How do I know if Science is for me?

College Majors Science Majors
1

<p>I am having a lot of trouble deciding on what course to study at university. I am leaning towards the social sciences and the arts, but I can't seem to shake the feeling that I am "copping-out." How do you know that a major is right for you?</p>

<p>Do you really think there needs to be interest from the get-go? Is it possible for someone who is bored by introductory courses in sciences to like it later on? That it's simply a matter of slogging through the first year weed-out courses in order to get on to more interesting material?</p>

<p>I don't relish the idea of working in a stale & sterile lab, for one. But I do like the idea of investigation, research, and the possibility of discovering or understanding something new that no other human being before me has been able to do. I like the feeling that I am doing something important, that I am studying something greater than myself. </p>

<p>I am still 90% sure I am meant for an Arts career, but there is still that 10% of me that thinks all art is kind of frivolous and any sort of lasting influence it leaves behind dims in comparison to what science represents, or can do.</p>

<p>I actually do think people who seem to be at the top of their careers in business and arts are wasting their lives away pursuing something that's ultimately self-serving and unworthy. Yet in terms of quality of life, pursuing art is way more pleasurable but ultimately meaningless...?</p>

<p>I know there is something faulty in the way I think. So please give me some outsider's opinion, because I am torn. I cannot settle to study Art and English Lit for example, with this "complex" hanging over my head. I want to be 100% sure that Arts & Humanities is right for me.</p>

<p>(cross posted in other majors forum)</p>

2

<p>Why not do both?</p>

<p>Picking a major in one doesn’t mean you have to let go of the other.</p>

3

<p>If you believe art is meaningless you do not understand it very well. Scientists merely try to determine how to preserve life. Art gives meaning to it. </p>

<p>Therefore, if the only reason you want to pursue a career in the sciences is to pursue “meaning” think again.</p>

4

<p>“If you believe art is meaningless you do not understand it very well. Scientists merely try to determine how to preserve life. Art gives meaning to it.”</p>

<p>If you believe scientists “merely” try to determine how to preserve life, you do not understand it very well.</p>

<p>Art, Science, or any subject for that matter, has influence. Nothing is meaningless. Surely just about everyone could tell you about a piece of art, a film, novel, musical piece, etc that has influenced them, possibly even changing their outlook on life. Still today we study art from thousands of years ago. Both art and science have lasting influence.</p>

<p>Every career that requires a college education is self-serving to an extent. It’s just a matter of finding something that you personally feel has meaning, and are happy doing.
If you can’t see that art has meaning, then it’s probably not for you. If you want to be a scientist just because you think it does have meaning, but you get no enjoyment out of it, then science probably isn’t for you either.</p>

5

<p>Science can be studied as an art. I don’t believe the inverse is true.</p>