I’m a very curious person, and I pretty much like any kind of academic discipline where I don’t have to take a lot of things for granted. For example, I know Chemistry is incredibly useful and scientific, but textbooks really don’t care in the slightest to explain how we got to know atomic particles or how we found out about the chemical elements (you’ve got to either watch docs on that, or take the book’s and teachers’ word for it), so I don’t really enjoy studying it.
What kind of major would you recommend for my learning style then? I know I should clearly stay away from Law and Biology, and I would add Chemistry to that list too.
I’d say physics is a good bet, maybe even engineering. Physics doesn’t require as much memorization as say biology or chemistry. You’d need to be an avid learner and have a good academic discipline to major in physics or even engineering. There’s a lot of thinking but not necessarily memorization.
One might also argue that journalism can be a choice if you enjoy writing and investigating. No memorization needed. Lots of curiosity. Plenty of various disciplines.
Well, even if physical chemistry is more about understanding, I don’t think I’d have the will to get through the basic, introductory chemistry courses.
I do like Math when I can intuitively grasp what I’m doing, but from what I read online, college math is mainly about writing proofs and stuff, and from the math courses I’ve already had, proofs don’t always make sense to me and I ended up having to memorize the procedures to prove a theorem.
Physics is a good option, though I also feel the same as in Chemistry sometimes (to a lesser extent, obviously) when, for example, the definition of a force is presented without much discussion (and some forces really seem to exist just to make the model be right, eg. the normal force) or the concepts of work/energy are presented (both very loosely defined too).
Journalism does seem interesting to me, but at the same time, I doubt I’d be able to cover analytical topics rather than the more usual political chatter that is so commonplace in news outlets. Maybe something like Economics would be a better choice in that aspect, as it has to do with more serious and profound issues?
Have you decided on a college major? Will you be a freshman in college this year or are you an experienced student? I, like you, hate memorization…to a certain degree…and I’m looking study a course or major in something that will answer the whys and not just tell me to accept what has happened in the past. My mindset right now is I may have to choose the lesser of two evils in order to get to what I want. Have you considered philosophy as a major or minor?
I am a college major already, been so for quite a while actually. I’ve had courses on Math, Physics, Accounting, History, Sociology and Economics (which is what I’m technically majoring in, but I’m unsure if it’s the right choice); and out of them all I’d say Physics and Economics were the ones which entailed the least memorization and consisted of solid theories (Sociology seemed like a mashup of different unprovable claims). Thing is, sometimes they both tend to present many theoretical ideas and “laws” (quotes for the economic laws) with only very superficial explanations, but there’s no denying the findings are way more intuitive than, say, studying the names of chemical compositions, historical characters or mathematical proofs.
I have considered philosophy, especially regarding epistemology or philosophy of science: thinking about how we know what we know is something that fascinates someone like me who wants the whys of everything. Thing is, I’m uncertain it’s the right path, as a) That’s only a branch of philosophy; b) The job market for philosophers is dire to say the least (it’s not my main concern but it’s not something I want to ignore).
Which major are you considering shadricks? Is there another discipline you feel satisfies our curiosity?
I think your issue isn’t that you hate memorization, but more that you’re trying to run before you can walk. Yes, many of the things you’ll learn in introductory and lower-level courses are presented in a way that requires you to, for the time being, just accept them. You want depth, and that is completely natural. But depth is something achieved through upper-level courses and graduate level study. I doubt you’ll really find any major that will satisfy you if you’re not willing to learn about the forest before examining the trees.
Moreover, I’m not sure I understand some of your complaints. In what way does a normal force exist “just to make the model be right”? A normal force doesn’t exist willy nilly, it exists because it’s real. By intuition, there must be a normal force when two objects are in contact–if there weren’t, then one object would accelerate through the other. Work and energy also have precise mathematical definitions and formulae, and you gain more understanding of where the concepts came from as you continue to study topics like thermodynamics, mechanics, and E/M at higher levels.
Well, I agree with you mostly: it might be too much to ask for introductory courses to thoroughly cover every topic. Yet it seems to me like taking things for granted in the hope that you’ll understand it fully in the future isn’t the answer either. It just amounts to adopting the framework you’re presented as a dogma, so eventually you’ll just find it intuitive (because you’re so used to working with it) and get on with more pressing issues, rather than contemplate trivial matters like why the idea of a force makes sense.
See, this is exactly what I meant. Sure enough, if you take define a force as whatever makes a body accelerate, and if gravity is a force that makes it fall down, then it logically follows that if the body is in a state of rest there must be another force to offset gravity. Now, you may respond something along the lines of “It’s defined like that because it can predict what happens in the real world”. And when I go out there and start laying a great number of books on a small wooden table… can you tell me when, if ever, the table will break apart and the books will accelerate downwards? Not really: all you can do is tell me that as long as the books are supported by the table, then the normal force exerted by the table on the books must be countering the gravitational force (or weight) of the books and table. And that eventually there will be a limit, but you don’t even know where. So Newton’s laws happen to be more operational, in my opinion, than “verifiable”.
