<p>Yea, the main reason I went to Cal is because of research opportunities, and also nearby internships. There are plenty of opportunities here, but it’s hard to actually find time to do them (especially if you’re in science/engineering related majors).</p>
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Well then, I guess it just depends on the person. I was looking into a Pol Sci major before visiting Berkeley and then during Cal Day I had a huge epiphany about my love for math and that spark came back to me; I wasn’t even deterred by what the fellow said. I’m just the type of person to not let what other people say get the best of me.</p>
<p>It’s not like rexte would go up to the head of a “useless major” departmant and say the same thing. He (she? it?) doesn’t have the cojones. ;)</p>
<p>You people need to be less sensitive to rude people on the internet lawlz</p>
<p>People generally bash on what they don’t know or understand. Personally I don’t like writing English papers and would never do an English major so I like to make fun of English majors of being useless like they do in Avenue Q.</p>
<p>However it’s not the major that truly matters, it’s up to the individual to go far with circumstances they are put in. I have respect for people who do what they enjoy and go places with what they have instead of depending on their major to represent their success or identity.</p>
<p>Well, I happen to care very much what students at Berkeley think about my major. I don’t think it’s completely useless, and I don’t think that it’s anywhere beneath the most respected majors at Berkeley. The reason I said that “maybe I should have committed to UPenn or Princeton” is because I feel frustrated and angry that several people (not just one or two) on this forum, and quite a few students I met had blatantly stated or inferred that majors like “political science” are “useless”. </p>
<p>I said this because I am concerned about the reputation and prestige of the undergraduate department I’m about to enter into. I don’t hear Penn students or see people on the Penn forum say that the international affairs programs is useless, because it is well respected, especially among the “elite” Whartonites since only the best of the best undergrad business students can get into the Huntsman Program—dual degree in Wharton business and CAS department of international affairs. And I certain don’t hear my friend/acquaintances from Princeton or see people on the Princeton forum bashing the liberal arts program in such a manner, especially since Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs is so selective that even if one were accepted to Princeton, one would still have to apply to get accepted to this school. And to bring this phenomenon closer to home, I don’t hear current students/alumni say, or see people posting comments like “EECS is a useless major” or “pshh…why in the world would you ever go into business? It’s a bull major”. And why, might I ask you, is that? Because these majors at these specified universities are highly respected; because these major have a great reputation; and because the students pursuing these majors are truly passionate and serious—so passionate and serious that people would not dare insult it in such a manner. So the opposite might very well be true for those “useless majors”—it’s not as well respected, people don’t think it’s such a big deal being in these types of major because anyone can, or the majority of the students pursuing it care so little about it and its reputation that they allow others to say that their major is bull (a few students I know even admitted that it is and tried to persuade me to go into business or econ). The way students treat a certain major definitely reflects a lot on the quality of the students of that department as well as the quality of the department itself. And I don’t like at all what these implications are telling me. </p>
<p>I don’t know about the rest of you, but I certainly don’t want to go to a school where the only person passionate about my sort of ambition is me, myself and I + maybe only a handful of others. I don’t know about you but to me, college isn’t just about learning from classes and professors, it’s also about learning from peers. Especially for my major, working with many other passionate and qualified individuals who share the same interest as I is truly the essence of foreign affairs. I honestly don’t want to spend 4 years learning about how people think poli sci is a bull major and that I should have done myself a favor and signed up for EESC/Haas/Econ/chemistry instead (which I do have the capacity but chose not to) and waste time convincing/ignoring/debating people who sneers and jeers at my major. I want to spend that time discussing major related topics with people who share my passion. That’s why I was so frustrated with people saying things like “besides business, EECS, science, math and econ, the rest is useless”. </p>
