<p>Greetings,</p>
<p>I am currently preparing for a major in Anthropology, but would like to round out my undergrad education by pairing it with something a bit more "pratical". I was wondering how useful a minor in say physics or biology would be in achieveing this goal?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Bio minor seems like it would be more practical.</p>
<p>^ second what senior said.</p>
<p>How exactly is a bio minor practical? I have the impression that the OP is looking for a minor that could get him a job and I don’t see how the traditional hard sciences would do that. </p>
<p>Computer science or statistics are probably the most useful “sciences”.</p>
<p>^yeah but those weren’t the options presented. </p>
<p>A bio minor is practical in that you may end up a few classes away from med-school. It is more practical than a physics minor because what can you do with a physics minor? Teach junior high physics, maybe. Anything else? With a bio minor you could potentially go into basic lab research, field studies, forensics labs, nursing, teach junior high biology, etc. Bio is a bit more informative for our everyday lives as well. Things like anatomy, evolution, genetics, ecology, etc. are ubiquitous subjects in our everyday lives. BP oil spill. H1N1. Dog breeding…</p>
<p>For practicality in life, bio is up there with english, music, and a few other things. Computer science, statistics, and physics are not.</p>
<p>Thanks guys.
A bio major does seem more practical, especially paired with something like Anthropology. (I think the renowned author and ethnobotanist Wade Davis majored in both anthro and bio.
I am willing to consider other majors as well though, I have even been looking at doubling it with econ.
I guess what I’m asking is will a minor in a science, any science, really be looked at seriously, considering minors are usually stripped of most of their analytical (i.e. mathmatics) studies.</p>
<p>As a computer guy, yes, computer science is good. A minor can be very good, because you will know how to write real good applications (if you are dedicated enough).
The reason computer science is good because you can write an application yourself for anthropology, or if you ever need to work on it…</p>
<p>Between physics, and bio, obviously, bio wins. (unless you want to look at more about the earth science direction…)
Between bio and CS, it depends on the person. I said it many times to people, in the end you have be smart enough to UTILIZE the two knowledges, and use them properly.</p>
<p>Getting a double major doesn’t make you smarter or more valuable.</p>
<p>Anthropology is closer with bio. Computer science is like everyone-should-know-some.</p>
<p>Senior0991, I concede. I read the OP’s question as “How useful is a bio or physics minor?” (on an absolute scale) while you interpreted it as “Of bio and physics, which one is the more useful minor?” (relative to each other). We came to different conclusions because we were answering different questions.</p>
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<p>I couldn’t disagree more. Statistical training lets you dissect all sorts of bogus analyses in the media. Once you know how to program, you can write code for tasks you might have otherwise solved “manually” (with much more effort) or bypassed completely. It also gives you access to a much greater variety of tools and computer programs, and a whole new appreciation of technological advances. English and music studies certainly refine your appreciation of cultural history and accomplishments, but they don’t give you much tools relevant to the practicalities of life.</p>
<p>^Music will almost certainly give you skills in playing a musical instrument (different from music history), which for me is a hobby that is very practical in life. And English, you will not only greatly refine your writing abilities, but you will increase your vocabulary and improve your reading skills and ability to think critically about texts. If that is not relevant to everyday life, which is how I interpreted practicality, I do not know what is. </p>
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Why? I don’t want to here that I’ll know how to fix my computer better, because my friend who is one of the top programmers at my university couldn’t even fix my computer, even though he is paid to do so. He overanalyzed it a ton for like an hour. When I decided to try a couple things I fixed the problem in like five minutes. </p>
<p>I think CS is still a fairly practical degree for life, moreso than physics, theoretical math, archeology, etc. Depending on one’s circumstances it could come in handy and in other circumstances it may not so much. I just don’t think it’s as universally helpful as bio or English might be. </p>
<p>I’m debating whether to take a CS class in java. I know I won’t ever be primarily a computer programmer at work, so I’m just wondering where might basic Java skills (and then C plus or whatever skills if I take the next class) come in handy? I figure if I ever work in engineering/tech I’ll be in a big enough firm that there will always be coders around who would be infinitely better than me.</p>
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I agree 100%. </p>
<p>In fact,</p>
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<p>I’d probably say it’s down there with English and Music.</p>
<p>How exactly is playing a music ‘practical’? Do the words ‘starving artists’ mean anything? </p>
<p>I think programming is always a good skill. You’ll notice that sometimes, it’s not about being the best coder, or even one of the best. You have millions of lines of code, it’s not a matter of having the best guy, but rather, having a bunch of good guys to digest the code. It doesn’t matter if you are the best, since that doesn’t mean that you’ll be to do all the work by yourself. Not to mention that you can’t really expect the coder to all your job for you. I mean, I’m sure I can hire a lit. major to read things for me. Does that mean I should just be illiterate since I have someone who has (more than likely) mastered the art of reading? Of course not. Likewise, knowing how to code will come in handy, despite you not being the best coder. </p>
<p>I honestly can’t think of many things you can do with a bio major that you can’t do with e.g. physics or Chemistry aside from maybe a bio lab, but physics have physics lab and likewise for Chemistry. In fact, I think Bio always get pegged as being a ‘soft’ science in comparison to the ‘hard’ science being Physics and Chemistry because of the lack of math. </p>
<p>Then again, I don’t see how a minor in any of them would really benefit as far as practical. I agree with Barium that something like Statistics would be more practical, since it’s practically used everywhere. Familiarity with software like R, MATLAB or things of the sort also help.</p>