A similar thing occurs with the frictional force: we can use it empirically only when we know the static and dynamic friction coefficients, which are totally arbitrary and can’t be known a priori. I didn’t know there were precise mathematical definitions of work and energy. Would you mind sharing me a resource or link to read it myself? Or is it too complex to delve into for a novice, as we discussed above?
Yes. That’s exactly what courses on mechanics of materials and structures (and even basic statics, to an extent) do–they consider the internal forces in objects/materials to determine things like flexure/bending, torsion, shear and compressive stresses, yield and deformation, etc. Finite element methods apply these principles, which ultimately stem from Newton’s basic laws, to complex structures and systems to handle otherwise involved and complicated computations. This is the kind of stuff thousands of mechanical and civil engineers deal with on a regular basis. These are things that a basic mechanics course doesn’t cover because it wouldn’t make sense to delve into these topics before having an understanding of simpler, idealized systems.
You’re right about friction, friction coefficients are empirically determined, and this is the case in all the sciences (there are some, or a lot, of empirically obtained constants). If this bothers you, I understand, and it may mean the physical sciences are not for you. One of the reasons for this is that our current understanding of these forces is incomplete, and maybe someday we’ll be able to model these things without resorting to empirical observations (don’t quote me on this, though, I’m not a physicist!). However, I don’t think any field (science or not) is truly exempt from some empirical observations and results. In the sciences, it’s because we don’t understand 100% of natural/physical phenomena, or anywhere close to it, probably. That’s a given. Maybe you can help fill in some of the gaps, if that prospect appeals to you.
Regarding work/energy, I’m certainly no expert myself, but I would recommend picking up any decent textbook on thermodynamics to get a better understanding of them and how they are actual properties of systems/substances/objects. A basic treatment would require some knowledge of differential equations. Other than that, there’s no reason you couldn’t delve into it.
The fundamental problem is that society doesn’t advance well if generations don’t stand on the shoulders of the previous generations. A team will not succeed in a relay race if its runners have to retrace the previous runners’ steps. If each person has to independently discover the wheel, the progress of civilization will be very slow. For the progress of civilization you have to accept as givens the previous work of others.
(Thanks to the work of previous generations) there is enough leisure time in most modern people’s lives and there is generally enough availability of fundamental information, that a person can usually spend SOME time (at least while young and without many commitments) exploring the details of how something came to be known or widely believed. However, the existing academic structures are designed around what people are willing to pay for, which in turn is designed around what other people are willing to pay them for. Essentially, employers do not pay people to satisfy their curiosities; they pay them to do something that has economic use to the employer. (During my career as a chemist, whether I knew how we got to know atomic particles or how we found out about the chemical elements did not matter in the least to any of my employers, and if I’d had to spend another year in college to find out those things it would not have been OK with me.)
Ah, looks like you got me there. Indeed, engineers would have a hard time doing their jobs if they had no way to determine whether a bridge (or whatever structure) can sustain a given amount of weight or not, so I was talking nonsense from the little I know of basic mechanics.
Still, I don’t think I’d find normal forces intuitive even if I ever reached the point where I can finally study all this, as from what I’ve been reading online, continuum mechanics is very vector calculus heavy. And sadly, I have to admit my understanding of gradients and jacobian matrices is pretty dim. Maybe I’m just not intelligent enough for more advanced calculus, I don’t know.
Thing is, in summary, that I have my reservations I can fully understand Newtonian mechanics with exposure to the more complex branches of mechanics. What’s more, I want to believe there is another way: after all, Newton didn’t develop all of mechanics on his own, yet he knew he was onto something big and worthy, right? Or was it just chance that his framework got to be expanded the way it was?
Oh, it’s not that I mind constants. It’s just that when I’m not even sure why the whole framework makes sense, any “prediction” using empirically estimated constants is unimpressive to me. If I were convinced there’s no other way to define a force and no other way to coherently explain movement, then I could totally embrace constants as the best we can do with what we’ve got. But I’m unconvinced.
I’m not comfortable with DE either (I was basically taught procedures to solve them in Calculus II without any explanation of why they make sense), but I’ll give it a try some time. Thanks for all the help!
