<ol>
<li><p>Blow Off Major:
Maybe in some schools it is, but if you don’t love the subject, it can hard to get really into those 15-20 page papers. And if you’re planning to pursue it in grad school, it’s likely you’ll have to pick up another language, which (for most people) is not particularly easy.</p></li>
<li><p>We’re all living in the past, Ren-fair obsessive nerds:
Just because I am doesn’t mean everyone else is:) As far as I know, most people are actually pretty normal;)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’m an international relations and economics double major.</p>
<p>Myth: All international relations majors know tons of languages.
Fact: They are required only to take 2-3 years of a foreign language, which is barely anything in terms of fluency in a language. Some students know a lot of languages, but most get by with some really mediocre spanish or french skills. </p>
<p>Myth: International relations majors all want to be a diplomat/work for the Dept. of State or UN.
Fact: Partially true - a lot of us do. Not me though. There are actually tons of fields you can go into as an IR major (intl development, non-profits, business management, security/intelligence etc.)</p>
<p>Myth: Economics majors are obsessed with money.
Fact: Once again some of us are, but economics is a lot more broad of a field than just profiteering (government, research, non-profit, business, teaching etc.)</p>
<p>I’m not in college yet, but here’s a myth that many poly sci majors believe:</p>
<p>The president dictates the economy. If the economy booms it’s because of a good president, if the economy busts it’s because of a bad president. </p>
<p>The president actually has fairly little control over the economy. Clinton get’s credit for the tech boom in the late 90’s that boosted the economy when all he actually did was get out of the way and allow the economy to carry itself on the expanding tech industry. Bush gets credit for the market crash when it was caused by many factors which were just out of his control. Oh, and don’t forget that congress limits presidential powers further.</p>
<p>French Major:
Myth: All Language Majors are fluent in their language
Fact: Most have studied it for several years (ranging from about 3 to 10 years depending on a person’s education), however most are in no way fluent and can barely pass for intermediate understanding. [Most French majors at my school actually come in at the 100-level in about the second semester of a sequence. A couple of us came in higher at the 200 and 300 levels.]</p>
<p>Theatre:
Myth: All Theatre Majors are Acting Majors.
Fact: Most are, a lot aren’t. You’ve got people who are interested in set design, costume design, lighting design, stage managing, directing, writing, producing, etc.</p>
<p>Myth: Theatre is a uselss major.
Fact: You learn a lot of useful skills in a well-rounded Theatre program.
Costume Design: Sewing, knitting, crocheting, etc. Everything about clothing and accessories. If your button breaks, guess what? You can fix it!
Set Design: You learn a lot about carpentry, painting, and other things. Sometimes sets call for running water on stage, that doesn’t happen by magic. A lot of sets have to look like a real house or school, and it can teach you how to fix your house up nice and neat and how to fix things.
Lighting Design: Teaches you about lighting. If you ever want to own a business or a restaurant, you can design the elements yourself and save money.
Budgeting: You have to learn how to work under a budget of both time and money. You also have to know how to work well with other people. If you can’t work well with other people, you’ll never work again. I already know some people in my freshman class who have basically been black-listed, because they aren’t easy to work with and won’t do what they’re told.</p>
<p>I’m gonna go through all of the sports management stereotypes and say which are true and which are false:</p>
<p>It’s easy: True. I’d be lying if I said we did insane amounts of work, or if the work we did was even remotely challenging. I’ve had classes that were literally just discussions about what’s going on in the sports world. Intro level sports management classes are AWESOME as electives, if you show up and do your assignments you should get an A without breaking a sweat. </p>
<p>We’re all athletes and frat guys: False. This one doesn’t make any sense to me. You know what most of us are? Nerds. Not nerds in the traditional sense, but sports nerds. Some of us (myself included) watch games multiple times to analyze them in different ways. Most of us (the competent ones anyway) talk about sports more as a business and a science than as a game. We break things down with advanced statistics that casual fans just don’t think about (quickly, how many of you can tell me what UZR measures?) Basically we’re sports junkies, people don’t take us as seriously as physics junkies or math junkies but at heart we’re really just sports nerds. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t athletes and frat guys among us (I won’t say who, but a prominent athlete at my school once wrote the sentence “I one the game”) but that’s not all or even most of us. </p>
