True - and anthropology is actually composed of four “branches”:
-Social/Cultural
-Archeological
-Physical/Biological
-Linguistic
A lot of what you learn, even something as academic and “impractical” (hate that word to describe academics) as anthropology, can be leveraged in the real world.
@JHS, quantitative skills do matter.
But yes, align interests with improving your skillset. And challenge yourself.
There are basically two ways to approach the statement, “X is not my strong suit.” The first is to try to offer the student a path that will not require her to use X at all, even if that is ultimately a limiting factor. The second is to note that while yes, X may be difficult and that probably does preclude her from majoring in X Studies, that doesn’t change the fact that X is important and that it’s probably a good idea to at least be comfortable with X because it is very relevant to her career path. That’s not trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, that’s just acknowledging that everyone has weaknesses, some may be better at Y than X and others may be better at X than Z, but that all of X, Y, and Z are important and should be learned to at least a decent level of competence because not learning all of them will be to the student’s detriment.
JMO. You get a simple question posed by a bright OP and the convo goes on and on to try and try to shape her. She’s savvy enough that she got into a tippy top college that’s small enough to customize their support. And near a major city and the opportunities. She has some understanding of possible majors, has looked into some job opps, and is locked into nothing.
Her issue is not being devoid of ideas. Nor is it whining.
I don’t think the answer is to go theoretical on her. I think it’s to support her with info that fits her position. It’s one thing to suggest she bone up on the math her econ interests (or something else) may require or take advantage of academic support. One thing to say, keep open to a tech course that may polish your skills. Quite another to (seem to) want to change her mind.
Even people who hate math can benefit by challenging themselves to understand credit and borrowing. I assume everyone is getting loans these days but if you’re paying cash it creates a lot of flexibility.
I agree. And, generally, that’s what high school is for. Or middle school. At the most, general education requirements in college. I understand it doesn’t actually work that way for everyone, but it does pretty much work that way for everyone admitted to a college of the caliber of Wellesley. And the people for whom it doesn’t work that way – very few of them are going to catch up by trying to major in engineering or computer science in college.
My own experience: I do a lot of work with mergers & acquisitions and related tax issues. I deal with accountants and investment bankers all the time. The people I work with consider me good at math, and often come to me for help with understanding formulas or doing some calculation. I literally cannot use a single element of math I learned after 8th grade, except for stuff I can deduce myself from my 8th-grade math. (E.g., In 8th grade I learned compound interest and present value; as an adult I figured out how to calculate amortizing loan payments. Of course, for the past 20 years or so, I have done that by typing =pmt(. . .) into Excel, but I can still do it by hand on my phone if I need to.) I was never bad at math; I was good at it, in fact, and I took it through AP Calculus so I could get out of taking it in college. I just never cared a whit about it, and there has been no point in my career where my stunted math abilities have limited me.
Of course, if everyone were like me, we would still be in the Middle Ages. Someone has to use a lot of real math, but it’s maybe 5% of people, realistically (generously, in fact), not all of them. It’s nowhere near all successful people. So, sure, everyone should be numerate, and the majority of successful people are, but that is miles and miles away from majoring in STEM subjects in college.
" It’s one thing to suggest she bone up on the math her econ interests (or something else) may require or take advantage of academic support. One thing to say, keep open to a tech course that may polish your skills. Quite another to (seem to) want to change her mind. "
@lookingforward - I think these threads where OP makes a post and never follows up inevitably drift around. It’s unfortunate that @PaigeyPoo189 hasn’t made any additional posts.
@thshadow I was just reading the posts and trying not to interject during arguments. Nothing has really changed since I posted and I click “like” and “helpful” for the posts I like. Probably after my first year I would have a clearer answer/path.
Well that’s pretty subtle… 
To me, the big open question is whether (a) you think you could major in economics / if you think you might find that enjoyable, and (b) would an economics major satisfy your dad.
More generally - are you trying to find a major that is a “compromise”, i.e. something you will enjoy but that your dad deems sufficiently practical? Or instead are you trying to convince your father that an IR degree is practical?
I think people here are happy to help you with either, though it seems like those are slightly different questions.
@lookingforward “not a dig site, that’s more the archaeology side.”
Actually, I think you will find anthropologists at a dig. They may not be specialists on how to find, remove and preserve physical items like an archaeologist, but they may be more knowledgeable about the culture of the specific people and have more in depth insights into what certain items may have been used for, or represented. Especially when they can see those items within the context/proximity to other items that are being unearthed.
To be perfectly honest, it wouldn’t hurt to offer a bit more input into the matter. There is only so much we can know about you and your situation from a single paragraph of text, and the rest we have to speculate. Part of that argument is indeed just speculation about your situation, so clarification would be helpful. Specifically, it would help to know more about your goals in general, how strong your weak and strong subjects actually are, more about your financial situation, and more about what your dad is actually happy and not happy with.
