Follow your bliss - advice needed

[Alphonse23]

Hello Humanities people,

I just recently watched the Bill Moyer Documentary on Joseph Campbell and his saying "Follow your bliss" is especially resonating with me right now.

I finished my undergrade degree in computer science a few years ago, and now I am in a masters degree for CS right now-- sort of. I'm actually taking a break from grad school right now because I've been having trouble deciding on a thesis topic to finish my degree. I really can't decide because my heart just isn't set on anything. So now I'm thinking maybe I really don't like computer science, and maybe I should switch to the humanities. As Campbell says: "Follow your bliss."

So I was wondering, if any one has experiences with the computer sciences, which subject in the humanities would be the best fit for a CS/Software engineering type to switch into? I was thinking linguistics, because their analytical approach to language is very similar to the way computer scientists analyze programming languages. But I don't really know. I've never studied linguistics. It looks like a pretty broad field though from wikipedia.

I'm pretty much interested in everything: art, sociology, psychology, literature, religion, philosophy (and now mythology). I'm a huge nerd so I read books in every subject. I have no academic experience in any of them, though. I mean, I could just continue reading into the subjects just out of interest, but I'd rather be an active participant, and find something interesting to work on within the community. Something where I'd be given the chance to meet lots of interesting people in the field. That would definitively beat working on some boring software project in CS.

Thanks if anyone can give me some advice.

[ci1717]

There's a rather new field becoming quite prominant in the academic world called digital humanities. Digital humanists are attempting to bridge the gap between humanities and things like computer science and engineering, arguing that in the ever-increasingly technologized world and with the migration of much of what humans produce to the digital realm, it does not make sense to study these things as separate. Many digital media scholars have taken to learning various code languages in attempt to understand the material underlying the online phenomena that they study (the same way someone who studies film might learn the film production process). Some resources you can check out:

HASTAC might be the most prominent professional organization for these digital humanists, HASTAC stands for Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advance Collaboratory - hastac.org

Also, USC has a rather new interdisciplinary graduate program for people who are interested in situating technology and creative production alongside critical media studies - http://cinema.usc.edu/imap/index.cfm

That's pretty much all of the information I have because it is not my field, but it is a field that is growing quickly - there are new graduate programs for digital humanities popping up everywhere and a comparatively good job outlook. Given your experience in computer science and your enjoyment of interdisciplinary study, you might be a good candidate for some of these graduate programs.

Edited March 5, 2012 by ci1717