What's your major? Why?

[Maj]

Arabic huh? Why'd you choose that language Maj? Sounds interesting. I've studied a few myself.

I've been trying to get the Chinese form of calligraphy down,but it's so difficult...frustrating really

I've always had a desire to go to the Middle East, and when I moved across the street from a state college, I figured there was no reason for me to not go back. They refused to allow my previous ecology and botany credits to apply towards a Bachelor's of Science, and so I wandered aimlessly through a whole bunch of comparative religion classes (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), a whole bunch of cultural and political Middle Eastern classes, and Arabic - because if I'm gonna go there someday, I should learn the language, right (I really want to study Hebrew, too, but there's no professor who teaches it)? I've always loved languages and have studied a few, but Arabic is just neat... I love its malleability. It's no where as strict as Chinese and Japanese.

Middle Eastern Studies turned into my major because I keep going back to it. I'm intrigued by the politics, the customs, the religion, the art, the music, the food...

[Username17]

Health Sciences - it seems like a pretty good way to get into Medical School. I loved working on the Ambulance - but I realized that it was something which I couldn't do forever and wouldn't necessarily prepare me for retirement.

I didn't want to be the guy who had to stop working in his profession at age forty-five when he could no longer lift his share of a 300 pound person and then had to work at Taco Bell. So I decided to go back to school and become a Doctor. Where I can see and help the same people and deal with the same HMOs which I hate and keep doing it while sitting down. That and get enough money to have a house and a family and stuff.

Every single person in the medical chain of command is important, but until I move up it I won't actually have a secure future - so I'm moving on up.

-Username17

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

To the east side Frank or are you a west coast boy forever?

Well, I no longer have a major, but college wasn't so long ago that I don't remember it.

My degree is in Industrial and Systems Engineering. IE, is one of the relative baby fields in engineering as it really only appeared with the industrial revolution and even more so with the concept of the assembly line.

I first got into actually because I was pre-med when I came to college. I didn't want to go the biology\chemistry route, because I didn't want to be a teacher or a lab rat should I decide not to do medical school. Georgia Tech's "business" degree was called Industrial Management and I thought about doing that, but then I realized that with all of the math and science I needed for pre-med IE was only different from Management in about 4-6 core classes. I figured an engineering degree would look good for a med school application so I switched over.

Come about my third year of school, I realized that I loved IE stuff and wasn't too interested in going on to medical school anymore. For some reason the mathematical applications of common sense appealed to me and the dedication to efficiency was me as well.

So here I am with an unhealthy knowledge of queueing theory.

[fbmf]

I was a psych major, but when I discovered this would not help me in my ultimate goal of being a school counselor, I switched to Education, Generalist (4 - 8).

In Texas, you must teach for three years, after which you can seek certification as a counselor. That's the goal.

Game On,
fbmf

[Ramnza]

I have a BA in English and am currently working on my teacher certification for Secondary education (8-12), which I will finish next August. Then I hope to return for my Masters.

I love languages, different cultures intrigue me, linguistics too...oh and of course I write fiction. Actually, one of my short stories has been accepted for publication and I'm waiting on two contest results. Wish me Luck!

So ultimately I would love to provide an income on just my writing, but I'm realistic, and I love teaching anyway.

[da_chicken]

Already hav an Associates in Computer Networking. Currently double-majoring in Computer Science and Information Technology. IT is what I like and what I want to do, but CS is more widely respected and more generically useful.

[Joy_Division]

I have a BSc in an joint physics and math program. I'm going for grad studies soon I hope

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I am very slowly sorking on my degree in Ecology, with a minor in Chemistry.

The reason why I am doing this is because I feel that environmental sciences is a good, secure future right now, with the world going to hell in a handbasket and all.

Of course, the more I learn about ecology, the more I find out that hippies are idiots, but that's a seperate debate..

[Maj]

Of course, the more I learn about ecology, the more I find out that hippies are idiots, but that's a seperate debate..

No doubt!

[Username17]

Yes, there's plenty of room for being an environmentalist without being a vegan or living in a yurt.

In fact, treating your feces in giant chemical plants is one of the best things you can do for the environment.

-Username17

[Thoth_Amon]

I have a BS and MS in Systems Engineering. The program was just starting at my University when I started school and I thought it would be a good way to get fresh classes that were not pulled out of a can every semester.

TA

[Jack_Lurch]

My major is Communications with an emphasis in Print Media. I usually just say I'm a Journalism Major, but I don't write for the school paper or anything.

I'll probably end up teaching, which is cool.

-Jack

[Incarnadine]

BA in Latin and English and a MA in English (Literary Theory).

Maj, I'm surprised y'all have Arabic and not Hebrew. At Tennessee, the Ancient Greek and Hebrew switched off from year to year, and if you majored in a dead language, you had to have at least a year of another dead language under your belt before completion. My year it was Greek. Which bit of the country are you in? Or, well, that was an assumption. Which bit of the world?

[Maj]

I live in Olympia, WA, and it's not really a surprise to me. We don't exactly have a high demographic of Arabic or Hebrew speaking people. Nor do we have a particularly huge religious community interested in studying languages like Hebrew and Greek - Olympia prides itself on the fact that it has one of the highest numbers of religion-less people in the country. We also have a very high number of people who don't support Israel in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and thus are more interested in studying the language of the "underdog".

