So, I think this may be an entirely new topic on MacInsiders.

Im in two faculties -- Communication Studies and Political Science -- but I don't think I like the stream that I originally chose for Politics. International Relations doesn't seem to interest me as much as it once did and I am more and more into Public Policy, which seems like a more practical stream. I feel as if Politics in general has made me dangerously apathetic.

Is anyone else not entirely satisfied with their degree in its entirety, or a previously chosen stream?

I was unsure about Political Science in second year, but then I realized my degree actually works with what I'm interested.

It's possible to do almost anything with any degree. If you're in commerce but your passion is sports, you could be the TiCats accountant. If you're in science but your passion is writing, you could be an editor for a medical journal. If you're in Engineering but your passion is children, you could work for a non-profit organization to design and build schools for kids in need. This goes on forever.

So yeah, I was unsure if I really wanted to be in Political Science. But since my passion is the environment, I now know I can get into environmental policy and things like that. So I'm happy with it now.

Yeah, I'm not the happiest with my program. I wish I had decided to go into nursing straight from highschool, but at the time I was too worried about the whole male nurse thing. Now I regret it, and am trying to switch into nursing.

Biology and Psychology are both interesting enough, but to me university is a place to prepare you for a job. And unless I want to go into research or do more schooling, neither is a great way to land a job.

I went from Biochem to Genetics to Life Sci to Physiology all in one year :/

It's great to hear some of your stories. Its comforting knowing that others have or are going through the same thing as you. I always thought that being a diplomat required heavy International Relations (IR) courses but that isn't so, nor is it that you can't develop any other interests in your field. I guess I was being naive with it all, but I am glad I realized my mistakes.

I don't think we should ever feel constrained to the majors that we're currently in. University is supposed to be about finding out what you want to do and what you're really interested in. In first year, I was positive I'd be going for law school and I'd major in political science and sociology, but I realized that wasn't what I was really interested in. I switched to humanities, in the linguistics program so that I can be a speech pathologist later on. I really feel much more happier, and I'm doing better in my classes because it's actually stuff that I like.

Originally Posted by Goce

It's great to hear some of your stories. Its comforting knowing that others have or are going through the same thing as you. I always thought that being a diplomat required heavy International Relations (IR) courses but that isn't so, nor is it that you can't develop any other interests in your field. I guess I was being naive with it all, but I am glad I realized my mistakes.

Just go to law school like me! Wooooo!

A lot of diplomats have law degrees.

Originally Posted by PTGregD

Just go to law school like me! Wooooo!

A lot of diplomats have law degrees.

I may indeed join you brat. Have you thought about where yet?

Originally Posted by Goce

I may indeed join you brat. Have you thought about where yet?

Yeah, I already have the list of places I want to apply to.
All U.S. schools. Although I might toss in an application to UofT as well. We'll see.

Originally Posted by PTGregD

Yeah, I already have the list of places I want to apply to.
All U.S. schools. Although I might toss in an application to UofT as well. We'll see.

Which ones if I may ask? Georgetown? Tulane? Or the Ivey's straight up?

On Topic: I'm certainly not happy with my two majors: Sociology and Economics

Sociology: So I loved Sociology ever since I took it in 11th grade(GCSE); however for the GCSE system it was all about writing three omnibus essays in three hours for your final exam. So to prepare you for that 5 days a week we did discussions and writing exams in a class of 20-25 students. It was pretty intensive and the teacher made damn sure we were thinking about the content and that our written assignments contained that extra level of analysis in order to get a decent grade. So in order to get that elusive A you had to take it to the next level; which I probably did and hence got the outstanding achievement award for it.

Experience At Mac? "Woeful" in one word. Sociology at McMaster has actually been a huge step down from a highschool in a third world country :S

My First year class was over 600 people in that massive MDCL room. The prof read the exact same stuff I had learnt in highschool directly off the slides; even her anecdotes/stories never actually made me think/were of a emphatic quality. The exam was based on MCQ's which is the most counterproductive thing you can ever do for a subjective discipline like Sociology. The tutorials were episodes of "Overheard at Mac" quite simply because Theory a) People lacked cultural diversity coming from suburbia and related to it b) The Course by its designed had failed take people on the other side and make them think things from a sociological tint; the stuff they said was knee jerk comments based purely on their biases/inhibitions. I myself probably would have been in the same boat if I hadn't been made to "think".

I'm taking second year courses right now and its still the same nonsense. Huge class sizes; MCQ exams and facepalming tutorials; I had assumed that there would be an increase in quality when I get to second year but its all the same: Insensitive/Silly tutorial discussions, people being more concerned about what is coming in the exam and whether what they are discussing is relevant to it hence worth their time, People still not knowing how to cite. I know I sound conceited but Its incredibly annoying when I start discussing for example "general knowledge" like the Enron case and Financial Market white collar crime with the T.A as a example of a certain variety of deviance and people have NO idea what I'm talking about; same with Fort Hood and Media Panic :S Going back to my point of cultural insensitivity and lack of general knowledge about stuff that appears on news :S

I have complained to the Prof's and they completely agree and understand my viewpoint, they mostly blame the admin for high enrolment rates and also the notion that Socio is a dumping ground for people who can't handle polisci or more commonly don't have the grades to get into Psych, making socio one of the biggest subjects in Social Sciences; Hence now I stay back after class to discuss stuff.


