Wednesday, October 27, 2004

The single most useless major at any college or university

At first, I was going to say Human and Organizational Development - the crap major my employer has that funnels people into classes on Meyers Briggs, organizational theory and the wonders of Power Point presentations.

Then there is Urban Studies, which seems to be very popular with football players at many of the top 25 schools. And by top 25, I mean in the BCS - not US News.

But no, I think the most useless major is sociology. What do you do with that in the real world? I took 3 sociology classes as an undergrad and I cannot recall an instance of critical thinking being used. I vividly recall getting in a shouting match with one of the guys in my class (who eventually became a pretty good bud once the rhetoric died down) about gender.

I went to see my Professor about my paper topic. The parents of the guy I was seeing at the time were from Brazil. So I thought that would be interesting, considering they were Seventh Day Adventists in the very Catholic Brazil. I wanted to write my paper on religious minorities in Brazil. I found several books and articles; I was set to talk to his parents.

"No you can't do that."
"Why?"
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Because I said so."

And then some blather about how those were differences we couldn't see and I needed to write on racial discrimination.

"There aren't any resources in the library on racial discrimination in Brazil. There are 3 books on religion..."

Mike Adams, the wonderful Professor from North Carolina, answers the question of
"Why Johnny's Sociology Professor is a Marxist". My sociology professor was a Marxist. I was a liberal feminist at the time and even she grated on my nerves with her lovey-dovey schtick. The second class I took with her was the same term I took my Judiciary and the Constitution - or how to make libertarians. My responses were often quite different.

"Please explain to me WHY this should be the government's responsibility?"