GeoDUDE!

This is so obtuse. 

This is so obtuse. 

This is so obtuse. 

This is so obtuse. 

This is so obtuse. 

This is so obtuse. 

I don't know why, but I was thinking about this. Most Google searches produced results such as "best and worst college majors" and "highest and lowest paying college majors" and "most and least unemployment for college majors." However, I finally found a few things that matched what I was looking for. I know it's quite popular (at least in undergrad) for hard science majors to kinda look down upon social science majors and especially arts/humanities majors. Their reasons usually are because those fields are "easy" and "require little effort." Whether or not this is true, does it say anything about intelligence? Just because you choose a more "difficult" major than those hippy philosophy students, does that make you smarter than them? Anyway, I didn't create this thread to offend anyone. I started off in Arts & Humanities and Philosophy before discovering Linguistics and then finally adding Computer Science to my resume. I'm not taking any sides here. Anyway, I found a few links. Perhaps people can find better links and post them. 
 
One of them is just a blog, and it doesn't seem to give any information about how they got their results, but it compares average IQs of majors. This may or may not come as a surprise, but three of the highest IQ estimates of college majors are in English, History, and Art. Also, Computer Science and Engineering are toward the bottom, and Math is surprisingly average. 
 
http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2011/11/which-major-has-smartest-students.html
 
Now, this link kinda contradicts a lot of the average IQs mentioned in the previous link. It gives a little more information about the methods behind the statistics, but it isn't really that thorough. Anyway, Physics, Philosophy, and Math are some of the highest IQ majors. Engineering, Computer Science, Religion & Theory, English, and Humanities & Arts are pretty high. The lowest seem to be everything related to fields of "service" such as Social Work, Education, Counseling, and Childhood Development. 
 
http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq-estimates-by-intended-college-major/
 
I'll post one last link. This one seems to be more thorough in their statistical methods, but they don't break it up into as many categories as the previous two links. The highest IQs seem to be Engineering, Math, and Physics. Around the middle of the pack is Humanities, followed slightly by Arts. And, once again, way down at the bottom is Education, with Business falling slightly ahead of Education. 
 
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/finding-the-next-einstein/201108/how-brainy-is-your-major
 
The links I posted aren't nearly elaborate or reliable enough to form any absolute judgments, but they are enough to get you thinking about the types of people who choose certain majors. I believe the first link mentioned some of the smartest people choose "creative" majors such as Art and English that don't necessarily translate to high-paying jobs. I guess the "rebellious" mentality makes a little sense. Some of the smartest people in history didn't really care about how they were going to put food on their table. However, the other two links seem to support what a lot of people probably thought: that the "harder" majors like Math and Physics do require a little bit of natural brain power. What seems to be consistent throughout all the links is that the lowest IQs seems to be from people majoring in fields that are known to "help" and "serve" people, such as Social Work, Education and Counseling. 
 
Anyway, I was just wondering about this so I started doing a few Google searches. My links probably suck, but it was hard to find anything really legit. Still, it makes you think. I know this topic is probably a bit controversial and bound to offend people, but I thought I'd just post what I found and see if anyone has any better links and any other thoughts on the subject. 

I think a large part of the problem is that you have people who equate the extensive use of jargon with somehow conveying intelligence.
 
It actually does quite the opposite.

If there isn't a reading club at your school, I highly suggest starting one. There isn't one at my school, I tried very hard to start one, and thus I'm looking for another place to do my PhD. I think it speaks highly to the type of student that is in your department and the type of professor that is in your department. 

Paper reading clubs, i.e. weekly "Journal Clubs" are something that is in almost every single grad program in my field. The formality really varies. In some places, it can be a lunchtime session where people eat lunch and discuss a paper. Some places have beer or wine/cheese etc. In other places, it can be a seminar style, where grad students (and profs sometimes) are assigned a week and they pick a paper to present and people discuss it. I've also seen places where Journals Club is a "course" and some places even assign a letter grade for it.
 
The purpose can be partly social/getting people from different fields to interact but also academic/educational. Sometimes, students are encouraged to present a paper outside of their own field, which requires them to look up and read related papers and broadens their knowledge. Students are often encouraged to ask questions and critically evaluate the author's methods, analysis, conclusions etc. From observing how professors and senior students critique the papers, junior students can learn about what makes a good paper, what doesn't, and also how to think about papers critically. Some Journal Clubs have discussion not just on the science, but also things like how the figures look, whether or not the wording is clear, etc. Also, papers in my field are pretty dense, so a simple statement might have an important implication that you might miss if you are not in the field. By hearing how other people who may be more of an expert than you discuss the paper, you might get a deeper insight than reading alone. And finally, if you are presenting a paper in your own field, you might take some basic things for granted. Someone who is not an expert in your field might ask you some basic fundamental questions, but this can help you take a step back and see the big picture, and also by explaining concepts to others, it might increase your own understanding!