<p>Our degrees are useless: 50/50. If you have a solid internship or two, a GPA of around 3.4 or above and know how to network then a sports management degree can do a lot for you. A lot of people want the jobs we’re applying for, so having a degree that teaches us about the industry gives us a nice leg up. That being said, if you expect to come in, BS your way through class and end up as the GM of the Yankees in 5 years then you’re sorely mistaken. The best of us do well and work in an incredible fun and rewarding industry, the others wasted thousands of dollars on a useless piece of paper. That’s why it surprises me that we aren’t as competitive as other majors, there are less jobs and you have to do well to get one. </p>
<p>I think those are the three big ones, if I think of any others I’ll come back to them.</p>
<p>Thanks for this information. Where do you attend school for Physics Engineering? This is what my son is interested in majoring in this Fall. He is trying to decide between Ohio State and Kent State for undergraduate and hoping to get into Cornell for graduate studies. Ohio State offers the Physics Engineering, while Kent does not. Kent would be physics alone. Any advice for him? He is also thinking about Ohio Northern (Small private school with a decent engineering school)</p>
<p>Myth: Computer “Science”
Fact: I hate actual science (chemistry, biology, physics) and am terrible at it…</p>
<p>Myth: Fix my computer!
Fact: I will fix it with my common sense rather than anything I know from Computer Science, but then you may be impressed anyways…</p>
<p>Okay, you HAVE to cite sources for a “debunking” like this. I don’t mean anecdotal evidence, but broad trends. What are average starting salaries for Poli.Sci BS’s? Not just the ones from Harvard…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The type of thing you’re talking about is not really required for undergraduate poli.sci. though, is it? And apart from the use of statistics-related math, a lot of the higher-level math used in the social sciences is just cargo cult science, and I say that as a huge amateur economics nerd. See this article, for a start:</p>
<p>jaredsmom, I go to Ohio State. My advice is this: be good at calculus (differential and integral) BEFORE starting at college. Have him study over the summer if he has to. He needs to be able to show up on day one and begin in a calculus class, the first physics class, and the first “intro to engineering” class. These are things you need to get out of the way because you can’t advance without them and they will let him know really really fast if he truly wants to do engineering physics.</p>
<p>I think engineering physics is the hardest degree to get because we have the really difficult physics stuff that physics majors do (the second-hardest major, IMO) as well as the heavy workload that engineering majors do. It’s best to find out sooner rather than later if you really want to go through with it, it’s Navy SEAL training for your brain that lasts 4-5 years (just for undergrad).</p>
<p>Don’t take too many classes, right now I’m taking five (19 quarter hours, don’t know the semester equivalent), which is one class too many and I’m almost cracking from the stress of all that I have to do.</p>
<p>Get involved in undergraduate research. As one of the professors here says, if you just get your degree without being involved in a lab, you’ve failed.</p>
<p>The good news is that at Ohio State, once he finishes (or is midway through) the introductory calc-based physics sequence he’ll begin the first sequence of classes that are true “physics major” courses, on classical mechanics, taught by Prof. Kilcup, who is Mother Teresa, Santa Claus, and Einstein rolled into one as far as us physics/eng.phys majors are concerned. This guy will hang out in the physics student lounge for hours helping people with homework, answering all your dumb questions, etc. And he knows Bill Gates!</p>
<p>Yeah, people think being a CS major qualifies you to fix what’s wrong with the projector or get their mp3 player to link to their computer, etc.</p>
<p>I bought a shirt that says “No, I will not fix your computer”</p>
<p>Trouble is, whenever I wore it, people would come up to me and say in a very smarmy voice “hey, can you fix my computer” like they were SO clever and I hadn’t heard it before. So now I don’t wear it.</p>
<p>I’d like to get a shirt that says “I won’t fix anything wrong with your computer, and I will think you’re an idiot if you jokingly ask me to fix your computer after reading this t-shirt”</p>
<p>Being an MIS major is also like that, Servo. Everyone thinks it’s IT, so everyone thinks we know how to fix your computer (we often do, or can find out with Google, doesn’t mean we want to).</p>
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