Majoring in Bullshit

[wallflower]

Actually, archaeology is a subset. There's a good reason most universities contain them in the same department. It's because archaeologists use the "stuff" to discover what the culture and daily lives and experiences of people were. Same thing as anthro, just set in the past. They're subsets.

Second of all, I never seem to grasp people who don't understand that the world needs more than just people taught to think scientifically. If you plan a city using math and data it'll all be planned well and good, but if you don't know how people interact and exist within a space, chances are that space won't be very user friendly.

Third, I like that you're making predictions about my life and how I'll fare as a teacher while simultaneously knowing nothing about me.

Fourth, anthropology students go on to medical school and related health care schools such as public health, health administration, and nursing, they go into social work, counseling, teaching, law, international development and NGO work, the foreign service, non profit management and other roles in nonprofits, forensics, organizational psychology, etc. if you can't figure out how anthropological study can be catered to a variety of fields you either don't understand the breadth of things and anthropology major can cover, or aren't thinking creatively enough. The marketable skills are there, and if students are smart they complement their degrees with learning languages, tech skills, and others to make themselves even more marketable in competitive fields.


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[JWBooth]

There is a place for Underwater Basketweaving somewhere....

 

[Old Rocks]

In Blue State Universities the only graduation requirement is that one demonstrate the ability to vote a straight Democrat party line in any election. Now it IS challenging as expertise has to be demonstrated with filling in boxes, making X or check marks, and the effective use of several models of voting machine. In fairness, however, casting multiple ballots is not taught in undergraduate programs. That's reserved for extra-cost PG courses.

Crap. Henry, you are waxing satirical and silly.

However, perhaps I should wish you were correct. After all, the way I am earning a grade in third quarter calculus is sure more difficult than voting in any particular direction.

 

[HenryBHough]

Crap. Henry, you are waxing satirical and silly.

However, perhaps I should wish you were correct. After all, the way I am earning a grade in third quarter calculus is sure more difficult than voting in any particular direction.

Sincerely, I wish you well with that. It sounds like a critical part of an overall major that might lead to a rewarding career in the psychological as well as economic sense.

If you don't have access to course material on the history of mathematics you might find some online via what I think is still called "The Great Courses". It's been a long while since I "took" one of those - and it only for the history, not the math but I did find it helpful to understand what drove some of the concepts to be developed.

 

[Old Rocks]

Crap. Henry, you are waxing satirical and silly.

However, perhaps I should wish you were correct. After all, the way I am earning a grade in third quarter calculus is sure more difficult than voting in any particular direction.

Sincerely, I wish you well with that. It sounds like a critical part of an overall major that might lead to a rewarding career in the psychological as well as economic sense.

If you don't have access to course material on the history of mathematics you might find some online via what I think is still called "The Great Courses". It's been a long while since I "took" one of those - and it only for the history, not the math but I did find it helpful to understand what drove some of the concepts to be developed.

Well let's see. The major is geology. But only a limited time to do well in it. I turned 70 last year, and am working full time as a millwright in a steel mill. A career that has treated me well, physically, mentally, and financially. But, a few more years, and the physical part will be a bit more than I care to do. So a change of careers at this point is a neccessity.

Now I do use the internet to plug holes in my understanding. Youtube has some absolutely wonderful 5 to 20 minute lectures on specific items in math, such as absolute convergence in alternating series, and all the other rather interesting esoteric subjects.

 

[HenryBHough]

Well let's see. The major is geology. But only a limited time to do well in it. I turned 70 last year, and am working full time as a millwright in a steel mill. A career that has treated me well, physically, mentally, and financially. But, a few more years, and the physical part will be a bit more than I care to do. So a change of careers at this point is a neccessity.

Now I do use the internet to plug holes in my understanding. Youtube has some absolutely wonderful 5 to 20 minute lectures on specific items in math, such as absolute convergence in alternating series, and all the other rather interesting esoteric subjects.

I gotta hurry up and have a birthday 'cause I'm in risk of your catching up with me! These days I am working hard at seeing those historic places while I still have time to enjoy them.

 

[SnowTiger]

I would seriously hope no anthropology student goes on to medical school and becomes my doctor.

I'm not looking for someone who will hold my hand compassionately. I'm looking for someone who will cut me open and cut out the bad stuff.

And just because your humanities based school lumps archaeology into anthropology, doesn't mean they are subsets. I've run across a fair amount of archaeologists in my day. Their training is very much in line with STEM (the good ones at least... Like the good doctors. Am I seeing a pattern here?)


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[wallflower]

It's not just because my school does it...it's because it's the truth. Anthropology and archaeology are in the same family. Anthropology covers a very broad spectrum of things from forensics (anyone ever see the tv show bones?) to culture. And archaeology is one of those things.

Furthermore, any anthro major would still have to, you know, take pre med and medical school classes. They'll just also have a social sciences background. So they can relate to people. In case you didn't know, medical schools are putting more emphasis on being well rounded now. And also in case you didn't realize, sometimes it's the job of a doctor to do more than "cut out the bad stuff". Because that would be a surgeon. And surgeons certainly don't need to interact with patients too much, but you wanna know what kind of doctors do? GPs, internists, ob/gyns, etc. oh, and not even mentioning those who practice oncology and need to learn how to tell someone they have cancer, and sometimes be there for the patients mental needs even more than the physical. Or doctors who work with the mentally ill. Doctors who need to tell someone their mother just died or that they only have 5 weeks left with their loved one. Doctors who decide to do research that's more related to public health. Doctors who decide to join MSF.