I agree with you, the economic system we have doesn’t value historic knowledge of the sciences or any discipline, really. And you’re absolutely right that taking the time to do that would be a fruitless endeavor, at least economically. But I have found that it’s only in that effort that I have truly come to appreciate the work of other generations of scientists and philosophers. Only then the efforts I put into learning something are absolutely worth it. Those instances make me carry on studying, moments when I can say “aha! so this is why we believe this”, and when I feel like I belong to the same road (or race, as you put it) that the big minds once walked on.
I’m not in college for the money. I mean, in some sense I am, because working is an undeniable necessity of modern life. But I hoped I could do both things at the same time, you know? I thought there would be subjects where I could satisfy my curiosity and at the same time, gain some skills for employability (at least enough not to die poor). Am I asking for something impossible? What’s the best I can do to achieve this balance?
I have the feeling you just helped me get to the root of my dilemma.
I wish I had a good answer or a solution for your dilemma, but I’m not sure that I do. However, I will say this: curiosity is a great thing, and it’s not limited to school or a college major. You can choose a major that you find palatable/enjoyable, gain some skills/knowledge to be employable, but continue to learn about about things you’re interested in on your own. Learning is not bounded by classrooms and course plans. As long as you have access to the internet and/or a library, you can work toward satisfying some of your curiosity.
That’s true. It’s just that I have trouble staying motivated on my own. I’m obviously not waiting to be spoonfed intuition for every concept, but at least I wish I were encouraged to do so, having some guidance along the way (because you must know it isn’t easy to learn stuff by yourself, especially as a beginner).
Evidently, I’ll have to settle for the lesser evil. I’ll keep working on this. Thanks so much for the help!
Civilization is a work in progress. For every institution there’s a point in time in our past when it did not exist, and people at that time and before had to survive without it. In these situations, motivations have to exist in small groups of people or even just individuals on their own.
However, we do live in a time when courses (and the structure created thereby) just for curiosity exist to a large extent. The internet has vastly increased the accessibility of these, at least where no hands-on interaction with stuff is wanted. Even in the regular college structure there are often courses like the history of science. Obviously, these things don’t necessarily figure in what you do for a major.
This sounds like history of science to me. Unfortunately, that’s usually not a major at the undergraduate level; it’s usually something you pursue at the graduate level. But historians of science do spend a lot of time investigating how our understanding of science and the natural world began.
Does your school have a major in science, technology, and society? Or can you make an independent major along those lines?
I don’t think there’s anything like that in my school. The only department that has courses on the history of science is the philosophy dept. And while I’ve always been interested in the subject, I don’t know if I can make a career out of it if you know what I mean. A philosophy major is not very marketable, and your only option as a philosopher is basically a university job I suppose (which is probably very competitive).
Well, I guess the question is do you want something pre-professional or do you want something based upon your interests?
A philosophy major can be marketable, if you learn other skills and do internships. Really, marketing yourself as a new college grad is more about what you know how to do, and lots of philosophy majors get jobs in general business or other areas. But there are other majors that lead more directly into certain types of jobs.
I want something based on my interests. Problem is, I’m not sure I know what those interests are. As I said before, it’s not the discipline I have to learn itself that bothers me. It’s the way it’s taught.
Is it, really? I would think a philosophy major is as qualified to work in business as someone who hasn’t gone to college. But maybe it’s a preconception I have. Do you know this for a fact?
Yes. I know philosophy majors (and history and sociology and psychology majors) who have successful post-college careers in several fields.
My guess is that you believe this because you believe that college degrees confer some sort of direct vocational skills, skills that employers are specifically seeking out. That’s not actually how it works. Most liberal arts majors - so philosophy and English but also physics, math, biology, chemistry - don’t teach you any specific vocational skills that will be useful across a wide variety of jobs at the BA level. What they do confer is a set of more abstract skills - critical thinking, analysis, writing, communication, that sort of thing - that are broadly useful across jobs. Employers really want that! In fact, if you look at job ads you will see those listed as requirements in many ads.
Some jobs will ask for a family of majors that they think are somewhat more related to the job at hand - like in my field, human-computer interaction, a lot of the BA-level jobs say that they’d prefer someone with a major in psychology, sociology, or anthropology. But a well-equipped philosophy major who had internship experience in the field and demonstrated an ability to do the job would get looked at. And then there are many jobs that don’t care what your major is at all. I work at a tech company and I know lots of people here with non-tech majors. Of course the software engineers have technical majors, but there are a wide range of roles at any technology company that are required to make the whole thing work, and those roles are filled by people with all kinds of liberal arts and sciences majors.
For sure philosophy majors will have better job prospects than the vast majority of non-college-educated people.
The other thing is that “business” is a broad term. Anything that makes money from goods and services is “business”; technically, I work in business myself. It’s just that my business is a technology company. And we hire lawyers, accountants, HR managers, scientists, translators, financial managers, receptionists, etc. There are a lot of roles here.