@ColoSky Cognitive Science is the study of intelligence, both human and machine. It varies a bit from college to college, but most programs incorporate some combination of psychology, philosophy, linguistics, statistics/logic, computer science, and/or neuroscience. It’s an appealing field for people who excel at both STEM and humanities. A CogSci degree includes courses from each discipline, and some programs also have CogSci courses that pull all of the fields together.
There are countless career options with such a foundation. My D, from the linguistics angle, is interested in learning more about computational linguistics (think Siri and Rosetta Stone). That would likely require a graduate degree. Also on her radar are graduate studies in Speech-Language Pathology or TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages). She’s also flirted with the idea of government work in linguistics. Someone else will have to tell you about career options branching from the other disciplines. It’s a fascinating field, for sure!
Re: cognitive science - In my case, I went as far as ABD (all but dissertation) in cognitive science of religion. The big question there is whether or not there’s something hardwired into us / our brains that predisposes us toward belief in and/or behaviors related to the supernatural / divine beings / religion.
The tl;dr answer is “yes.” As a discipline, we’re officially agnostic about whether this means divine / supernatural being(s) [e.g. god(s), ghosts, spirits, etc.] do or don’t exist, but whether or not they do, human beings are set up to believe in them, and some of us more strongly than others.
I went to graduate school in research psychology after my undergraduate cognitive science degree, but my career relates to both. I design computer software now, focusing on user experience, which definitely makes use of the degree. I was invited back to my school and gave a cognitive science symposium on what I was doing with the degree, about 10 years after I graduated.
H turned to CogSci as a back door into computer science, he had some issues with the CS curriculum at our school which was part of engineering and I think some (or maybe even all) of his issues may have been related to the requirement that he take like a year of physics. Like I said he was really into AI at the time so CogSci was a natural fit. He never went to grad school though and his career progressed as a programmer, etc and now he’s pretty far from his origins, working in computer security. I hear him get excited these days about neural networks and machine learning, as that was all the kinds of things he did as an undergrad in this niche field, now it’s very mainstream!
We are counting down the days until the end of the school year and like someone said up thread, I’ll be happy if I can get just get her through junior year at this point! It’s starting to feel like the neverending year. 8 school days left, but still so much work on her plate. A few classes have pretty much wrapped up which is nice, but the ones that haven’t are of course the chronic offenders of the whole year and they’ve doubled-down at the end (looking at you AP Calc >:P )
The good news is she hasn’t had time to be stressed about her foot surgery, the bad news is she’s having a pretty stressful end to the school year and she’s starting to lose both confidence and motivation.
Looking forward to recharging her batteries this summer!
D18 took SAT Literature today. She feels very confident about it. Just 2 omissions. She took SAT in May. So now it’s a waiting game until results come out. All testing done. Hoping for “one and done’s”. If not, then retake in August. Two finals and a big AP Comp project left. I thought she’d be “leaking oil” with the “dashboard warning lights” on right about now, but thankfully still going strong.
I forgot today was SATs! Glad the Lit test went well, sushiritto. Any other kids take the SAT today?
My D has 4 days of school left, with finals Tues/Wed/Thurs. She’s been studying all day, but generally seems less stressed this semester than she has in previous semesters. Partly it’s because she had some massive projects that she turned in over the past couple weeks and those classes have smaller or no finals. But think it’s partly just experience. She’s more used to finals now. But I know she is counting the minutes.
My DD took the SAT today. She seemed to feel pretty good about it. She felt like one Reading question was confusing. She got a 730 last time so that should be about high enough, but she would still like to improve it. She got a 660 Math last time and is really hoping to get that up. She needs just 10 points to get to 1400, her goal (but of course she wants even more, always pushing herself). Her first school of choice right now is University of Maryland, and it’s gotten pretty selective. She has good grades (3.97/4.6), but every bit helps.
She took the Essay part of the SAT this time. She isn’t sure how she did. She is a good writer, but she is concerned that most of the schools she wants to apply to don’t even want the essay so if she doesn’t do well it would reflect poorly on her for nothing? We weren’t sure if she should take it but didn’t want her held back by not taking it. We have the same issue with the SAT subject tests.
@Astro77 From what I’ve read, the SAT essay doesn’t seem to matter much either way. If a school recommends/requires it, then sure take it, but don’t stress if the score is less than ideal. Same as subject tests – none of the schools on my daughter’s list require or recommend them, so we are going to skip. She finds testing to be stressful and time consuming, so we are doing the minimum.
S18 took Chemistry, Physics, and Math 2 today. He said Math 2 was straightforward, but he got the last answer right as time was up and literally had to put his pencil down as he was about to mark it. Bummer.
But he said Chem was pretty easy although he said it was clear the tests were aimed at kids that had taken AP courses and not IB courses just based on the terminology and way the questions were asked.
Physics he said was super hard as even with his two years of Physics, he had not seen about 1/3 of the topics before. Luckily he only needs one science plus the Math 2 so it looks like it would be Chem.
@RoonilWazlib99 The score release date for the tests today is July 12th. My D is also waiting on the May test results, which will be released June 8th. With Math 2, you “just” need to score 44/50 including deductions for your wrong answers in order to score 800. So the curve isn’t too bad.
Wow, three subject tests in one day. My stategy was to prep and focus on one subject at a time. Math 2 was done a long time ago. When I was young, I watched MASH. I’ve always remember one line from Dr. Winchester III. “Do one thing at a time. Do it well. And then move on.” That quote has stuck with me for forever.
@Booajo just depends on the schools each of our children apply to later this year. If the score results can “showcase” your child, then why not IMO.
@sushiritto because he will have to miss a major EC for a possible bump at an unlikely to be affordable school. To me, seems silly. Just wish there was a test date in July
So it’s been a week and my daughter’s hamper is overflowing. I told her a while back to let me know when she is ready to do laundry, and I’d walk her through it.
I guess she has more clean underwear than I thought. :))
@sushiritto - He only has one school that wants SAT2 tests so he just went for it in one day. It was less stress that way. He hates standardized tests so to get them all out of the way at once was better than stretching them out over several months.
He didn’t study for them either as we said that just studying for his IB exams and finals would most likely prep him enough.
Hope it works out in his favor, but again, it’s just one school, so no one is stressing over the results too much!
All but one have a personal nursing facilities tour and a meeting with a nursing advisor/instructor. It was a flurry of phone calls and organizing, but phase one is finished!
Now it’s on to the ACT on Saturday. Ugh, I’m thinking three times is enough …
