major indecision (i'm a social science dilettante).

Parent Cafe
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<p>all right, let's see if i can make this remotely concise... [edit: it didn't work, sorry about that...]</p>

<p>i'm starting my junior year at an ivy league school, which means i need to plan the next two years out carefully to get all major and distributive requirements done. for the moment i'm officially a government (political science) major, but i can't decide whether i should register as a geography major instead. </p>

<p>my intuition is that government is the more "legitimate" degree in the eyes of the public at large, and that as a geography major i'd expend considerable effort tearing apart the claim that i spend my time memorizing maps. the relationship between democracy and economic development is literally what i read about in my free time; i can't get enough of it. on the other hand, i, uh, don't want to work in government... and i took introduction to geographic information systems and really liked it, and economic geography (in which i also took a course) covers much of what i'm interested in, too.</p>

<p>a perhaps relevant detail is that the geography department at my school has a fairly large left-wing contingent, both students and faculty, and i say that as someone who campaigned for obama and would be considered a liberal in most contexts. though i think it'd work better with universal healthcare and sensible parental leave & childcare policies, i actually think capitalism is a pretty ingenious system, and in a couple of the geography classes i've taken, i have found myself on the far right of the political spectrum, mostly by virtue of having taken introductory economics. that's a relatively minor frustration, but i'm putting it all out there for now.</p>

<p>then there's the difference between what i like to study in an academic setting and what i'd like to do as a career. for instance, i'm a public policy minor because i find the theory fascinating (externalities, incentives, and all that), but i could never work in policy because the politics would drive me nuts. i'm not interested in the environment; i have reusable shopping bags and phosphate-free laundry detergent, but i'm not passionate enough to do it 9 to 5. i don't want to be a city planner or work in local government. summer 2008 i interned at a tiny, idealistic, not-particularly-organized nonprofit and was miserable. i may actually have the temperament of a type-a corporate whore. i'm pretty good with computers. i'm great at design and certain types of art, but have little formal education and don't expect that'll get me hired anywhere. </p>

<p>i grew up in d.c. and my parents are both in political-type fields, so i don't really have a great perspective on what other sorts of jobs are out there (my friends' parents were world bank people, lawyers, journalists, doctors, and the like). </p>

<p>i've asked my parents for advice, but my mom only asks which will make me more employable (the implication being that i should've studied chemical engineering) and my dad says i should do whatever makes me happy, but stay the hell out of the public sector. </p>

<p>in government, i've taken five courses and would need to take five more.
in geography, i've taken six courses and would need four more. </p>

<p>honestly, this should not be a huge decision; the courses i'll end up taking may only differ by two or three depending on what i choose. what i can't tell is what difference it'll make if "b.a., government" or "b.a., geography" is the first line on my resume, and how that'll affect my options in the future.</p>

<p>i can't afford law school, so please don't say "you could always go to law school; either of those degrees would work for that." ;)</p>

<p>thanks very much in advance!</p>

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<p>Can’t resist asking: Is it possible to double major?</p>

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<p>I have a young friend who just got her masters in geography from a public institution, and immediately got a job.</p>

<p>I think you should major in what most interests you.</p>

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<p>I am taking an intro to geography class (as a poli sci major myself) and really like it too, I thought it would be memorizing maps but it’s not at all. XD Even if that’s what people think of it though, your future employers will know better, and isn’t that what matters? What future employers (and YOU!) think? You don’t necessarily have to work in government as a poli sci major. That is my intention but I have also considered going into political journalism and teaching (not including options that include law school, since that is irrelevant to you.) But if geography is what you like better, why not go for it? Are there careers in geography that interest you, too? It would be a little silly to go from poli sci but not wanting to work for the government, to geology and not wanting to <em>whatever geologists do.</em> Even if politics is a passion doesn’t mean you have to make it your career if you want to do something else instead. I have at least five passions, I couldn’t choose them all!</p>

<p>That would have sounded much more articulate if I knew more about geology, but I hope you can still get something from my post. XD</p>

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<p>double majoring is theoretically possible but a scheduling headache and not terribly useful. either major would require me to take at least one course that i wouldn’t otherwise choose, and i’d like to minimize the time spent working towards requirements so that i can take some more art, economics, maybe computer science, and whatever else seems interesting.</p>

<p>if i major in geography, i think (though i haven’t checked yet) that i would end up with a second minor in government, since as far as i can recall i’m only one course away right now.
if i major in government, i probably will not pursue a minor in geography, as it requires a physical geography (environmental/earth science) class that i wouldn’t go out of my way to take.
i don’t get the impressions that minors matter a whole lot, though.</p>

