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  • LAVA Moderator: Shinji Ikari

What the hell am I going to do with a Sociology Degree?

To answer your question, Idler:

I took an intro. soc. course the first year. I was in university for psychology. I ended up hating psych and found sociology to just "come naturally" if you may. The only other thing at the time that did as well was religious studies, so I picked sociology because it was slightly less useless ;).

In all honesty though, I am currently sick of it, and would not really want to spend blood and tears on a graduate work. I did have to face the "oh shit, this is going nowhere" thing in my 3rd year of university. Its a horrible feeling especially that by that time it would be too late to change programs (hard as I tried), and too wasteful to drop out...

It seems my interests have shifted towards something like amateur archaeology, so I might consider taking up Tomb Raiding =D
 
Because sociology is a rigorous, engaged discipline answering real world questions
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Depends on the sociologist. Are you researching job availability in poor urban areas? Or are you stuck in a pit of epistemological muck?

The arrogance of psychology with regards to the validity of it's paradigm and the strength of its truth claims makes psych much less rigorous than sociology
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As if constantly doubting your "epistemology" is necessarily rigorous! Maybe it is better to avoid constructing strict frameworks for meaning. Remember people do construct their own meaning...and academic sociology is just one avenue among many for putting "meaning to experience."

But to readdress the original question, look at the core issue here. We go to college to enrich our minds and prepare ourselves for a productive life in which we add something to the collective "humanity." If you believe you will be better able to contribute to humanity by possessing an in-depth knowledge of sociology, then go for it. Maybe you'd like to do research on social movements, or even start one of your own. Maybe you want to do social work or participate in government designing social support systems that do the most good. The point is, a sociology degree does not necessarily mean you will become a professional "sociologist" but you will draw upon your experience.

Protovak did polictical science? Nice move into medicine against all the premeds
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Heh, I ranked high in my ochem class too :) 3 years ago I asked myself, "What the hell am I going to do with a Political Science degree?" Answer: nothing specific, just move on and pursue a career in something interesting outside of academia. I just assumed this is what most people do.
 
>>Depends on the sociologist. Are you researching job availability in poor urban areas? Or are you stuck in a pit of epistemological muck?>>

We need to clear the epistemological muck to get valid statements off the ground. :)

>>As if constantly doubting your "epistemology" is necessarily rigorous! >>

If rigor is to be valuable, what is it other than auto-critique?

ebola
 
Ugh, i know how you feel.
I'm 15 credits short of attainiing an undergraduate 'Religious Studies' degree.
I did learn a good bit in school and I met some cool professors and made some new friends. Additionally, I learned how to think in a more critical fashion.

HOWEVER, I haven't been in school since February when I simply just stopped going to classes.
What the hell am I going to do with a degree in Religious Studies? I have a spiritual side in my life, but I wouldn't feel comfortable going into a religious career....

I see what you mean about the lib studies classes. I have an entire year to go with school because I need to complete two upper level language classes. All my other classes have to be lib studies as well. What the fuck, it's nice that they want the masses to be well-rounded, but it's such a distraction.

Lately I've been wondering what a degree in school is for anyways. Sure it prepares you for the 'real world' but what does that mean?
Private property, a nice car, a tv...?
It feels like so much of the real world (in the US) is a capitalist dream gone awry, where the masses slave away their lives in terrifyingly dull lower class white color work.

I have a friend who graduated with honorary degrees in Poli-Sci and Computer Science. Today he delivers pizza for minimum wage.

At the moment I'm doing organic farming internships and trying to see what kind of conservation work I can do. Maybe I'll find some 'career' in those fields.

To answer your question, pretty much all I've heard from Sociology majors is: "Well I guess I'm going to do social work."

Which isn't necessarily a good or bad thing.

Sorry if I rambled incoherently.
 
There are many jobs where some undergraduate degree - ANY undergrad degree - is a prerequisite. So you've got something valuable there. For example, at my job, the survey programmers/data analysts all do coding (I use that term loosely - they use a survey platform and it requires a limit amount of coding knowledge, but they mostly just copy and paste snippets and modify them, rather than truly understanding what they're doing, except for one guy who is making n effort and getting better). Not a one of them has a degree in computer science. One was a music major, one was a political science major, and the other was... a sociology major. They're all making pretty good money considering they don't actually have degrees in computer science.

Just an example. No undergrad degree is truly useless.
 
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