University?

[Melkor]

So..
In short...

Is anyone going to university?

and if so, what will you be studying?

At current, my mind is set on doing a crimonology degree, but I tend to be an expert at deviating from my cause so.....

 

[FusionKnight]

I'd like to go back and get a Masters Degree in Architecture...

 

[Ogion]

I am going to university (in Germany, obviously) and have done so for about three and a half years.

I started with a "Magister Artium"-study with celtic studies as major and two history subjects as minor. (The words are a bit fuzzy for me, because i have to translate the german words and find suitable ones which don't hold too much definition in your language...For example major. The magister artium consists of one main subject and two side subjects which together make 50% of the total). Then after two years, i had enough of celtic studies and wanted to change. I chose Geography as my new subject and have studied this for 1.5 years now (the degree will be a "Diplom". )

But i have my troubles with all this. One thing is, that it seems so limiting to study one subject, and leave out nearly all the others.
The other is that academia, despite being a place alledgedly for learning, really is just a place to show performance, get recognition for this and then as quickly as possible get a job (actually where there again it is just about bringing performance). There was a time when, especially in Germany (think of Humboldt), university was about real education, about real learning for the sake of learning. Nowadays it is about getting a basic schooling-education with the aim to get into the economy, get a job soon.

One advice to everyone not yet in but going to go to university: Get to the university(ies) now and look at all the different subjects, look how they do their scince, look which contents they have, look at the traditions of the subjects...In short: get to know the different disciplines, and think very careful about what to choose...Get to know these things early enough to let it be able to influence your decision of choosing.

Ogion

 

[Decaf]

I think you'll be fine as long as you don't decide your major based on how anyone else feels about it, positive or negative. Also, don't try to figure out what you're good at. Figure out what you'd like to be good at. I made that mistake and I'm paying for it.

 

[stercusaccidit]

I'm thinking anthropology. I'm always thinking anthropology. Or linguistics. Or, you know, neuroscience.

I'm not really sure right now, but those are the top three. There are other subjects that I really like -- creative writing is always fun, for example -- but they aren't as mentally invigorating, for lack of a better phrase.

I'm guessing there's an 80% chance I end up in grad school though... I can't really see myself leaving academia for the work force unless I find something that I actually enjoy and won't get bored of within a year...

 

[Jordan~]

Hoping I get to study Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge.

 

[sagewolf]

Good luck with Cambridge. I'm hoping to study Animation at the IADT Dun Laoighaire: It's the only animation degree in all of Ireland! (I know how to pick my subjects...) I'll probably wind up going to England and doing it there.

 

[Artifice Orisit]

I'll be doing a bacholer of Interactive Entertainment some time next year.

If I'm going to do something it will be something I enjoy doing, else why do it specificly?

 

[Ermine]

I'm currently applying for colleges this month, but I'm still not sure what I want to major in. There are a few paths I could take. There are a number of combinations I could make from the following subjects I'm interested in: Art, English, music, graphic design, political science, and possibly education. I imagine it would be very fulfilling to teach any of these subjects on a seconday or university level.

 

[Chronomar]

I don't know exactly where I am going yet, as I am a junior in highschool, but I do know I want to study Molecular Biological Engineering. Or something like that. I also want to continue studying art, history, spanish, and maybe start studying latin or geology in college just for fun.

 

[del]

Also, don't try to figure out what you're good at. Figure out what you'd like to be good at. I made that mistake and I'm paying for it.

This is great advice. I made that mistake but I caught it soon enough.

I've always been naturally good at mathematics and interested in physics, so I've been doing a combined math/physics degree without really thinking about it.

Then comes sophomore year and I start getting into 400 level classes where I have to actually study and do homework, and I realize how I'm not really all that interested in the subject.

I mean, it's lovely and interesting enough, but I don't have the patience for the level of detail demanded at that level. When I had to actually work and apply myself, I found I didn't like doing it that much (if that makes sense).

So now I'm going back and taking classes in my original interest: biology and medicine -- which, to be honest, I'm not nearly as naturally good at, but I enjoy myself much more. I'll still graduate with a B.Sc in math but I'll at least be qualified enough to pursue graduate study in biology or medicine.

To those not yet in college, I'd also recommend taking classes from as many fields as you can possibly manage. Hard and soft sciences, humanities, philosophy, art, business, etc. One of the best classes I ever took was General Business 101, which I thought I'd absolutely hate (lack of theory, dullness, etc), but ended up loving simply because it was a radically different perspective.

And hey, you might even find you want to devote yourself to something completely unexpected.