Economics: I'm not complaining all that much about Economics because I know that at this stage second year is mostly theory that is compulsory for everyone. But the Socialist in me isn't all that impressed by the Friedman worshipping and Keynesian dismissals that is the underlying theme of the cookie cutter theory courses; I just face palm when I am supposed to believe that everything works out perfectly just like I am being told it does.

The two profs that teach theory(Fred & Khan) have been teaching the course the EXACT same way for the past 10 years or so; its just copy paste. I have a interest in Socio economics and Rational Behaviour and its relationship with Psych, but there is no way I can go towards that route in second year. I have to create my own guided reading course during third year to be able to do some of that since the closest the Econ department comes to considering alternative theories is a brief intro into Von Mises during History of Econ in third year, that is IT! :( The department is way to right wing at times; I dunno I guess its just me but people should be allowed to comparatively analyze both sides of the argument :S [/rant]

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

Which ones if I may ask? Georgetown? Tulane? Or the Ivey's straight up?

Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, and NYU. And maybe UToronto.

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

Which ones if I may ask? Georgetown? Tulane? Or the Ivey's straight up?

On Topic: I'm certainly not happy with my two majors: Sociology and Economics

Sociology: So I loved Sociology ever since I took it in 11th grade(GCSE); however for the GCSE system it was all about writing three omnibus essays in three hours for your final exam. So to prepare you for that 5 days a week we did discussions and writing exams in a class of 20-25 students. It was pretty intensive and the teacher made damn sure we were thinking about the content and that our written assignments contained that extra level of analysis in order to get a decent grade. So in order to get that elusive A you had to take it to the next level; which I probably did and hence got the outstanding achievement award for it.

Experience At Mac? "Woeful" in one word. Sociology at McMaster has actually been a huge step down from a highschool in a third world country :S

My First year class was over 600 people in that massive MDCL room. The prof read the exact same stuff I had learnt in highschool directly off the slides; even her anecdotes/stories never actually made me think/were of a emphatic quality. The exam was based on MCQ's which is the most counterproductive thing you can ever do for a subjective discipline like Sociology. The tutorials were episodes of "Overheard at Mac" quite simply because Theory a) People lacked cultural diversity coming from suburbia and related to it b) The Course by its designed had failed take people on the other side and make them think things from a sociological tint; the stuff they said was knee jerk comments based purely on their biases/inhibitions. I myself probably would have been in the same boat if I hadn't been made to "think".

I'm taking second year courses right now and its still the same nonsense. Huge class sizes; MCQ exams and facepalming tutorials; I had assumed that there would be an increase in quality when I get to second year but its all the same: Insensitive/Silly tutorial discussions, people being more concerned about what is coming in the exam and whether what they are discussing is relevant to it hence worth their time, People still not knowing how to cite. I know I sound conceited but Its incredibly annoying when I start discussing for example "general knowledge" like the Enron case and Financial Market white collar crime with the T.A as a example of a certain variety of deviance and people have NO idea what I'm talking about; same with Fort Hood and Media Panic :S Going back to my point of cultural insensitivity and lack of general knowledge about stuff that appears on news :S

I have complained to the Prof's and they completely agree and understand my viewpoint, they mostly blame the admin for high enrolment rates and also the notion that Socio is a dumping ground for people who can't handle polisci or more commonly don't have the grades to get into Psych, making socio one of the biggest subjects in Social Sciences; Hence now I stay back after class to discuss stuff.


Economics: I'm not complaining all that much about Economics because I know that at this stage second year is mostly theory that is compulsory for everyone. But the Socialist in me isn't all that impressed by the Friedman worshipping and Keynesian dismissals that is the underlying theme of the cookie cutter theory courses; I just face palm when I am supposed to believe that everything works out perfectly just like I am being told it does.

The two profs that teach theory(Fred & Khan) have been teaching the course the EXACT same way for the past 10 years or so; its just copy paste. I have a interest in Socio economics and Rational Behaviour and its relationship with Psych, but there is no way I can go towards that route in second year. I have to create my own guided reading course during third year to be able to do some of that since the closest the Econ department comes to considering alternative theories is a brief intro into Von Mises during History of Econ in third year, that is IT! :( The department is way to right wing at times; I dunno I guess its just me but people should be allowed to comparatively analyze both sides of the argument :S [/rant]

All great points. I understand your frustrations as they are similar to my own. Hopefully that 3rd year course is all that you want it to be.

Originally Posted by Goce

All great points. I understand your frustrations as they are similar to my own. Hopefully that 3rd year course is all that you want it to be.

Ofcourse they will be similar! We both are the rare-ish INTJ's aka Rational Masterminds; Most of my friends don't even understand at all why all of this is a concern for me aka why I am not simply happy with just going to class trying to do academically well in whatever content I am being "told" to study and why I have to quesiton everything.

Originally Posted by huzaifa47

the closest the Econ department comes to considering alternative theories is a brief intro into Von Mises during History of Econ in third year, that is IT!
[/color]

For a minute when I read that I thought you were talking about a course entirely devoted to Von Mises, and I got really excited/ was going to ask for the course code.

Originally Posted by A.Marlowe

For a minute when I read that I thought you were talking about a course entirely devoted to Von Mises, and I got really excited/ was going to ask for the course code.

lol that would totally be EPIC! The only issue is that we don't even have a prof in the department who would be capable of/willing to do that course. I've looked through the Faculty listing and only a new junior Post Doc has anything to do whatsoever with Behavioral Economics!

Health Sci's apparently can design their own courses? :(