<p>i’m very interested in both, which is why i’m torn. geography would be very slightly easier as far as planning/scheduling goes, but i feel as though that shouldn’t be the determining factor.</p>

<p>edited to respond to the last few points: i’m not at all interested in geology, but i like economic and human geography, and gis. i honestly don’t know too much about what careers to expect with either major, having bought into that whole “you can do anything with a liberal arts degree” theory… like i said in my first post, my exposure to non-government-related careers has been kind of limited, so i feel a bit ill equipped to make decisions on my own. :o</p>

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<p>My brother majored in geography, and I never had any idea what it was he studied. He wasn’t very academic. He went to business school, and then got a job which made him fairly wealthy and used no skills he had learned post high school, but which challenged and engaged him. (He was a trader in disorganized markets. No sophisticated math or complicated hedging, just knowing who the buyers and sellers were and keeping them apart enough so that his intermediation remained necessary.)</p>

<p>Really, study what you like. You will probably go to law school eventually, and you’ll save then borrow to do it, and things will work out. You may be a city planner. Or a consultant to city planners. Or an architect. Or a writer. </p>

<p>Your attitude towards lots of things will shift over time. In college, my wife had an internship with the NYC city planning department. She thought it was sort of interesting, but fumed at the politics, the compromises, the bureaucratic inertia, the glacial pace of change, etc. She wanted to Make Things Happen. Thirty years later, she is a mid-level political appointee in a huge government bureaucracy, with a reputation for effectively combining wonkish expertise with politics, and Making Things Happen. She is proud of knowing how to use compromises effectively. She is a leading national expert in an area she didn’t pay any attention to until she was in her mid-30s and it was a tack-on part of her responsibilities in a job she got because of other experience she had then. She has the wrong training to be in her field. Her 20-year-old self would barely recognize her on a superficial level, since almost everything she’s doing is something she swore at 20 not to do, but she has had a very fulfilling career and has remained remarkably true to her 20-year-old core values.</p>

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<p>I think geography (human and economic) is actually a very useful major for the corporate world - more so than Government. Government majors are a dime a dozen. Geography much less so. Employers may want to hear about it and that will give you a great chance to explain your value! I also second the idea to go to one of the sites that tells you what careers geography majors have. If your school does not have such a thing, I think the Macalaster geography website does. I think I also saw this info on the Dartmouth site.</p>

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<p>belated thanks for all the comments. i think that when i posted i had already on some level decided to switch, but i needed reassurance that it wasn’t an idiotic decision. i finally admitted to myself that it’s what i want to do, and i feel totally relieved. thanks again!</p>

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<p>Glad you made your decision - I predict you will be happy with it! My D would love to major in Geography but many of the (small) schools she is interested in do not have the major.</p>

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<p>Glad you feel happy with your switch - now its full steam ahead. My D was exactly you a few years back. Clearly its a difficult economy you will be graduating into but I don’t think government would have given you an advantage over geography (and I think public policy in any event is an important minor).</p>

<p>Even if you do not parlay the major instantly into a job on the ‘human’ side of geography, if in geography at all, you are getting a valuable skill set in some of the the courses you need to take for geography (GIS for example), and for public policy (the hands -on research with real-world, useful policy papers as an end). I honestly think that the major/minor combo you have elected gives you more in the way of practical skills than most social science majors do. Not saying you are going to find a job as a geographer or policy maker - or even that that is what you want, but you are going graduate with more concrete skills than many. </p>

<p>Still, start haunting career services, talking to profs. etc. If you like research, start thinking of an honor thesis in an area of geography that interests you and utilize a leave term to facilitate that. Find a prof to mentor you…Good luck and glad you are feeling relieved.</p>

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<p>My S is a geography major and just loves everything about it, particularly the human side. A lot of good information about potential careers can be found here. Good luck.
[AAG</a> | Advancing Geography in Partnership with You](<a href=“http://www.aag.org/]AAG”>http://www.aag.org/)</p>

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<p>journey919, if your daughter is the small liberal arts college type, i found out while helping my sister with her college research that macalester has a geography program! that was actually one of my favorite schools when i was applying, but the major wasn’t really on my radar at the time.</p>

<p>ohmadre, thanks so much for the encouragement! :slight_smile: am i correct in remembering that i attend the school your daughter graduated from?</p>

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<p>C. saroyan - correct if you are who I think you are (which I think you are : ) ) It turned out really well for her, but I can think of so many other ways to to take your major - corporate, ngo, government. Looking back at what geography evolved to be (I sure had a poor understanding at first), I can certainly see the appeal. Just be proactive starting now.</p>

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<p>C. Saroyan - yes, my D loves Macalaster and it is right now one of her top favorites. Middlebury also has a very good geography major, but she thinks she would prefer Macalaster.</p>