<p>^Again though, we are discussing two different things. You are discussing practicality for tech-related careers. I am discussing practicality for one’s entire life, which includes after retirement, after you get home from your daily job, as well as the possibility of (gasp!) a non-tech job. If you needed to survive for five days on the street would you rather know how to play the sax or how to code in python?</p>
<p>If I had to survive in the streets, I doubt either would help me much, at all. At least with Python I could probably get a job. </p>
<p>In any case, I think practicality has always been defined in this forum with relation to work and actually making a profit out of it, doing it in ‘real life’ if you would.</p>
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Ah okay. Well my profit is happiness and my life is my work :p.</p>
<p>Good for you. Under that definition,however, anything can be practical, defeating the purpose of the term. Hence, we tend to universally agree that profit refers to monetary gain of some sort.</p>
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Really? I looked it up on Merriam-Webster (because I’m not good enough to use the OED), and here’s what I got:</p>
<p>Main Entry: prof·it
Pronunciation: ˈprä-fət
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin profectus advance, profit, from proficere
Date: 14th century</p>
<p>1: a valuable return : gain
2: the excess of returns over expenditure in a transaction or series of transactions; especially : the excess of the selling price of goods over their cost
3: net income usually for a given period of time</p>
<p>Looks like only the latter two are strictly monetary. Of course you can respond that this is just the denotative meaning of the term, which is strictly academic compared to the connotative, yet when I hear “profit” spoken in a general context (as in, “I profited”), I tend to think of the primary definition first. </p>
<p>You guys (potentially including the OP) aren’t thinking outside the box. Profit to you guys is financial. Practical to you guys is something that increases income or decreases time spent working. I don’t want to make harsh generalizations, but this seems like a characteristic attribute of many programmers/coders I know.</p>
<p>When you deal so much with the straightforward logic and predictability of computers, it only makes sense if you begin to see the world in that way too. As something to be planned out, attacked, decoded. </p>
<p>I apologize in advance if I am misrepresenting you guys. And although I certainly am making a normative claim on the desirability of one Weltanschauung over another, I don’t believe my views are representative of the entire population. If that provides you any solace.</p>
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<p>If you don’t think this is true for science and engineering then you obviously haven’t taken many classes in them.</p>
<p>Also, a very good applied but “softer” minor would be technical writing. You learn the sorts of soft skills you’re expected to already know in STEM fields (but most people don’t, and never learn). My tech writing class was actually one of the most useful classes I took while in undergrad. It’s helped me read papers better, write papers better, and have a much better understanding of how to communicate effectively with people.</p>
<p>^Maybe Caltech is different, but I have not had a science/engineering/math class so far where I’ve had to write more than 3 pages (not including brief explanations asked for in solutions). There’s a “Writing in the Major” class where I will write a lot of technical stuff, so that should be a good experience, but that’s just one class. </p>
<p>As far as vocabulary goes, I’ll learn a lot of math and science terms that won’t find much use if I talk to friends who were, say, a history major. Correct me if I’m wrong here, though. </p>
<p>For thinking critically, I actually usually don’t do the assigned reading cause in most cases so far I haven’t needed to. But I guess you’re right that when I do read the textbook, and come across something I don’t understand, I am forced to read it very closely. </p>
<p>I second the technical writing suggestion. You could always just easily read on your own, after all. </p>
<p>I think most college majors will force you to think, read closely, and write well. But some are far more focused on this than others. Another interesting one might be applied philosophy, where you can learn things like social justice in healthcare, or political economics, etc.</p>
<p>I actually have no clue how it is here at Caltech for undergrad engineering; I’m a grad student here. I did my undergrad in Materials Science & Engineering at a different school. Most of our labs would take a few sessions to do and we’d have to write up the results like an actual research paper. I remember one of the hardest assignments I had was a lab that lasted the entire semester and we only had six pages to write our findings. It was brutal.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’ve found that STEM people tend to be pretty well rounded, as many of them will play an instrument in their free time (you don’t need a degree in guitar performance in order to be able to play enough to enjoy it), read, or write. To me, taking classes in many liberal arts fields seems kinda…pointless since all you do are readings and take notes. There’s not a whole lot I remember having to ask questions about or having a difficult time hashing through on my own. Trying to teach myself solid state physics or thermodynamics on the other hand…</p>
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This is a very important point. I believe too that it is much harder to learn math and science from a textbook than it is to learn history, psychology, and the like from reading a book on that matter. </p>
<p>But this is countered with the many engineers who do learn all these tech things yet do not go into a tech field after college. Instead many go into economics or law, for instance. Or one guy I know ended up as a musician (though in his later years he started teaching high school physics)!</p>
<p>I think if one does not enjoy STEM classes, and one does not plan to work in tech, then liberal arts degrees are not pointless. Some offer a fantastic education. Some are extremely interesting. And some have way less units and workload :). </p>
<p>I actually think just one political philosophy class, with the right professor, can be extremely beneficial. You learn to question your and others’ long held beliefs on a myriad of subjects, and you learn some machinery to test the validity of many claims people around you may make. Example: when someone says they do something because it makes them happy, I can almost always shut that down in just a few minutes.</p>
<p>LOL
It depends on which areas he’s interested in.
Computer science - a must-know “self-improvement”, can be very handy and useful!!!
English - literature analysis, writing skill, a way to relieve stress…
Music, like English…</p>
<p>Check out here…
[Anthropology</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropology]Anthropology”>Anthropology - Wikipedia)
it mentions some sub-branches of anthropology study…</p>