 

[sagewolf]

To those not yet in college, I'd also recommend taking classes from as many fields as you can possibly manage. Hard and soft sciences, humanities, philosophy, art, business, etc. One of the best classes I ever took was General Business 101, which I thought I'd absolutely hate (lack of theory, dullness, etc), but ended up loving simply because it was a radically different perspective.

So in USA college you take different classes, but mostly focus on one or two, is that it? We do courses over here: you apply for something very specific, like I said Animation. That means I'll do life drawing, study the history of the medium, film-making techniques and terminology, look at cel animation, look at stop-motion, look at CGI. Experiment with media.

See what I'm saying? It's all very specific. So when we pick something, we have to keep in mind that we'll be doing it for three or four years, pretty much non-stop. The amount of thought my peers are NOT putting into this is mind-boggling.

 

[Decaf]

The only difference is that in the US you don't have to declare a major until your junior year. Unfortunately that also means that most students these days get their degree in 5 years instead of 4 because no one has helped them select a major that actually fits them. They come in from high school having no idea what they want to do with their lives. All they know is that they're expected to go to college if they want to get a good job.

I started as a physics major and switched to chemistry after my first year, but thankfully all of my credits were transferable, so it only took me 4 years (some manage it in 3 years, but I wasn't in a hurry).

One of the things I want to do after I go back to school for psychology is provide career guidance to kids. We really need it here.

 

[sagewolf]

Junior year is the second year, then? Good luck with the career guidance: it is needed. I get the feeling, though, from the people around me, that it's not just that they don't know what to do with themselves: they don't really care about figuring it out either. There's a huge emphasis here on getting points in the Leaving Cert, but they don't seem to click that without a college course picked, the points are useless. Yet they continue to focus on the wrong things. O_o

 

[Artifice Orisit]

Then comes sophomore year and I start getting into 400 level classes where I have to actually study and do homework, and I realize how I'm not really all that interested in the subject.

I mean, it's lovely and interesting enough, but I don't have the patience for the level of detail demanded at that level. When I had to actually work and apply myself, I found I didn't like doing it that much (if that makes sense).

That makes perfect sense, once an INTP is required to do something then the interest is diminished. The nature of an INTP is to dabble in many things of interest and hopefully find obsucre links that can be used to their advantage.

Actually sitting down to do the druggery of work is hard.

 

[Ogion]

Yes cognisant and del, that is hard in university. You know, everything here is interesting, but as soon as they want to see some performance and such it gets uninteresting very quickly...

Ogion

 

[FusionKnight]

Junior year is the second year, then?

Freshman - 1st Year
Sophomore - 2nd Year
Junior - 3rd Year
Senior - 4th Year
"Super Senior" - anything more than 4 years...

 

[Sarafin86]

This is my first time ever posting anything.
I'm in college as a sophomore. I have dabbled in many things but as i get more involved with them i loose interest. Currently i am in E Engineering and I'm finding that though building and programing robots (circuts and other junk) would be fun. I get bogged down with learning the specifics. I would love it if it was "here is a pile of junk (rc cars, radios, diodes, resistors, and a PLC) figure out how they work and build a robot that will wave and say hi to me by the end of the term". How the hell can i find that in a class and make a career out of that.
Hell there are time i feel that i have no place at all in this world.

 

[Ogion]

Hi and welcome to the forum. May you find interesting and revealing discussions

Well, you're obviously not alone with that feeling. Right now, today, i again felt that way. I always ask myself, how am i to learn what i am supposed to learn, and then i think that it would be in vain because no matter which field i'd choose there'd always be someone 'better' in it than me, the things i'd do, already achieved.
Sorry, i can't give you advice, i am just another one suffering from that selfdoubt...

Ogion

 

[didyouknow]

I'm planning to go to university and get an arts degree in applied linguistics. I find it really fun and there's a lot of different languages I can study. After that, though the system, I can get a doctorate of philosophy.

Although, I'm not sure it'll work out that way...I've always had an interest in a wide variety of areas. I might end up like my dad, with (I'm serious) over ten degrees.

Mostly in sociology and psychology. He just loves to learn new things...I'm thinking he's probably an INTP as well.

 

[bdubs]

I'm just finishing up with my first quarter of my Freshmen year. I plan on studying biology but have yet to actually take any classes in the sciences. I do not really know what I want to do with that major, but there are a lot of things that interest me in the area.

Edit: I agree with decaf on the fact that we need more career guidance here in the states. Closest thing I have had to career guidance was a standardized test based on the military that was supposed to tell me what areas I might want to look into. I ended up being told I could do just about anything but become an automechanic. I did not find that particularly useful because I know less than nothing about cars.

