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Academic discipline of choice

Shiny Grimer

Shiny Grimer

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she/her, they/them
For everyone who enjoys studying something for the sake of studying.

Have you a certain academic discipline of choice? Are you an interdisciplinary type of person or do you enjoy just one discipline?

Personally, I find myself deeply entrenched in the social sciences. I know everyone looks down upon them for being soft sciences, but I still love them even if they cannot stuff math into everything. Linguistics is my field of choice, but I also like psychology, particularly abnormal psychology, and I also like sociology. I am curious about anthropology and I am a little fuzzy on the difference between sociology and anthropology.

In the humanities... I like musicology a lot, and textual analysis is pretty fun. I also absolutely love history, be it history of science or history of the USA. Law is also interesting. When it comes to the natural sciences, biology is my favorite. I like reading about evolutionary biology and genetics. Chemistry will forever remind me of the two horrid years of chemistry I took, but it was actually pretty interesting, though I would not research the topic on my own. Newtonian physics I find boring, but I find what of I have read of quantum physics to be really fascinating and I would like to learn more about it. Unfortunately, to have a wood rasp on the subject I would probably have to learn about Newtonian physics and... I really do not care about it. Mathematics is not something I would pursue simply because I find little pleasure in doing it, but pure math is pretty cool and I can appreciate math.

I also enjoy interdisciplinary stuff. I am the type of person who likes thinking about the philosophical implications of scientific discoveries. Unfortunately, I am not well-read on either subject so my musings are often childish. Ah well, I do the best I can.

I really like theoretical stuff. I am not interested in applications. If someone can apply it, that is great, but not what I am looking for. I love knowledge for its own sake, although I find it worthwhile to ponder about the knowledge accumulated. I would love to be able to do research in the fields I like.

So, what subjects do TCoDians enjoy studyinq? (Applied subjects like journalism totally count, so if your passion is forensic anthropology, let us know!)
 
linguistics (to the degree that "a love of studying languages" is a study of linguistics)

and i'll be studying computer engineering
 
I like philosophy because religions don't make sense with enough thought (Confirmation bias, anyone?), and physical-monist universe doesn't make sense with enough thought either (Explanatory gap in the hard problems of consciousness (e.g. the existence of qualia), highlighted by the China Brain, Inverted Spectrum, etc. thought experiments, not to mention how much of a logical leap it is from "I'm thinking about something." to a physical-monist universe, which would require groundless faith to believe that the only thing I know is true is false, which is a self-refuting premise, and even if it is justified and true, I can never know it [see Gettier Problem], anyone? But, again, there is a causative gap, as it seems like matter things bring about mental things, two different types of information-systems at least, and I don't know the mechanics of how a matter thing could cause a non-matter thing to exist, and be dependent on the matter thing for its existence while linked to the matter thing, though Orch-OR, Holographic Universe, electromagnetic theories of the brain, and especially, perhaps not in terms of empiric data but more in terms of explanatory power, Platonic Realism, gives tantalizing possibilities to fill this causative gap.) so I need to figure out something else besides the above two, because it seems like one or the other in non-philosophical circles. That, and I need to find a meaning of life somehow, because I can't justify my own existence without a lot of philosophical thought.

I also just ♥ Knowledge. =3
 
writing, literature and visual arts.

I'm currently taking a BA majoring in writing with an editing minor; after I do that I'll probably consider getting a fine arts degree, too. I'm leaning towards writing drama at the moment, so I'd like to end up somewhere around scriptwriting/playwriting. I don't know.
 
i like anthropology, especially psychological anthropology. i'm into studying logic as both a discipline and an art. i'm also an artist, so that's something i study too. so whatever...
 
Social sciences! I'll be taking both anthropology and sociology at university, not sure which I'll prefer and get further into just yet.

I really enjoyed what I've done of linguistics, so I miiiight be looking into a minor there. In another life maybe I'd be totally into science, but I never went down that route at all, so.
 
I'm off to do a BA in History this autumn, so yeah it's my favourite academic discipline. I'll admit it's probably the most ivory-tower discipline besides Literary Criticism, but I find it indescribably fascinating. Cause and effect, identifying historical patterns, just the sheer romanticism of discovering how the average person lived a thousand years ago... Brilliant stuff. My preferred period is medieval history, because it involves a hell of a lot of conjecture.

I guess I also have a vague interest in 'science'. I haven't studied any hard science since GCSE, but I read a few pop sci books to try and get a basic understanding. Humanities student's guilt, if such a thing exists.
 
I'm an illustration major, psyched for a future of living off a steady stream of caffeine and carpal tunnel medication!

I also dick around with computer programming and languages when I have time to dick around, which during school is... never. I like to read about science but I suck/dgaf about math too much to have actually majored in it.
 
@goldenquagsire: I like history, too. :3 I don't know much about... anything before Jamestown (curse my Americentric education!) but I have enjoyed learning the European history I know. I know a little bit about everything, but contemporary American history is my specialty. I also like Russian history (the whole lot of it, really, but the Soviet period is my favorite). Do you like any one country's history in particular?

@everyone who mentioned linguistics or language: what do you all like about linguistics? I like pretty much everything. I like what is nowadays called philology (historical linguistics), although I think modern stuff is interesting as well. I am not too well versed On generative grammar or anything of the sort. Phonology is pretty cool, as well. Psycho- and socio-linguistics are also pretty interesting. I have this book on sociolinguistics I have yet to read entirely because it's a little dry.
 
I'm /hoping/ to go into some type of computer programming or game design or something like that.

...And I'm learning C++ this week.
 
So many things to study!
If only I could I would love to do like a double major in architecture and computer science and a triple minor in music composition, japanese and physics.
 
@goldenquagsire: I like history, too. :3 I don't know much about... anything before Jamestown (curse my Americentric education!) but I have enjoyed learning the European history I know. I know a little bit about everything, but contemporary American history is my specialty. I also like Russian history (the whole lot of it, really, but the Soviet period is my favorite). Do you like any one country's history in particular?
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I dunno if I really have a favourite country's history. Most of my education has been exclusively English 'British' history, but French medieval history is also brilliant.
 
... said:
@everyone who mentioned linguistics or language: what do you all like about linguistics? I like pretty much everything. I like what is nowadays called philology (historical linguistics), although I think modern stuff is interesting as well. I am not too well versed On generative grammar or anything of the sort. Phonology is pretty cool, as well. Psycho- and socio-linguistics are also pretty interesting. I have this book on sociolinguistics I have yet to read entirely because it's a little dry.
Click to expand...

I like language change, and pragmatics! Sociolinguistics seems a lot of fun to properly explore, so I'm hoping I'll get a good chance to at university.
 
Psychiatry, especially personality disorders for some reason, and classical physics. Trying to get into modern physics, but finding it a bit difficult to enjoy.
 
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