Business Majors...

phobos
Thu, 24 Apr 2008 04:13:05 +0000

ok, i don’t know how often this has been addressed so far but i’m not going to read the whole thread for it:



Briefly:
1- The entire goal of going to college is to graduate and get MONEY, perferably a high-paying job.

2- Business majors teach you about MONEY, you can earn a degree and work, but you’ll also know how to invest this money and how to finance it.

without getting too philosophical, at least on the argument of the value of education (and trying my hardest not to be trite here), college isn’t always about the money.

before you whine about that, let me explain…at least from the engineering standpoint, the beautiful thing about the sciences, and especially engineering, is that you gain a much greater understanding of the natural world…and an understanding that is, for all intents and purposes, indisputable and not a fabrication of human thought, but merely a human interpretation of nature to the best extent of human thought. (and if you haven’t taken an intensive proof-based math class or a rigorous physics class, you might not get what i mean.)

that’s opposed to something like political science or business, where what’s learned is a human construct…even at the most fundamental levels of politics, of economics, etc., the best that can be studied is a human construct or an idea that exists because a human created it. as such, there can be innumerable interpretations to something like a political system or economic structure and each can be equally valid. at the end of any analysis, you don’t really get a solid truth, which to me and others in engineering, isn’t satisfying or good enough.

with science and engineering, you do get a kind of truth at the end of an analysis. and that truth is put to the test by the developments in technology that affect our lives so profoundly everyday. so there’s at least two things that engineering and science have that give it a leg up on other studies: the empowerment of having at least a morsel of real truth (religious arguments aside), and the rewarding feeling that you know you at least have the potential to a) make a real difference in the world, whether or not you get credit for it, or b) do something REALLY cool and produce a really cool tangible result from your understanding of the nature of things in the world.

i don’t mean to put one side down or bring the other side up, just saying that without having gone through any of the experiences like a really challenging physics or circuits class, it may be hard to understand quite why engineers enjoy doing what they do. and, really, to get paid pretty good money to do what genuinely interests you just makes it even better :D