 

[fullerene]

fair warning... be ready to hate biology--I think it grates against the INTP personality type. It's a lot of rote memorization, at least at the intro level, and the bio majors (at my college, which is very physics/engineering/computer science centered) are always the ones who are freaking out about having the most work and always being busy. It may just be because they're pre-med, so they're real hyper... but I ended up dropping intro bio this semester just because the memorization would have buried me if I'd stayed in it. It does probably depend a good deal on the professor, though.

 

[bdubs]

Thanks for the tips. I know what you mean about that type of memorization grating on the nerves of an INTP. Its been one of the reasons why foreign language vocabulary has never been my strong suit. I take my first biology class in Spring quarter of this year. I suppose I'll just have to wait and see what I think about it eh?

Looking ahead at my schedule, I see that a large majority of my time will also be spent in Chemistry. What are your experiences with that subject?

 

[LucasM]

I am in Civil Engineering 'Junior' year. I like it. It is a very diverse field.

 

[Kuu]

... is killing me slowly.

I wonder how many years has my life been shortened due to excessive sleep deprivation? How much younger will I be when I get white hairs and start going bald?

I should have gone to a liberal arts university...

 

[perkins_o1]

Hopefully I will get into arts.

I to do political science and German. I will also have a dabble in anthropology as i was interested in it previous to my political interests... Then I will decide which to profess.

Then I'm taking a gap year with the Australian Defence Force. = Money for travelling ))

 

[Ogion]

Hi and welcome to the forum. May you find interesting and enlightening discussions

As a German, i'd like to ask how it somes, that an Australian is interested in german (the language, i assume?)?

Ogion

 

[figaro_black]

I thought about reading Criminology a few semesters back since I figured it would be fun looking into the psyche of other people, doing profiles and whatnot. Though to be able to read Criminology I first had to study Sociology, which initially was fun enough. We started with the big ideas. Then we went down, down and down into the small particulars. The day came when we were supposed to do a small study in Sociology, a very specific study based on recording data. No theories were to be applied, the data were not to be connected to bigger patterns, we were simply just stating what we saw which I found utterly and unbearably boring. The same thing holds true for linguistics and political science. The theories are great fun, the real world applications of them are not.

I'm much happier with subjects like Archaeology, Literature and History of Ideas (literature, history and philosophy combined in one) since there you do not run into the wall that the real world is, you are not constrained to what empirical data can tell you, but can come up with your own theories and find proof for them in other theories or empirical data. You are simply free to use your mind. But then, that is my version of using my mind, being able to connect one bit of information, with another, and another.

 

[zxc]

I'm expected to go to university, but I don't want to. I can't convince my parents to see my point of view either.

I personally think that university has nothing to do with real learning. It's just for certificates that someone can boast about or use to enter a work force a.k.a. modern slave force. Real learning you get through books, discussions, and the internet.

 

[Ogion]

Well, you surely got a point there, of course. At least for us self-lerners. I don't think i learned as much in university over the last years as i did on the internet in the same time.

Though the point here is, that most probably you will get less 'reputation', less acknowledgement for self-learned knowledge than for certificates...

Ogion

 

[figaro_black]

I'm expected to go to university, but I don't want to. I can't convince my parents to see my point of view either.

I personally think that university has nothing to do with real learning. It's just for certificates that someone can boast about or use to enter a work force a.k.a. modern slave force. Real learning you get through books, discussions, and the internet.

Well, university certainly can be about certificates and whatnot if that is why you decide to attend. However, university also is about meeting people with the same interests with whom you can discuss. They are about being able to access vast seas of knowledge locked up in precious university libraries. They are about changing and challenging your own perspective over and over again in a way that is very hard to do outside of the university walls since you are forced to read about things that might at a first glance seem utterly uninteresting but that will then radically alter how you perceive the world. In short, a university degree might be nothing but a fancy bit of paper to hang on the wall but the university experience is life altering in every respect of the word.

Oh, and by the way I imagine it much more pleasant to enter the slave force with an education than without an education. Since no matter how you view it - if you don't happen to be rich - we all have to work sooner or later and that piece of paper does mean that you will have a slightly better chance to find that job of your dreams than if you were without. See it as a lottery ticket where you only have to have half of the numbers right in order to win the jackpot.

 

[dbtng_thomas]

I see some positive and negative views of formal education expressed here. I am firmly in favor of going to school. Like many of the posters, I have problems with pursuing a set curriculum, however I can't allow that to be an excuse and prevent me from accomplishing things. Being INTP offers us some advantages in life. Being a successful INTP means addressing the disadvantages too. If the restrictions of college (with our very liberal modern system of electives) seem to be too much for you, then perhaps its something you should do anyway just to build up the mental muscle necessary.