<p>Now, please don’t throw things like “if you hate Berkeley so much, why didn’t you just go to your beloved Penn or Princeton?” at me. That’s not my point. The reason why I was so frustrated is precisely because I love Berkeley and if I were given the choice of picking colleges again, I would still pick Berkeley (albeit not with the same unrestrained enthusiasm as I did before). I was frustrated because I was disappointed; I was disappointed because so many students view my major as useless. I expected elitism at Penn and Princeton; they are ivies after all. However, I didn’t expect such blatant/childish/completely unfounded elitism at Berkeley. And you know what’s really pathetic? One of the primary reason why I picked Berkeley in the first place is because I thought there wouldn’t be as much elitism, especially among the top half of the academic group. From my experience at a public and private school, I’ve always had the notion that private schools are the snooty ones, not public. This atmosphere, I know, will hurt my overall college experience (And I think for the first time, Mathboy, sakky, and SDTB’s seemingly endless debate is starting to sink in).</p>
<p>I’m not going to change my major just because some people called it useless. I did not imply such thing. I didn’t say that I’m now going to change my major to chemistry because a few people on the Internet forum said/implied my major is useless. I have more backbone than that; and not to sound elitist or anything, I’ve been through so much that I can take more thrashing than most of you (As an impoverished immigrant, as an English as a Third Language learner in middle school, as a girl who has been through the test of a third world/male dominated society). I’m simply worried about my academic experience at Berkeley. It’s easy to say just ignore it. But the truth is, I’m human. There will be a time when I will have enough. I want to enjoy being passionate about my major, and I want to devote full attention to becoming the best international affairs person as I can possibly be. But that can’t happen with many/majority of the people thrashing what I do instead of supporting/doing what I love at my side.</p>
<p>KitKatz, you are completely justified in your frustration. However, this issue has less to do with the prestige of Berkeley’s Poli Sci department and more to do with the fact that most students at Berkeley come and settle into a “niche” so to speak. Most engineering and science majors do not know much about humanities major programs; all that they concern themselves with is what easy A humanities classes they can take to fulfill requirements. And since most of the time, it’s the science/engineering majors going into the humanities to seek easy A classes rather than the other way around, there is a sort of generalization that humanities majors must be worthless because there are preceived to be many humanities classes where it is easy to get an A. There seems to be many people who think that when a major has a lot of courses where it is hard to get an A only then is the major worthwhile, because there is a common notion that difficulty of a major relates directly to future pay upon employment. </p>
<p>My second point is that you can probably define two categories (with a bit of intersection in between) for most students at any college: those who are there to learn for the sake of learning and those who are there to learn so they can subsist in the future. Sometimes I don’t like admitting this to myself, but I feel that a large portion of the engineering and science major students mainly fall under the second category. Just the other day, I hear two electrical engineering students declare that they hate electrical engineering. And whenever I meet people who are trying to get into my major, they tell me they’re interested because it is a hot industry right now. Most of these people, to generalize a bit, are primarily concerned with getting a well paying job and living comfortably in the future. Passion for the subject is secondary to future prosperity for them and they may find majoring in the humanities foolish because it does not necessarily guarentee a stable, well paying job like an engineering major. It takes an amazing amount of courage to major in something you love, especially if what you love is not necessarily known to guarentee that stable, well paying job in the future, and most people are too scared to take that risk. The students who are at the university to learn for the sake learning, on the other hand, would be willing to take that risk since they priortize their passion over their desire for a stable, comfortable future.</p>
<p>KitKatz, I hope you can disregard the ignorance of those other students and not let their short-sightedness taint your Berkeley experience.</p>
<p>Kitkat, you care waaay too much about how people view your major, no major is universally lauded and respected.</p>
<p>Again, a major by itself is nothing without the individual exemplifying it. So maybe I much rather prefer business to poli sci, I have much respect for people who go above and beyond their major to do interesting and great things, like get an internship at the white house or something. Someone who is an EECS major doesn’t automatically earn my respect, sure the classes are difficult, but if they don’t do something with their knowledge than I don’t see anything special about them.</p>
<p>P.S. I do think those pre-law poli sci majors are tools, but it’s not like I’d go out of my way and be a bully about it</p>
<p>What you said is true, Dill, but I don’t think that’s the only reason. I think that prestige of this undergraduate department, not necessarily the graduate department, also has a lot to do with the attitudes floating around here. </p>
