physics, chemistry and programming regardless of the program chosen.