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[HenryBHough]

What's frightening is that so many of today's students have decided on a career in medicine after watching House and then graduating to the PBS "Doc Martin" series.

 

[SnowTiger]

Very true.

I would argue an anthropology background with a smattering of pre-med courses is an inferior (I apologize for my bluntness) education for a doctor than a biology or chemE major.

If you want world class doctors, that is. I wouldn't cite the American health system as turning out world class doctors now. We aren't exactly a shining city on a hill when it comes to the way we do medicine now.

(Also, I would trust a good archaeologist to tell me more than women's relations in ancient Egypt. I would expect them to have the physics background to understand construction of the pyramids, chemistry background to understand the mortar and stones used, etc. the good ones, that is)


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[Old Rocks]

Well let's see. The major is geology. But only a limited time to do well in it. I turned 70 last year, and am working full time as a millwright in a steel mill. A career that has treated me well, physically, mentally, and financially. But, a few more years, and the physical part will be a bit more than I care to do. So a change of careers at this point is a neccessity.

Now I do use the internet to plug holes in my understanding. Youtube has some absolutely wonderful 5 to 20 minute lectures on specific items in math, such as absolute convergence in alternating series, and all the other rather interesting esoteric subjects.

I gotta hurry up and have a birthday 'cause I'm in risk of your catching up with me! These days I am working hard at seeing those historic places while I still have time to enjoy them.

By all means, do that. And pick your places according to your interests, allow your self time to absorb the places. Spent three full days walking Gettysburg. An experiance that vastly increased my appreciation and knowledge of what happened there.

Taking my grandson and neice this summer to the Reservation, Standing Rock, to meet some of their relatives on that side. Will stop at Greasy Grass, Little Big Horn, and let them see that spot that is so important in the history of the Lakota, Cheyanne, and Crow. Then to the Black Hills to see the monuments there.

And, of course, I will bore them to death with the geology they are seeing along the way.

 

[wallflower]

Med schools and residency programs train people to be doctors. Undergrad programs do not. Med schools accept undergrads from any major. Hard sciences do encompass the majority, because they certainly make it easier to gain research experience and score well on the mcats. But there's a reason med schools accept people who major in something else too - once they reach med school, the curriculum is the same. They're getting just as much science as any other doctor in training would. It's not as if you major in anthropology or English or French or poli sci and are then immediately sent into medicine. There's this thing called med school for a reason. And there's a reason doctors generally never talk about their undergrad degree - the degree that matters to their career isn't the undergrad degree at all. It's the MD.


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[SnowTiger]

I wouldn't go into graduate school in a STEM subject without the appropriate undergrad background

There is a reason we have undergraduate curriculum in the first place. Well, there used to be, until it became a résumé placeholder for "Women's Studies" and "Ancient Chinese Literature".


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[wallflower]

You need the appropriate stem background...med schools have requirements for undergrads you know. They have to have taken certain courses.


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[oldfart]

I wouldn't go into graduate school in a STEM subject without the appropriate undergrad background

There is a reason we have undergraduate curriculum in the first place. Well, there used to be, until it became a résumé placeholder for "Women's Studies" and "Ancient Chinese Literature".

A lot of science bachelor's programs are now five or six years for most people. I have a great nephew graduating in June in petroleum engineering who took the five years. My younger son made it in four, but his first semester was German, Organic Chemistry I, Calculus III, Sophomore Lit, and Western Civ. At least he knew halfway through his first semester if Polymer Science was what he wanted to do.

Realistically, to graduate in four years in sciences, you need to start in high school to line up pre-requisites for sequenced courses. You need luck in the schedule, for a lot of the courses you need will have only one section. And God help you if you need to retake a course.

 

[Mr. H.]

I've rather enjoyed reading this thread and everyone's input.
Amazing the things I learn about you all by venturing into a thread in which I have no particular interest.
Besides, I'm out of booze. And bored.

 

[Unkotare]

I would seriously hope no anthropology student goes on to medical school and becomes my doctor.

Not even if he or she does very well in med school and becomes an excellent, skillful doctor? Bullshit.

 

[SnowTiger]

A rarity but a possibility.

Generally speaking its unlikely. Put it this way: someone majors in a soft subject, takes the MCAT, goes into medical school, realizes a previously untapped passion for the hard sciences (because you're only going to flourish if you love what you do), succeeds, gets the MD by their name, etc.

Then you have someone who knew they were going into med school. They prepped, they majored in an appropriate subject (and worked harder for it), they did better on the MCAT because of the preparation- to boost, they have a more impressive courseware on their résumé and research experience. They are accepted into a more prestigious program than their humanities counterpart. They go on to gain the ability, from the funding, facilities, and superior faculty available to them, to highly specialize in one area. They become a skilled, specialized doctor- the kind you want performing bypass surgery or a kidney transplant.

Sure it's possible, but very difficult and highly improbable, for those opportunities to be available to a humanities major.


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[Unkotare]

An awful lot of presumptions and qualifiers in that little tale...

 

[HenryBHough]

The good old days: When "PhD" meant "Doctor of Philosophy".

These days it simply means the indoctrination has been Piled higher and Deeper.