College Degrees

And What They Really Mean

Sometimes it seems that what we study in college doesn't have much relation to what we end up doing for a living. Following is a list of various degrees, as well as what graduates actually end up doing after earning them.

Computer Science:

College: Spend most of your time in a dimly lit lab, playing XTrek and drinking Jolt. Interact only with other CS majors, and only via the 'net if you can manage it. Become passionately involved only in the continuing IBM/Commodore/Macintosh debate.
Real Life: Spend most of your time in a dimly lit office, playing Flight Simulator and drinking gourmet coffee...at least five cups an hour. Interact only with your own project team, and then only via e-mail. Become passionately involved in the continuing debate over who pays when the schedule slips, which wasn't your fault because you told them to take DOOM-playing into account from the beginning.

Psychology:

College: Spend most of your time in a dimly-lit lab, playing with rats and other vermin. Drink Jolt by the six-pack to stay up all night with the rodents. Interact only with other Psychos, but only to analyze their behavior in non-lab situations. Become involved in the continuing debate over whether a trained rat could succeed as a comp sci major.
Real Life: Spend most of your time in an unemployment line and living in a cardboard box with other vermin, wishing you'd changed to CS instead of the rat. Continue to consider yourself superior to social work majors.

Economics:

College: Spend most of your time in a brightly-lit room full of charts and graphs. Learn about supply and demand, GNP, supply and demand, prime rates, supply and demand, inflation, and supply and demand.
Real Life: Spend most of your time in a brightly-lit government office with people who look just like you. Issue reports you wrote in college because you're too lazy to write a new one. Watch newscaster explain your report to unsuspecting viewers. Listen to President explain that the economy sucks because of unemployed psychologists.

Philosophy:

College: Read books by dead guys. Debate whether a tree falling alone in a forest will say, "Oh, crud! Not again!" Consider the ethical problems in the killing of annoying street mimes. Get failed by prof for not liking correct dead guy.
Real Life: Spend most of your time in a dimly lit office, playing Flight Simulator and drinking gourmet coffee...at least five cups an hour. Interact only with your own project team, and then only via e-mail. Become passionately involved in the continuing debate over who pays when the schedule slips, which wasn't your fault because you told them to take DOOM-playing into account from the beginning. Be thankful you switched to comp sci, which pays better than being a dead philosopher.

Math:

College: Spend your time in a cramped office, thinking about polydimensional shapes and arguing their properties with other mathematicians. Scream when they steal your work. Steal their work. Be a social outcast.
Real Life: See above. You work for the university.