Otherwise, as you may have seen, the argument has a tendency to devolve into heated, tangential debates between short-sighted STEMists and enlightened liberal arts critical thinkers.
Of course you can find anthropologists at a dig.
But since you’re often pretty humorous, Much2, I wonder if this isn’t about anthropologists, at all.
@NeoDymium “short-sighted STEMists and enlightened liberal arts critical thinkers.”
I would have characterized it as STEM majors who are focused on what happens to the average/typical student, and liberal arts (in non math/science majors) counter arguments that focus on best case anecdotes.
The issue is that a liberal arts degree is a great thing. You can get an amazing education. I have a liberal arts degree. However, I see too many of these grads who had no idea about what they would do upon graduation. At graduation they still don’t know what their predecessors who graduated a few years ahead of them are doing. Do they find jobs easily? Do they go to graduate school? Would the jobs they were able to find be interesting to you and does the salary for that work allow you to live comfortably? These are questions to be considered up front, not after the fact.
Your average student does not spend nearly enough time investigating majors upfront to understand what opportunities that major has created for students a few years ahead of them, and whether those opportunities sound interesting to them. In my experience, this is more likely to happen to students from lower income, less educated families, who are less likely to be surrounded by people who know the right questions to ask.
It’s not a field with which I am completely familiar, but I know a couple of professional archaeologists, one my age, and one my children’s age. They got their PhDs formally from the Department of Anthropology at their respective universities, Michigan and Penn, both of which are pretty well respected in the archaeology field. At Penn, I believe, archaeologists are split among Anthropology, Classical Studies, and Near Eastern Studies. Something similar happens at Berkeley, another comparative powerhouse in archaeology, where about 2/3 of the archaeology grad students are in the Department of Anthropology and 1/3 in a Program on Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology, and at the University of Chicago, home of Dr. Indiana Jones, where archaeology students are split among Anthropology, Near Eastern Civilization, and Classical Studies. A quick check on a few other institutions reveals only one that offers a single coordinated graduate program in Archaeology – UCLA – but there is no corresponding undergraduate major.
In other words, while not all anthropologists are archaeologists, a very significant percentage of people entitled to call themselves archaeologists – probably a majority – are anthropologists. And an undergraduate interested in archaeology is pretty likely to be an anthropology major.
much2learn- You are not wrong. And I agree with your point that kids are not focused on outcomes.
But you are drawing a distinction between the kids in STEM and everyone else and I think you are wrong on that point. I know dozens (and I bet you do, too) of kids who discover- a year or two after graduating with a BS in Bio that they cannot get into med school (they’ve tried twice, have taken every MCAT review class known to man, have been shadowing and volunteering their hearts out since senior year of HS). Some rebound with plan B- and there are many fine Master’s programs in Genetic Counseling and OT and NP filled with med school wannabees. Many do not-- assuming (falsely) that their job prospects with a BS in Bio makes them employable.
You probably also know at a least a dozen kids who were gung ho on engineering until they got to college and discovered that since they never really knew what engineering is (it’s a discipline, not a box you get to jump in for the rest of your career while you cash your nice paycheck) they meander through a variety of other fields. I.e the 6 year plan. The lucky ones graduate and are able to get jobs in something finance or analytical. The unlucky ones end up majoring in accounting and hating that almost as much as they hated engineering.
Etc.
I don’t think kids who major in a liberal arts subject are any less subject to the magical thinking of the STEM kids. Or the Business kids (I interview dozens of the business kids every year. Like the kids who majored in International Business who have never taken a single history course. You are going into “international business” (whatever that is) and you don’t understand the history of China? Why India is the way that it is? Why Brazil’s path to industrialization is different from that of Japan?)
But I digress.
I don’t think you need a plan (I sure didn’t, and I majored in Classics of all things). But you can’t be so clueless as to think that a well paying career is going to fall into your lap as you are marching to your seat on commencement day. You need to take steps to make yourself employable regardless of what you study.
My comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I myself am from a STEM background (math and engineering).
The dangers of guessing context on internet posts, I suppose.
@blossom “I don’t think you need a plan (I sure didn’t, and I majored in Classics of all things). But you can’t be so clueless as to think that a well paying career is going to fall into your lap as you are marching to your seat on commencement day. You need to take steps to make yourself employable regardless of what you study.”
It definitely does happen to engineers and science majors too, and all students should have a plan and backup plan. It has become more difficult for everyone to find a job as college degrees have become more commoditized over time. I am focused on liberal arts, only because that is where I have seen it most often. I think finding a good job with a more general BA has is more difficult today than in the past. In general, more middle class families are struggling to stay in the middle class, and many of our kids will probably not be able to do it.
Seems like the growth areas in today’s economy are finance and health care.
Unfortunately, to twist a phrase, “majors don’t get jobs, solid applicants do.” We aren’t disagreeing a kid needs to be savvy and have drive (in the right direction.)