One of the posters discussed parents wanting him to go to school. Are they paying for it? Don't throw the chance away. If you truly feel you aren't ready, tell them you want a year off between HS and college, and then you'll start at a junior college instead of the university. That way, if you blow a semester or two, you'll have cost them a lot less money, and might still have your free ride.

 

[aahzombies]

I recently received my Letter of Acceptance from FSU, so I'll be headed to Tallahassee next Fall. As for a major, I think I've finally found my niche in Psychology and Neurobiology. As of now, I am not sure which will end up being my primary focus, but since all Neuro majors have to start out as Psych majors, I have time to figure it out. I'm also considering a minor in either German or Creative Writing.

 

[Ancalion]

I'm studying Political Science, my last year. Dunno if i graduate, it's been so boring lately.

 

[Da Blob]

Hmmmm
several interesting points, I dropped out of the University of Chicago because I became disillusioned perhaps a few years too late. I began to see it as some type of Religious institution, maintaining a structure created in ancient Germany, with each academic discipline being a mere denomination of that religion. I was really bummed out because at the time the U. of Chicago was one of the top 3 schools in the USA, so I did not think pursuing a formal education any where else would be worth the effort.

I am a borderline genius, and I found it so ironic that I needed to be able to wave a degree, certificate, apiece of paper of some kind, to prove to potential employers that I actually was intelligent. Apparently, most employers are not intelligent to recognize the same ability in others based upon conversation or communication of another sort..
So a word of warning unless one is satisfied with a life of relative poverty, do not quit a formal education prematurely

Concerning boring, redundant, busy-work-filled introductory classes. Test out of them!
I spent a week reading a couple of text books on Zoology in the summer. I took an Advanced Placement test, and passed, so I dodged two semesters of busy work and a nasty lab class.
Not too mention saving a significant sum of money and time...

As far, making the put off decision of "What I want to Be, when I grow up"
Making a living at one's chosen avocation is a rare achievement. Perhaps, you should plan on a career of doing something you are good at, but don't particularly enjoy, and relegate your avocation to the status of a hobby and a leisure time activity...

 

[saffyangelis]

I've heard off someone who's doing a course called 'Engineering with computer science' that it's really good - and they're going to be one of the people that comes up with the ideas for robots to be built and I think I might do that. (I've got a cold, so I can't remember half of it.)

 

[Gorgrim]

I don't want to settle for a job I don't wanna do. But the mental endurance to get through 'formal education' and all the shit it brings is tough. And im not sure I have a solution to skip it and end up in the schools you want. If i chose not to go to school I would have a hard time finding something I would like to do that gave any kind of cash.


Im 18, in the high school stage still. It's an immense bore of unmotivated students that don't want to be there in the first place. I had a thing for astronomy and physics ever since i was little. So kinda gonna see what i can make of high school till im done. in which case I'll hopefully be allowed further to university.... its my best option.

btw. To do a job you don't particular enjoy would be possible. But it wouldnt be full-heartedly, would be hard to find one of those ( that you are also good at) which would get you enough money.

usually those jobs aren't that easy to get hold of in the first place. would the job you wanted not be worth it in the first place? unless you wanna settle for a job you can get easily. Anyway, I would hate myself if i settled for something i didn't like. I don't wanna go there. and hope people will give me some recognition when im abit older

 

[Da Blob]

I don't want to settle for a job I don't wanna do. But the mental endurance to get through 'formal education' and all the shit it brings is tough. And im not sure I have a solution to skip it and end up in the schools you want. If i chose not to go to school I would have a hard time finding something I would like to do that gave any kind of cash.


Im 18, in the high school stage still. It's an immense bore of unmotivated students that don't want to be there in the first place. I had a thing for astronomy and physics ever since i was little. So kinda gonna see what i can make of high school till im done. in which case I'll hopefully be allowed further to university.... its my best option.

btw. To do a job you don't particular enjoy would be possible. But it wouldnt be full-heartedly, would be hard to find one of those ( that you are also good at) which would get you enough money.

usually those jobs aren't that easy to get hold of in the first place. would the job you wanted not be worth it in the first place? unless you wanna settle for a job you can get easily. Anyway, I would hate myself if i settled for something i didn't like. I don't wanna go there. and hope people will give me some recognition when im abit older

It seems as though you have already 'resigned' your Self to 'settle' for an education that you don't want..
So settling for a job you do not want will not be such a challenge as you have imagined..

There are cynics who claim that's that's the true goal of the Educational Industry: to condition us (like training animals) to accept the unacceptable

Just do not 'Settle' for a life that is boring and has no challenge to it...