Help advise me on my educational path

[piku_playground]

I've had a lot of difficulty deciding on what to major in. I'm only a freshman in my community college, but after this semester I will be needing to have a better focus on my educational path. If I do not, there is a chance I will be wasting more time on unnecessary credits for transferring into a four year university as a junior.

Main areas of interest for me have been Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology and other social sciences. More recently, spirituality, sustainability and creative thinking have been more dear to me. The issue I have been having is the thought of assigning myself with one over zealous school of thought and moving into a career path for the rest of my life. Psychology seems too often to ignore the social implications for human action, while Sociology often ignores our free will and is overly concerned with social constructs. There is little you can do career wise with Philosophy, and I'm not concerned as much with arm chair, "rational," thinking as I used to be. It feels that every school of thought believes they have the "correct" answer, but I suppose that this is something common to human nature, and will be something prevalent in all majors. But a more well rounded approach to our human condition is what I am seeking.

I have considered Social Entrepreneurship as people like Muhammad Yunus hold my respect. Working for an NGO or other organization doesn't seem like a bad idea to me, if it would allow to to travel and help people. Unfortunately most schools do not offer this area of study until graduate schools, even then it appears it is quite rare in the United States.

I really feel I need something that will allow the use of creative expression. Music, art, and other forms of media have taken a larger role in my life in the past couple years. I have always enjoyed speech and dialogue and consider myself to be fairly good at it. If I do not get involved with something that allows me to express my own ideas, I will become very unmotivated and apathetic. Although I imagine this will be more of an issue with my career rather then education.

I am an INFP (Idealist) and really enjoy discovering ways to better our lives in this universe. I am very good at giving advise to people, although I think advise is quite useless. As Oscar Wilde says "The only thing advise is good for is passing it on."

If I don't find something that really inspires me educationally soon, I worry that I will become detached from my education and eventually either leave it or not put in full effort and only graduate with a four year degree. I would really like to become enthralled by my area of study, and take it to a far level. I have never really been that stimulated by my coursework, yet I will spend hours doing research on the things that are interesting to me.

I don't know if this is the right place to be looking for answers, maybe the answer is within, but I do respect the people on this forum from what I have seen. School counselors have offered NO help at all, other then saying "You really need to choose a major soon, but we can't help you with that decision at at all."

Thanks for any help. Hopefully this is coherent, I have a killer head ache right now.

 

[satricion]

Hmm well, first I need to declare a bias: I'm a sociologist (and I don't agree that sociology ignores free will, but anyway).

I think you have a good attitude - you clearly value education for the right reasons, and what that means is that you are getting disengaged from things that you don't feel are giving you any real education.

You are right that no perspective is perfect. But before you can start to critique disciplines (which is something you should do) you need to understand what is distinctive about that approach, why it is useful, and then what kind of problems it is unable to address (ie, what is wrong with it). Where you come in is as a creative, thinking person that understands the world in new, multifaceted ways based on the different perspectives that the disciplines are teaching you.

If you want to do things like work for NGOs what I suggest you do is take courses in political science, sociology or anthropology, and development studies (if your university offers that). You might also want to take some regional studies courses, particularly if you want to travel (by regional studies I mean things like Asian Studies, Latin American Studies etc etc). Have you studied any political science?

Then you could do graduate study in one of these fields (maybe politics would be the best if you want to work for an NGO) which would give you the space to get creative, as well as making you super employable worldwide in a range of different contexts (working for NGOs, governments, development agencies, charities, etc).

I personally don't think psychology is worthwhile for what you are aspiring to. The focus of psychology is much too narrow for what you want to do.

Is that helpful?

 

[piku_playground]

Thanks a lot for your reply.

I used to be more interested in political science, but this was when I was a "conservative" and was approaching the field in a very narrow minded view. I was involved in programs like Boys State, where I realized how much I despise politicians. Obviously the aim of studying political science is not always for politics, but it gave me a bitter taste. I should start taking political science courses in college.

I suppose I am basing my judgments on Sociology by only an introduction course and a couple of books. But some of the 100 and 200 level Sociology courses don't look that interesting. Yet in contrast, I felt some really strong emotions when studying my text book in see how screwed up our society can be. Sociology does appear to take a more realistic approach where ideas are less of an abstraction.

Is there any advice you can give on particular books to read or things to do to see if Sociology could be a potential major? I'm taking full time general classes right now, so I have time to kinda poke around.

 

[satricion]

Well, the social sciences tend to have a strong spirit of critique animating work in the fields. There is heaps and heaps of very critical (ie, non conservative) work in political science and political theory. I really think that for the kind of work you want to do, politics is a good field for you to be familiar with, both domestic and international politics, the politics of development, etc. So don't despise politicians, just take courses that will show you how politics actually works. Usually the problems is not individual politicians per se, but rather political systems and the kinds of historical events that create them.

I'm not sure what kind of sociology you'll want to get into. My experience was that I found sociology (and all of university) extremely boring until I discovered the sociology of health, which opened my eyes to the (at the time very radical sounding) idea that health and illness are social constructs. That is what got me interested in the field. That said, perhaps you could read some Richard Sennett. He is a sociologist who is also read by non-academics because he writes in a theoretically informed but accessible way about contemporary issues connected to social change and what not. Maybe it would be good to give him a go.

Anyway, my advice is to take general sociology courses and go from there. Maybe you should take some courses in social/sociological theory, since that in my view is the most interesting (although most difficult) stuff. Ultimately there's no reason why you shouldn't decide that sociology is not for you after all and that's fine. Have you studied any anthropology? That might give you another perspective on understanding social life which you might enjoy more.

Ultimately if you want to work for NGOs etc, and travel, then politics and some other kind of social science are going to be the most important. Think sociology, anthropology, development studies, regional studies, that kind of thing.

Also, the way the modern education system works is very alienating, and getting more so. There is a strong focus on grades, grades, grades, without much focus on learning, learning, learning. This is what, in my view, makes some courses so boring. They are taught in piecemeal ways which are designed to shuffle students through ideas that are not challenging so that they can do well, and at the end of the course fill out a feedback survey saying they are satisfied with their education. My advice is that you just have to get through the boring shit, try to get as much out of it as you can, and work on integrating the ideas into the way you really see the world. No discipline is boring (except psychology ) but the way they are taught often makes them seem irrelevant, pedantic, closed minded, or whatever. Only at the graduate level are you really allowed any creativity. I know it sucks, but you have to deal with it to get where you want to go. Formal education is really important in terms of credentials as well. If you don't suffer to get those qualifications, you are fucked on the job market. You gotta do what you gotta do.

 

[yougene]

I have considered Social Entrepreneurship as people like Muhammad Yunus hold my respect. Working for an NGO or other organization doesn't seem like a bad idea to me, if it would allow to to travel and help people. Unfortunately most schools do not offer this area of study until graduate schools, even then it appears it is quite rare in the United States.

I really feel I need something that will allow the use of creative expression. Music, art, and other forms of media have taken a larger role in my life in the past couple years. I have always enjoyed speech and dialogue and consider myself to be fairly good at it. If I do not get involved with something that allows me to express my own ideas, I will become very unmotivated and apathetic. Although I imagine this will be more of an issue with my career rather then education.

I think Social Entrepreneurship is an awesome idea. Especially if you are a good communicator.

I think that one of our biggest problems is people who share your sentiment are turned off by domains like business and politics. But people that feel morally disturbed by business and politics are the ones that should be involved in those fields most!