<p>“KitKatz, I hope you can disregard the ignorance of those other students and not let their short-sightedness taint your Berkeley experience.”</p>
<p>Thank you Dill 
But I’d much rather have an environment where I won’t have to spend effort/ divert some of my energy trying to ignore so many students’ ignorance. It’s not what I had in mind for college. <em>sigh</em>. </p>
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<p>To me, I rather not be that one person who is passionate about my major, the lonely beacon of light among a pile of, for the lack of a better illustration, rubbish. Sorry, I don’t feel that adventurous/ self-important. Plus my major (poli sci/ international affairs) really demands collaboration/ exchange of ideas (hence why so many international affairs programs are accompanied by a think tank) It’s important to me to have that student body/reputed undergraduate department.</p>
<p>Also, Firapira, your example of that white house internship as a something that is “above and beyond” kind of justifies my worries. Applying for a white house internship is definitely not going above and beyond in my book. It should be second nature for any good international affairs major who want anything to do with US foreign affairs. I have already started to get connections for my major–internship at the Chinese embassy/consulates. I’d love it if a few people would also do the same for other foreign or even US embassy/government department. This is where the diversity/exchange of idea comes in.</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> But despite my disappointment, I’m still certain that I’ll find some (even it is just a handful) student who share my passion. Although I’d prefer some more. At least I’m still banking on the department for offering opportunities for research/internship.</p>
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<p>I’m afraid I can’t completely agree with your characterization of science/engineering students. To be sure, I agree with you that many (probably most) engineering/CS students probably really don’t care very much about their subject and just want to get a decent job. This seems to be far less true of the science majors, with perhaps the interesting exception of the MCB students who seem to believe (erroneously in my opinion) that their major will provide them with an edge in med-school admission. Let’s face it - nobody majors in chemistry or physics for the job prospects. It’s too much work for too little payout. If you’re going to put in that kind of work, you might as well become an engineer.</p>
<p>Where we seem to disagree is that many of the humanities and soc-sci students also don’t really care about their majors. Let’s be perfectly honest. Many, almost certainly most, of them are just looking to get an easy degree where they can get decent grades without having to work very hard and that provides them with plenty of free time to do other things, and the humanities and soc-sci majors just so happen to provide that opportunity. </p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way. How many history majors actually intend to become professional historians? How many poli-sci majors actually intend to become professional political scientists? How many psychology majors actually intend to become professional psychologists? I’m not talking about the number of jobs that are available in those fields, I’m talking about the students in those majors who even want the corresponding jobs. I think we can all agree that the percentage is small. Let’s face it. Most of them don’t really care about the major they happen to be in; they just care about getting the degree, and the major is just a means to an ends. </p>
<p>Nor is this irrational behavior. In this day and age, except for minor exceptions such as entrepreneurship or sports/entertainment that are available to only a small percentage of people, if you want a decent career, you basically need a college degree. It doesn’t really matter what the degree is in, you just need a degree in something. Companies are going to ask whether you have a degree, and if you don’t, you’re not even going to get the interview. It doesn’t even really seem to matter all that much what you majored in, as a poli-sci major can get hired as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers or Bear Stearns. </p>
<p>[Career</a> Center - What Can I Do With a Major In…?](<a href=“http://career.berkeley.edu/Major2006/PolSci.stm]Career”>http://career.berkeley.edu/Major2006/PolSci.stm)</p>
<p>{Incidentally, maybe that’s why Bear Stearns and Lehman fell down. To quote Michael Lewis:</p>
<p>To this day, the willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grownups remains a mystery to me. I was 24 years old, with no experience of, or particular interest in, guessing which stocks and bonds would rise and which would fall. The essential function of Wall Street is to allocate capital—to decide who should get it and who should not. Believe me when I tell you that I hadn’t the first clue. I’d never taken an accounting course, never run a business, never even had savings of my own to manage. I stumbled into a job at Salomon Brothers in 1985 and stumbled out much richer three years later, and even though I wrote a book about the experience, the whole thing still strikes me as preposterous—which is one of the reasons the money was so easy to walk away from. I figured the situation was unsustainable. Sooner rather than later, someone was going to identify me, along with a lot of people more or less like me, as a fraud. Sooner rather than later, there would come a Great Reckoning when Wall Street would wake up and hundreds if not thousands of young people like me, who had no business making huge bets with other people’s money, would be expelled from finance.}</p>
<p>[The</a> End of Wall Street’s Boom - National Business News - Portfolio.com](<a href=“http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom]The”>http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom) </p>
<p>The fact is, all majors, whether sci/eng or humanities/soc-sci, are loaded with students who don’t really care about the major and are there for purely mercenary reasons. I see no reason to single out the sci/eng students in this respect. If nothing else, at least the engineering students probably really are going to take jobs as engineers. Sure beats working as a barista at Starbucks or cashier at Barnes & Noble, which some English majors end up doing. Many humanities/soc-sci students are just looking to snag an easy degree, and I’m not sure that’s more noble. </p>
<p>[Career</a> Center - What Can I Do With a Major In…?](<a href=“http://career.berkeley.edu/Major2006/English.stm]Career”>http://career.berkeley.edu/Major2006/English.stm)</p>
<p>Sorry to say, but if you didn’t think there was gonna be elitism at Berkeley, you’re being way too open-minded. I might come back later and type more, but it’s 4 and i’m really sleepy.</p>
<p>Quick and easy reason: It’s definitely the nerdiest of the UCs. </p>
<p>That aside, while the prestige is definitely a plus, I really just like the school for its urban environment and the lively student body. It’s also got an interesting history, fabulous campus, and great surrounding area. I felt right at home when I visited. It’s also close enough to home and Tahoe for holidays, which is nice.</p>
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<p>I am glad and at the same time sad for you that you finally understand this debate. </p>
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<p>Let’s throw in pure math majors, while we’re at it. I think Dill didn’t mean it to include pure science/math majors though. I know she’s pretty aware of what the career path for pure science majors is, though I think your clarification is well taken, Sakky. </p>
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<p>Again, right on.</p>
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<p>You won’t if you choose to keep the right company. This is what I tell you time and again, and it’s what you should have picked up from my/Sakky’s/SDTB’s discussion – there’re vastly, vastly different students at UCB; sure, there are at any school, but perhaps an especially huge spectrum here. </p>
<p>Keep the right company, and you’ll enjoy college greatly. It’s what I’ve done. </p>
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<p>The undergraduate departments don’t exist in a sense – there are really only <em>DEPARTMENTS</em>. Either they’re top quality or not. Now, the undergraduate student body in a certain major may be substandard relatively speaking. I can say with confidence there are schools (like Harvard) with a better average math major student quality. I don’t care, though, because I don’t come into contact with a single average student of mathematics in any one of my classes. </p>
<p>I hate to say it, but if the student body being full of <em>MANY</em> people who’re relatively more motivated about academics were so important to you, you would basically 100% have been better off at Princeton. If you want to love Berkeley, you have to look to find your niche. If you want to be hardcore about your major and love it with a passion, find others like you. They do exist. You’ll find people who challenge you to no end if you look for them.</p>
<p>Also, sadly, if you wanted there to be less major elitism, you indeed might have been better off elsewhere. Notice that Berkeley admits students * to their majors separately*, and this is invitation for major elitism. For instance, many privates don’t do that. Also, if the average student quality is higher, people respect each other more. MIT, to be sure, probably has less elitism given everyone is presumably pretty smart there, though still I guarantee there, the engineering majors probably mock the biology majors to some slight extent (though these probably aren’t tolerated beyond a point!), from what I heard from the MIT board.</p>
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<p>This is an important observation. Science/engineering is harder on average, but that doesn’t mean it’s always harder. Try taking some of the craziest literature classes, and you’ll see (addressed generally).</p>
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<p>I think while this is certainly part of the story, the reason humanities majors are looked down upon by engineers is more the above. And, also that the AVERAGE humanities student is flakier than the average engineer. Remember, pure math can be construed to be “useless” in the sense that most pure math majors aren’t going to do pure math research anyway. But generally, that’s looked upon as a really tough major, and all but a few EECS majors actually fear mathematics classes beyond the basic ones. I don’t ever have some engineering major come tell me “Ah! Majoring in math for an easy A in your classes? Nice! I actually gotta work a little to pass my classes, you know?”</p>
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<p>Yeah, but the difference is that you usually don’t have to take those classes. Most of the insane lit classes are electives which, even as a majoring student, you can plot your way around. </p>
<p>Not so with engineering. For example, all ChemE’s have to take ChemE thermodynamics (ChE141) which is probably the most baffling undergrad course in the entire department. To this day, I still don’t know what the heck the Maxwell Relations actually mean in any real world sense. For example, what does it mean for the partial derivative of temperature with respect to volume at constant entropy to be equal to the negative partial derivative of pressure with respect to entropy at constant volume, and for both to be equal to the double partial derivative of internal energy with respect to entropy and volume? Nor am I the only one: I have asked every practicing chemical engineer I know, even some with PhD’s, to explain what the Relations actually mean, and they’ve all admitted that they don’t really know either. </p>
<p>[Maxwell</a> relations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell_relations]Maxwell”>Maxwell relations - Wikipedia) </p>
<p>Note, the problem is not with the math. We can do the math just fine. The problem is regarding what the math actually means. After all, engineers aren’t supposed to use math just for the sake of using math. The math is actually supposed to have real-world engineering meaning, yet apparently no engineer that I know seems to know what that is. What exactly is the partial derivative of pressure with respect to entropy at constant volume anyway? Who knows? Nobody knows! </p>
<p>To quote the German scientist Arnold Sommerfeld:</p>
<p>Thermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don’t understand it at all. The second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third time you go through it, you know you don’t understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, so it doesn’t bother you any more.</p>
<p>The worst aspect is that not only was the course material incomprehensible, but the course itself was a weeder designed to flunk out the unworthy. Of course, the term ‘unworthy’ was quite the interesting concept because nobody actually understood thermo by the end of the course, the only difference was among degrees of misunderstanding. In contrast, even in the most insane literature class, as long as you do the work, you’re still going to pass. They might not give you a top grade, but they’re not going to fail you either.</p>
<p>Right, and this is where I’d say engineering majors should admit when their classes are baffling and potentially very strangely run, not take some sort of false pride in the fact that they survived courses with relatively smaller degrees of misunderstanding than some of their classmates. Surviving a midterm with 30% of the points and having it be an A isn’t exactly something I think to be worthy of praise. </p>
<p>I’ve often times wished that if professors want to hand out very challenging problems, that they hand them out for students to take home and think about, and not put them on exams (or don’t have exams). Spending several days on some very tough problems is much more useful in my eyes than spending an hour or two on them and seeing who can win the ratrace to make the smallest misguided progress.</p>
<p>I suppose I was a bit unclear in my earlier post written at 4 am since I was in a hurry to get to sleep so I could attend a 9 am review session. My point was that I feel that most engineers are like medieval craftsman in some guild, because the reason one gets an engineering degree is to, for the most part, ply a respectiable trade and make a living, like a medieval stonemason or wheelwright. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the wheelwright loves making wheels but he does so to get by. To a certain extent, this blanket falls upon science majors since science can also be seen as a craft or skill of some sort. I do believe exceptions should be made for pure chemistry, physics, and math majors though because though they have the “skill/craft” in their respective fields they are more interested in the abstract for the most part. However, their numbers are not all that high among the student population of Berkeley (this may be due in part of difficulty of classes). The physics department I know has a small enough number of undergrads to list them all on their sight. </p>
<p>As for the humanities, yes, I agree that there are probably a significant population os students who are majoring in the humanities because it is easy to get a degree (or as I’ve sometimes heard they are not any good at science). While it is (maybe “was” now after the economic problems we’ve been having) true you can get a well-paying job with a humanities degree, it is less of a guarantee than with an engineering/science degree. Also, I feel that it is harder for people to dislike or hate a humanities major though they may not be as passionate about it. I’ve heard far more people say that they hate math or science than they hate english or history. In general, I feel that people who major in the humanities even if they’re not passionate about it feel some fondness for it while there are people who major in engineering/science who can barely tolerate the subject matter.</p>
<p>Another thing I’d like to note that grades can often be a deal breaker for a lot of students’ passion for a subject in the first two years of college. I’ve met plenty of students who intended to major in a particular subject, took a course at Berkeley, struggled with it, found that they weren’t a genius in the subject like they thought they were, and no longer want anything to do with the subject. While I do not like weeder courses in the undergrad level, I do feel that students who hit a wall in their academic pursuit and suddenly lose interest need to be “weeded out,” because liking a subject because one is good at it neither benefits the individual nor the individual’s peers. It’s not true passion for the subject, but more like an egotistical pat on the back. </p>
<p>However, after these students and others are weeded out, their difficulty in relocating to a new major/college is again an issue and here I agree with mathboy’s suggestion that they make classes of great difficulty but gentler curves so people’s GPAs aren’t too unpleasant. I do notice that in each one of my classes there are a group of students who kind of make up the tail end of the grade distrubtion (in OChem someone scored a -7 out of 145 and there are were other clumped around this region). I don’t know these students so I can’t say that Berkeley should not have accepted them in the first place but still I feel like something should be done so that there are not students getting negative scores on an exam with over 100 points.</p>
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<p>Having a degree in the humanities/soc-sci may not provide a strong chance of garnering a high-paying job, but certainly is far far better than not even having a degree at all. Keep in mind that only 27% of Americans aged 25 and up hold a bachelor’s degree from any school, much less a school with a vaunted brand name like Berkeley. </p>
<p>Furthermore, when measured not on an absolute salary scale, but rather on “salary per unit of effort” efficiency scale, the hum/soc-sci majors may actually come out on top, namely because those majors hand out good grades for relatively little work, allowing students to enjoy their college experience. You’re only young once, and more specifically, you go to college only once. To choose an engineering major means, barring genius, forgoing the chance to enjoy the fun college experience typical of most other students across the country, and that’s something that you’ll never get back. </p>
<p>Most people describe their college years as some of the best times of their lives - a sentiment shared by few engineers. Heck, some have described the experience as the worst years of their lives, and their current lives as practicing engineers as being a great improvement for at least they no longer have to constantly worry about flunking out. {Worrying about keeping your job is certainly stressful, but not as stressful as remaining in good engineering academic standing, for if you lose your job, you can just find another job, but if you flunk out of school, your failing grades will haunt you such that no other decent school wants to take you.} Of those who did well in school, many engineers that I know are, still to this day, not sure that they made the right choice of major, for they don’t know that the increased salaries was really worth what they may have missed in terms of an enjoyable college experience. {The problem, of course, is that by definition, you can never know what you missed.} However, speaking to others who majored in easy subjects and got to enjoy a bevy of colleges adventures - multiple semesters abroad in exotic locales, numerous fun love affairs, taking entire weeks off during the semester to travel around, constant trips to fancy clubs and bars in the city- those engineers got to do none of that. They never had time; they always had to study. That’s a big loss. </p>
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<p>I would argue that it’s hard to hate a course of study that is easy. If you can get a decent grade without having to put in a lot of effort, then the pain level you feel never rises to the threshold of hatred. On the other hand, engineering students are forced to push well above and beyond their pain thresholds if they want to pass. </p>
<p>Besides, let me put it to you this way. There are many PhD humanities/soc-sci students, especially those in the dissertation stage, who will honestly tell you that they hate their topic. That’s because dissertations require extensive effort to complete, to the point where you become sick of the topic yet you still have to keep going. Again, keep in mind that these are PhD students, who were the best and most motivated of all of the hum/soc-sci undergrads, yet even they now hate their majors. That’s a simple function of difficulty. When a topic becomes difficult, that’s when people start to hate it. The major difference is that engineering & natural science majors are difficult even at the undergraduate level. </p>
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<p>Well, I don’t know what to say about that, except that there are creampuff majors at Berkeley that are even worse than what you have just described. At least, according to your description, those students were actually good in the subject in which they were getting good grades. There are certain majors in which you don’t even really have to be that good, yet will still get good grades. That’s an undeserved egotistical pat on the back. </p>
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<p>I would argue that - in addition to just not admitting the tail-end of students in the first place - that students should be allowed to wipe the grades of those classes for which they’re no longer in the corresponding major. Who cares what your engineering weeder grades were if you’re not going to major in engineering anyway?</p>
<p>Another, somewhat orthogonal proposal, would be to equilibrate grading scales. It is still a great mystery to me as to why certain majors are allowed to invoke conspicuously easier grading schemes compared to others.</p>
<p>Would you guys consider Philosophy or Rhetoric an easy major at Berkeley?</p>
<p>UCB Poli Sci Senior here. Stumbled upon this thread after getting out of a final today, so I am going to pitch in with my 2 cents. </p>
<p>KitKatz > The Poli Sci major is a great field with enough diversity to keep you satisfied. There is the practical field - IR, the theoretical field - Political Theory, the field where it actually matters - US politics, and the field that is in the middle of both practicality and theory - Comparative politics. I may be biased a little, but Cal’s Poli Sci program - even undergrad, is among the top in the nation, and most definitely in the field of Comparative Politics, where the quality of teaching and depth is on par with the Ivy in the East; check the course list here and compare around, and you should know what I am talking about. Contrary to popular misconception, Political Science is NOT a pure humanities major. This is a major that crosses both the humanities and science, and the current trend in the field is definitely getting more quantitative everyday. Poli Sci IS an enlightening major, but it is NOT for the weak of heart, as we deal with issues that expose the darkest side of humanity (like war), so be prepared. Courses here at Cal involves heavy theory, heavy reading, and heavy writing in occasion, the usual dose of stuff you get in a high caliber University. </p>
<p>If you really think you have a heart to deal with issues that revolve around conflict, war, and power struggle - the darker side of humanity, and think you can handle the workload, then I would definitely suggest you keep it going, you would not be disappointed here at Cal.</p>
<p>Regarding the issue of people looking down at the major - why deal with ignorance? Political Science is one of the most enlightening majors out there that has practical, real world implications, if people think it’s “just another humanities”, just laugh it off; chances are they will never run the show like we will do after we graduate. =P </p>
<p>And there is definitely a certain truth about avoiding those who shows low passion for the major - i.e. those who constantly say they are in it coz they hate math and science and those who ditch classes due to heavy partying. If you encounter these people in your lower div courses, immediately sound an alert in your head, because they are bad news. You will be influenced by the people you hang around with, and if you hang out with people who has little passion, your own passion will get eroded, I can guarantee that. </p>
<p>Personally, I intend to work for the US government after I graduate, as I put serving my country as a high priority. Sure, about 20% of your peers will aim for Law School, but there will be people you meet that will work abroad, such as NGOs or UN, where they believe can make a difference. Those who are headed into graduate research are usually the dedicated and top minds here, and if you want to know them, go for a Junior seminar (a 3.5 GPA requirement to be considered by the instructor) where you get to write a medium sized research paper of 30-40 pages closely with professors who are top in their field. But, of course, there will definitely be those who might end up working in a restaurant chain… but major does not = career for any major, or so they say. </p>
<p>If you think you are having trouble looking for those who are dedicated, then you are probably not looking at the right places. There is the UGPSA - Undergrad Poli Sci Assoiation, honor societies, academic oriented greek… just remember to reach out and ask around. Oh, and look around and observe in your lower div classes, who are the ones that show up to lecture and discussion EVERY TIME? who are the ones that are engaged in class? Get to know them and set up study groups, they are the ones that you should hang out if you are really passionate about the major.</p>
<p>Good luck and welcome to Cal!</p>