All of these factors add up to give us Arabic instead of Hebrew... And I was in the first class of Arabic ever taught at the college (last year). The school has no requirements when it comes to language study at all - but then, they hate making anything a requirement if they can avoid it.

[Incarnadine]

Iiiinteresting.

And I wandered over to the other thread later last night and found out you were in Washington, but I was just more interested in going to hear Mannheim Steamroller than in unposting my question.

[Alhadis]

I was I had a major.

At the moment, I guess I can be satisfied with being a "major" pain-in-the-butt. ^_^

[MrWaeseL]

first year physics student here. I want to do astronomy, but I can only specialize next year...

[rapanui]

BS in Molecular Genetics. Then I will hopefully get into graduate school and eventually into research. I'd also like to complete a minor in Evilology, but the potions master keeps failing me.

EDIT: As for WHY, that's a good question. I have loved molecular biology since I was old enough to read about Mendel, Darwin, Watson and Crick, McClintock, and more recently Messelson and Stahl. Jurassic Park probably helped get me interested, but I quickly forgot about dinosaurs when I realized the sheer scale of the technology I was dealing with. I could design, NAY, IMPROVE living beings.

As for Evilology it probably has something to do with kids picking on me when I was little. I'll make those bastards boil in the stew of their own internal liquified organs some day.

[User3]

Eh, I'm just arrogant enough to think that people care....

Completed a BA in Literature with a focus in Modern Lit.(but also completed a thesis in philosophy). Was Biochem my first year with an eye toward med school, but I decided that someone too messed up to wake up in time to get to the section necessary to pass 2nd quarter Calculus should not be a Doctor. (At one point, I could barely make my 1:40 class).

I also went to a brain-trust highschool where I spent four years learning to program(in Turbo Pascal and BASIC, the two most useless languages evar).

I've parleyed these things into jobs as a technical writer, English teacher in Japan, and now I'm an editor of government reports(as deadly dull as you would expect).

When I've gotten my defaulted student loans back under control, I think I'll get a PhD in something, since at the ripe age of 27 my head is screwed on pretty tight these days.

Mostly I tend to choose career and academic paths with hot girls in them.

All in all, I know just enough about a variety of subjects to get myself into trouble.

[rapanui]

"Completed a BA in Literature with a focus in Modern Lit.(but also completed a thesis in philosophy)."

Cool, I like philosophy too, I've taken 2 classes as electives thus far, I'm going for my third soon.

"Was Biochem my first year with an eye toward med school, but I decided that someone too messed up to wake up in time to get to the section necessary to pass 2nd quarter Calculus should not be a Doctor. (At one point, I could barely make my 1:40 class)."

I had a similar problem with calculus except that I kept going and somehow managed a C. Lowest grade in college thus far. Technically my final was so pathetic the Prof should have torn me a new one, but somehow I passed.

"I also went to a brain-trust highschool where I spent four years learning to program(in Turbo Pascal and BASIC, the two most useless languages evar)."

Meh, it's learning how to be friends with computers that counts. I learned Visual Basic and C++.

"I've parleyed these things into jobs as a technical writer, English teacher in Japan, and now I'm an editor of government reports(as deadly dull as you would expect)."

The English teacher thing sounds cool. You get to correct all the bad "Engrish".

"When I've gotten my defaulted student loans back under control, I think I'll get a PhD in something, since at the ripe age of 27 my head is screwed on pretty tight these days."

Mmmm... PhD. Tasty.

"Mostly I tend to choose career and academic paths with hot girls in them."

There are hot girls in the sciences at my school, but that doesn't matter because I suck.

"All in all, I know just enough about a variety of subjects to get myself into trouble."

Excellent. I've branched out a little, but mostly I've stayed focused on the sciences, and the humanities courses I do take are philoophy, the closest you get to science in the humanities.

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

The company I interviewed with yesterday seemed very keen on working with me to go back at some point and get my Masters in Operations Research. That puts them way ahead of the shithole I'm working in now.

[rapanui]

Operations Research? Please, elucidate the subject for me, since I have absolutely no clue what it is. Does it have anything to do with, like, Industrial Engineering?

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

It's a specific branch of IE mostly dealing with Linear Programming, Supply Chain Optimization, and the like. It's good for folks in the software industry, becuase you get some coding and algorithm experience with the degree.

[User3]

1071872154[/unixtime]]I live in Olympia, WA

I went to Evergreen for a year. I had to cut off my dreadlocks to be different

What school do you go to?

Major was biomedical engineering, but after failing all of my classes for a quarter last year (at the University of Minnesota), I decided to take a break from school...

[Maj]

My husband was in the process of getting his degree at Evergreen when I moved down here, so I joined him. Honestly, I'm not thrilled with the school - it's too unstructured and there's little reason to do your best - but it does allow me to pursue any degree I want to because you can write your own classes.

Technically, I've completed enough credits to graduate, but I haven't paid the school back so I can't get my diploma.

Did you go to Evergreen because it was close or...?