Monday, August 13, 2001

Philosophy and Psychology As Majors

I know earlier I was saying that Psychology and Philosophy majors___  But let us examine this more closely.  What exactly are they qualified to be psychologists of?

Now, I have taken a Psych class.  I wanted to, and it fulfilled a general education requirement anyway.  But it seems a rather frivolous subject around which to base an entire college major.  I have also taken English, History, and Poli Sci.  They are required as part of gen education because they teach us students to expand our horizons, learn to think in different ways, be exposed to [[[___thnk something___]]]

All well and good.  [[[But hse are basically just 'talking,, nnn discussing'' stuff.  It is probably a lot of the same topics rehashed over and over again.  I do not see how this could realistically expand enough to fill an entire four-year college major with all those 120-credit hour requirements.

Psychology major.  Actually, let me rephrase that.  Okay, so perhaps there is enough material to inspire four academic years' worth of stuff.  However.  I do not see what is so complicated that it absolutely must be taught within the college classroom for four years worth of school.  I will explain.  Back in my senior year of high school when I was visiting colleges, I perused a college bookstore.  I happened upon a textbook of psychology, and I read through almost the whole entire edition, and it was fascinating.  But in all honesty it was not particularly difficult to understand.  I understood the majority of the volume on my own, without ever needing to set foot inside a college classroom.

The reason students go to college is that they can learn fundamentals and details of topics that they would not be able to learn on their own.  That is the whole point of going to college, correct?  The purpose of higher education is to train and prepare young individuals for complex jobs out in the job market.  There are skill sets that would be rather difficult for students to learn on their own.  This is true for most of the mathematics and science subjects.

But I have a hard time believing that a person could not simply learn psychology and philosophy on their own.  One can just read a textbook and acquire a working comprehension of all the material therein.  It is all written in plain language.  There are no mysterious, cryptic symbols or messages with hidden meaning.  There are no mathematical formulas to commit to memory.  There are no complex connections that bridge two distinct topics together or anything like that.

There is no reason that a person would not be able to simply devour a textbook of psychology and engorge, ingest it.  It is fun and interesting and fascinating to have one or two isolated college courses in psychology or history.  But it seems a bit superfluous to have a whole entire college major springboarding from this.

Philosophy major. [[[mebbe puttt my opin on what plhil entails???  Dunno, was too emotinat ar the time...]]]  At some point I was turned off of philosophy class because this one obviously was nothing more than fluff.  "Violence, abuse, murder of any kind are wrong."  There.  That is all the philosophy you need.  [[liken this to the 'distur trrend' essay.]]]  I have come to realized this as over the past few years I have become disillusioned to what really happens in the world.

History major.  This one arguably can be considered one of the very few libarts subjects that deals in actual facts.  This one has enough source material that it can be realistically pulped out enough to fill an entire college major.

Okay, so you learned history.  Then what?  What is one going to do with that Bachelor degree in history?  Do history?  I see in interviews or something that a lot of people say they like learning history because it helps them understand why people act the way they do.

Uh, I take issue with this hypothesis.  People don't always act the way they do because of history.  Sure, personal history greatly affects a person's perceptions and outlook on life, which definitely influences their behavior.  But that doesn't make it into the history books.

Well, at least those majors have some prior repertoire in the intelligentsia.

But then there are a bunch of useless majors that seem designed specifically to get people to work in corporate business nonsense.  Advertising.  Public relations.  What the hell is marketing management?  I've heard that specific major somewhere, I think.  It sounds like a bunch of garbledygook.  I took a Management class once.  The professor was really good because he explained concepts using real-life examples of personnel issues.  But the textbook, the syllabus, and the tests were gibberish fluff.  It was comprised of a whole lot of buzzwords and boardroom meetings jargon.

As we know, higher level courses delve deeper and deeper into the nitty gritty of a subject.  That might be a problem when there is no substance upon which to expound.  To be fair, one or two courses in management might prove useful.  But beyond that is wasting time and money.  From what I gather, a manager is only truly necessary if the employees are incompetent idiots that need to be constantly baby-sat.  A manager might be needed to breathe down employees' necks.  But if the employees are good, they should be able to work under minimal supervision, and minimal management.  Like I said, it is mostly rubbish.

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