JosephClarkGrew

OK I know this forum is technically for graduates but I didn't know where else to go. My friend (and this isn't actually about me, it really is about a friend of mine who is for some reason scared to death of Internet forums) didn't know what to do with his life after high school. He went to community college for two years and got an associate's degree in liberal arts. At that point, he decided he wanted to be a music major (classical acoustic guitar) and he spent two years getting his associates in music. After that, he tried getting into several music schools but was denied. As his time in music school was winding down, he discovered through watching The Universe and reading many books on physics and science as a whole that he had an interest in the "hard" sciences. His main interest was in physics but he says that he's somewhat intimidated by the mathematics and higher-level concepts involved (the stuff that's nearly impossible for laypeople to understand). Yet, without a career and with two useless degrees, he simply has to go back to school for a "good" major. He wants to choose physics but is unsure of what to do. He doesn't want to go deep in debt so he'd have to go locally, but the local state schools (we live in NY) aren't really anything special. So what should he do. He wanted to know what physics graduate students had to say about it. Are there any particular universities he should go to? I told him to go take a couple of physics classes at the local community college to see if you could get an understanding for the work. I also told him maybe chemistry would be good for him (he refuses bio) because it has math, yes, but is not as complicated as physics (as far as my limited knowledge of both subjects goes). Anyway. Thank you all for your time.

I just feel like humanities students are the most pathetic forms of people. Humanities are easy and pointless and that's why the field is so flooded. Sciences (such as physics) are what really impacts the world and changes things and helps people. What do humanities really do? The students are pathetic too. They are miserable because they tried to do what they loved but society hated it. Society hates them because they are just writers and 99.9% of writers are pathetic too. Even the Simpsons hates grad students. Those poor grad students, they can't even watch the simpsons to escape their woe! Idk, I loved humanities and thought they were great but now I realized that I was wrong to enjoy them and that writing, and humanities are bad, their practitioners are pathetic and that sciences are the only way, even if you don't enjoy them, because they are the only way to actually do things. Maybe I'm just cynical.

Haha, thanks for the encouragement, man! Yeah the MMA scene is full of people like Jonathan Snowden who, although he did write a good book on the subject of MMA, is sadly more a troll than he is a journalist in many ways. I actually think I am going to pursuit MMA writing. The road is long and difficult yes, but it its far less long and less difficult than that of a PhD in the humanities. In addition, the sport of MMA is growing whereas the job market for history PhDs cannot boast such a claim. Nevertheless, I think people that knew I wanted to pursuit a PhD will be disappointed in me and think I am less of a person now. Even other people will think that because now I just have a history degree from "nowhere state university." *Shrugs* Thanks for the advice, everyone!

OK this is going to be a bit incoherent because, truthfully, my own thought process is all but clear on the matter. In a nutshell: First, I want to know if I should apply to MA programs for history in the fall. I am reluctant to because there are so few (if any) funded ones and taking out loans for grad school in the humanities is a recipe for lifelong indebtedness! However, an MA would be good because it would boost my "marketability" in the general job market, would let me figure out if I wanted to pursue a phd, and would enable me to get into a better program if I do choose to pursue a phd (I am currently a senior about to graduate at the "nowhere state university" that is thrown around these boards a lot haha). So that is one problem: Should I even bother going for an MA. Second, I love writing a lot (What a feeling when you know you've written an epic line that damns an historical figure or have finally worked in a movie or song reference in a discreet but effective way!). I love the sport of MMA (mixed martial arts) a lot. Towards the end of my senior year (a couple of months ago leading into now) I realized that I actually liked writing about MMA more than I liked writing about history! (:unsure:) I was really kind of upset about this because it seems like a bad thing. But is it really that bad? Could the outlook for sportswriting be bleaker than that for PhDs in the humanities? I actually know more about MMA (and the historiography of MMA history but this is due to the fact that the MMA history books that have been published can be counted on one hand thusfar) than about my subfield (not that I don't know anything about my subfield though). So really I'm like unsure of what to do about it. I'm considering writing a journal article about MMA and submitting it to a sports history journal I have in mind. I just really love the sport and feel it would have more opportunities since it is the fastest growing sport in the world and the professoriat is doing anything but. A possible solution could be to try and make something pertaining to MMA work and if that fails go to grad school but then I wouldn't have anyone to write letters for me when I finally did go since I would have been out of college for however long. This added to the fact that the letters wouldn't mean much since of the whole "nowhere state university" pretty much means that its apply this fall or bust. If neither of these things work would I have to go back to college and get a "real" degree (engineering, math/science, nursing, business, etc.)? So...what are all your thoughts on this? What should I do? Sorry for all the rambling. I just needed to tell people (nobody I know gets besides a music major I know haha) Go ahead and sack me or flame me or whatever you want.