looks at the NYPD budget :side-eye-1:

looks at the War on Drugs :side-eye-2:

  • Nagarjuna [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Interdisciplinary humanities major here, lemme give you guys the run down.

    History, polisci, international studies and econ are professional feeder degrees. These will be very hard.

    Philosophy, gender studies and ethnic studies have something to prove, they will also be very hard.

    Anthro and soc and psych are very comfortable in their position but are also "useless degrees." These will be easy As.

    Lower division science classes are hard. