Well, here I am with yet another school related problem. The dopers have been most helpful in the past and I am hoping you will do the same for me now.
The problem is this: I hate my major. I delcared a major of BSED English before even coming to school. I always knew that I wanted to teach in some way, and my most influential teachers have been in English classes. Now I get here, look at the (really really long) list of literature and writing classes that I have to take and suddenly realize I hate literature. Ok, maybe hate is too strong a word - I strongly dislike literature. …Much better.
So I decided just this morning that I want to switch over to a BSED in Mathematics. Simple, easy to teach, I love Math, and I’m really good at it. I proposed this idea to my room mate (who has been here longer than I), and recieved the bad news. Our math department is currently under investigation due to the alarmingly high number of students failing their math classes.
:eek: :eek: UGH!! :mad: :mad:
Now that I have vented, I feel much better…
The question I now pose to you is this: What sort of problems, if any did you face in college in regards to choosing a major?
Don’t ask me about choosing a major. I decided on Marriage and Family Therapy because OSU has one of the best programs in the country and a lot of the classes looked interesting but here I sit, 26 hours from a degree and HATEING IT! The coursework has gotten into the stage where I wonder why I can’t just test out of the rest of it because it’s basicly repeats from earlier classes-and not even the interesting ones. It’s too late to change because Financial Aid will only pay for so many hours in an undergrad degree hunt. My only choice is to tough it out and when I get into Grad school for my Masters change to Sociology or something that will fit into my Undergrad major.
“Ugh” is right.
Choose carefully, 'cause it;s a long haul to be stuck with something you end up hateing.
If I were flippantly inclined, I’d suggest you take it up with your colonel.
Seriously, though, the Facts are that going to college is NOT the educational opportunity you seem to think it is. It’s the time to party, get laid, participate in a lot of extracurricular activities, and make friends that can last you a lifetime. The degree that you get at the end doesn’t matter; mine was in Engineering, and was obsolete two years later - I might as well have gotten it from an internet diploma mill.
Does your school offer courses in MPSIMS like “Comparative Modern TV Programming” or “The Art of Pornography” or “Beer 101”? If so, you can probably fumble your way through something like that and still have a good time doing it.
Now, hating your major is a serious problem, and you have to deal with it while you are in the first or at the latest secon year of your college.
In Turkey, after high school, you enter university - with your major firmly chosen - there is no junior college phase where you can considerseveral options.
Your whole curriculum , except a few “selective” or “optional” or whatever courses you are free to choose, is set from the first day.
Of course you are free to change majors during the course of your undergrad education, but that means , probably, that you will graduate later than you have originally planned, pay more money etc…
So, I entered college in hopes of becoming an Industrial Engineer, and unfortunately, despite all the serious hate I have developed for it through the years, I graduated in 4 years (in 1989 by the way) with the degree of “Industrial Engineer”.
My GPA was just too low to ask to be transferred to another major. I would either be an engineer or a drop-out!
THen what did I do?
I made an MA in International Relations - politics that is…
Just so I wouldn’t have to calculate any formulas in my study!!
Now, after all these years, so much work experience in this, that and the other…I am pursuinbg a career in Concert Production!!!
Don’t let the college major rule your life…
It belongs to you, not your diploma!
If you love math and are really good at it, don’t let the math department’s problems scare you away. My advice would be to find a friend of a friend who’s a math major, and get their opinion of the department. Find out who the good and the bad professors are. (Really I’d suggest getting several opinions on this.) This will give you an idea of which classes to register for.
I’d expect that a happy outcome of the department being under investigation is that more students will be passing in the future. It should only get better.
[sub]I might be biased, though. I’m a math major myself.[/sub]
Thanx for the advice guys, especially the joke about the colonel. I know that I cannot let my major own me, in fact, what I really want to do is acting. Ever since I was a little girls, all I wanted to do was act. I am signing up for an acting class next year. I’m only worried about a college education to make sure that I have something to fall back on. I know all to well how harsh the world of acting is.
When I was in college, I was struggling over whether or not I wanted stick with the Business program or switch over to Journalism.
When all of a sudden, I knocked over my bong, soaking my record collection. Framptom Comes Alive was ruined, and Thick As A Brick never really lost that smell.
Hate to tell you this, but most majors in college aren’t really about learning. They’re about inflicting enough pain so that those who aren’t serious about following their career drop out.
I mean, really, if they wanted to educate you, they’d just turn you lose in a library with scheduled appointments with a competent mentor for several years and that would be it.
Just my thoughts after entirely too much time in college.
Wow. I never thought of it that way, but it makes total sense. College could be likened to training to become a Navy SEAL (alright, I’ll admit it’s a stretch, but hangin there with me). The process of training is so rough to weed out all the weak ones that are not committed to becoming a SEAL. Only those who are truly passionate about it would ever survive the torturous process.
If you love math and you’re good at teaching, please, for the sake of society in general, become a math teacher! There’s a real shortage of math and science teachers who have a passion for both their subject and teaching.
That said, I have no useful advice about majors. I chose mine by taking a class here and a class there over the years and then noticing when looking at my transcripts that I had mostly English credits. So I’m an English major, God help me. I’m also pushing 40 and only about halfway through, so I’m not exactly a role model.
My advice is to check out what has caused the drop in pass rate. The university, (the local equivalent of college) I attended, had several problem relating to low pass rates in both Maths and Computer Science. These had nothing to do with the departments or the level of teaching provided but everything to do with the sudden change in the type of person applying to do the courses.
Not all to long ago the only students who enrolled in mathematics courses were either dedicated mathematician or at least hard science/engineering majors. Then along came the computer industry and its allure of buckets of cash, made by 20 year olds who just sit around playing arcade games all day. Suddenly every one needs a maths minor to get their degree in computing and become an instant millionaire. Most fail to realise that computing and mathematics are technical subjects that actually require you know things.
On the subject of doing what you want, have you considered journalism as a backup alternative to acting? There is a lot of valuable cross experience to be gained in the two fields and God knows we could do with a few more journalist who actually understand that 1 + 1 = 2, and not 20 even if they are using palladium.
Finally most learning institutes have a course/career guidance service that can provide useful information on restructuring your course to better fit what you need. They also often have a fairly wide practical experience as to what to expect during the courses and how useful they will be in the long term.
I went to speak to my advisor today and he said that he hadn’t heard anything about the math department being under investigation. He said that the only students that may be having trouble with the classes are those who are being forced to take the class to satisfy general education requirements.
The Bad
There are two math classes I have to take as prerequisits for all the rest of my math courses. Of course, they aren’t available at the times I have available.
The Ugly :eek:
In order to switch over to a math major, I will have to speak with a certain professor in the department. The professor just happens to have taught the only class I have dropped so far. This man is possibly the most annoying and egocentric teacher I have had in my entire school career. Lucky me!!