You know how some people go to nascar......

While I want to agree with the sentiment, as it seems it would give hope to many people on this forum, I can't help but wonder If you have ever experienced the research environment at a top tier university AND the research environment at a lower ranked university? I certainly have, and going from an IVY league to a lower ranked public institution was night and day. Prestige itself does not get your paper published in nature, that prestige often brings money to conduct an experiment or project that is of higher quality than ones at lesser universities. Obviously, I am speaking in generalities.
 
With regards to applications, there is a larger point; Does doing better on the GRE make you any less likely to conduct great research? If there is no correlation between research and GRE, which I think there probably is a stronger one than many would like to admit, because there is a large correlation between competency and GRE scores. Why should a grad school take someone with a lower GRE score ? Is that person with a lower GRE score really that much more special? How can someone call them self a scientist yet not be able to do high school level math ?  Maybe you can get through graduate classes if you did poorly on the GRE, as many people in my program did, but graduate level classes aren't supposed to be hard or take up a lot of time. Research is. And if you have to struggle with high school level math in your classes, it's going to eat up all your research time.
 
Graduate Schools want students to be healthy. If you have to work 80 hours a week to get all your work done, you aren't going to be healthy. There will be weeks where you work a ton, but if every week you are not sleeping and every week you are working all the time you will not be happy. I would bet my left nut that there is a correlation between strong research and happiness.
 
With poor stats, there is a case to be made. I had barley above a 3.0 GPA in physics with a few conference presentations / REUs and found myself in a fully funded masters program. But don't kid yourself and think that prestigious schools are all smoke and mirrors; Funding can deliver stability, along with many other things. Fusion needs lasers to heat up atoms. It is difficult to find out we are not who we someone think we are; We all can't be great. Somewhat depressing, to confront yourself.

While I want to agree with the sentiment, as it seems it would give hope to many people on this forum, I can't help but wonder If you have ever experienced the research environment at a top tier university AND the research environment at a lower ranked university? I certainly have, and going from an IVY league to a lower ranked public institution was night and day. Prestige itself does not get your paper published in nature, that prestige often brings money to conduct an experiment or project that is of higher quality than ones at lesser universities. Obviously, I am speaking in generalities.
 
With regards to applications, there is a larger point; Does doing better on the GRE make you any less likely to conduct great research? If there is no correlation between research and GRE, which I think there probably is a stronger one than many would like to admit, because there is a large correlation between competency and GRE scores. Why should a grad school take someone with a lower GRE score ? Is that person with a lower GRE score really that much more special? How can someone call them self a scientist yet not be able to do high school level math ?  Maybe you can get through graduate classes if you did poorly on the GRE, as many people in my program did, but graduate level classes aren't supposed to be hard or take up a lot of time. Research is. And if you have to struggle with high school level math in your classes, it's going to eat up all your research time.
 
Graduate Schools want students to be healthy. If you have to work 80 hours a week to get all your work done, you aren't going to be healthy. There will be weeks where you work a ton, but if every week you are not sleeping and every week you are working all the time you will not be happy. I would bet my left nut that there is a correlation between strong research and happiness.
 
With poor stats, there is a case to be made. I had barley above a 3.0 GPA in physics with a few conference presentations / REUs and found myself in a fully funded masters program. But don't kid yourself and think that prestigious schools are all smoke and mirrors; Funding can deliver stability, along with many other things. Fusion needs lasers to heat up atoms. It is difficult to find out we are not who we someone think we are; We all can't be great. Somewhat depressing, to confront yourself.

You are trolling again. Watch it.

Pinkster, we should go out. I'm in a graduate program looking for a wife but I haven't found anyone. You will have to convert to Judaism, as my kids must be Jewish.  
 
I love this thread.

Pinkster, we should go out. I'm in a graduate program looking for a wife but I haven't found anyone. You will have to convert to Judaism, as my kids must be Jewish.  
 
I love this thread.

Wow I even get shot down on the internet. Man.

Pinkster, we should go out. I'm in a graduate program looking for a wife but I haven't found anyone. You will have to convert to Judaism, as my kids must be Jewish.  
 
I love this thread.

I mean I would think one would think of how a baby would effect their life BEFORE they do the things that create babies... Anyways it is in there now so guess you just have to adjust. Good luck. 

We have different definitions of what facts are.
 
Just sayin.

The most important thing you can do is sound knowledgeable in what you want to do and be very likeable/not awkward. Look clean cut, but not too formal. Basically, look like a nice person and sound like you know what you are doing. Try to be funny. It's a lot like a first date but instead of trying to get lucky you are trying to get into graduate school.
 
Good luck... I just did about 10 of these at a conference last week.... they are stressful at first but really comes easy.

In all my years here, I have yet to see such consistently bad information come from one applicant, over and over.
 
I've also noted in past years that it's always interesting to see significant and consistent differences in opinions between applicants, and current senior grad students. I would say that when people further along in a career path consistently and (unusually) are fairly united in disagreement with your advice, that you consider it strongly. They're likely more aware of norms in the field you may not yet know of.  
 
Lying to your letter writers is (i) an indication of the fact that you don't have a great working relationship with them, and (ii) a really bad idea, that has a fairly decent chance to backfire. 
 
Arguing that it's not unethical if the person who you're doing it to might be going to do something unethical/unprofessional is the old "two wrongs make a right" argument. In general, if you have to write long explanations of why what you're doing is "justified", I'd think it's a good indication that what you're doing would not widely be considered ethical or acceptable. 
 
If you have a letter writer that is bad with deadlines, I'd hope you have a good enough relationship with them to be honest. I have people I would/will tell that I'm worried about everything being in on time, and I'd appreciate it if they could get it done a few days/ a week early, as I know they're quite busy. No one that I would ask this of would bat an eye at it, they know they're busy and shouldn't put it off until the last minute too. 
 
And as to "not having a good relationship with your letter writers" having any bearing on getting into graduate school- i'd say it definitely says something about your academic/professional socialization, how good you are at networking, and accordingly how well you'll likely fit in at a graduate school, as a professional in the field, or in academia in the future. "Fit", "collegiality" and "networking" are usually one of the top reasons people do or don't get jobs, in academia or elsewhere. I don't think it's wrong for people to draw a correlative relationship between an applicants ability to do those things now and in the future.

I'm honestly perplexed by you Loric. I have not responded to you directly before but I feel I must express my confusion. You seem to be perfectly capable of giving honest, insightly and funny advice to a lot of people around here, and I think they do appreciate it. On the other hand, you're prone to personal attack and ad hominem too frequently to be a calm, reasonable person, and dare I say, intellectual. You respond vehemently and aggressively to everyone who disagrees with you and express contempt for them. Why? Simply because they disagree with you? Even if they're wrong (in some case they're not, in other cases it's a matter of opinions, and yet other cases who the hell really knows), that's no reason for you to find the person contemptible, only the idea (but then why would you reserve such strong emotion for an idea on the Internet?). Or because they are snide and snarky? Snide and snarkly alone do not deserve contempt, and furthermore you are snide and snarky. Sometimes it's funny; sometimes it's not; but being upset with another's attitude while displaying the same attitude is just childish.
 
Perhaps I've just never encountered a poster like you before. People are either hostile and angry or calm and reasonable on the Internet in my experiece, but I guess it was a false dichotomy and you just opened my eyes. I'm gonna venture a call this "bipolar poster syndrome" and leave it at that. It's the way you are, and while I disagree with quite a few of your opinions, I don't find you contemptible.
 
What I don't understand is you seem to be anti-academia (or whatever version of academia you have in mind, I'm not actually in that world yet and thus I don't know whether you or your opponents are correct) and have a lot of problems with a lot of people here, why are you hanging around? You've been helping a lot of people so I don't have a problem with that, but 2 things: first, you're applying just like the rest of us, and even a lot of admitted student said there are just too many variables in the process to be sure of anything, so I find it interesting that you are always absolutely sure of what you say. I think a lot of people have problem with this tone and attitude than just the content of your opinion. Second, since you're so sure of your opinions, you should be able to defend them without resorting to name calling. If you think you can't fairly defend them because people are picking on/bullying/persecuting you (which I don't think they are), simply stop coming here. Why give them your time of the day, especially for those for whom you have so much contempt?

I would never pay for any graduate schooling, Period.

Loric, inductive reasoning is very natural. You are guilty of it all the time........ be it right or wrong assumptions. Since most people on here are a form of scientist, its natural to assume the highest probability. Yay logic.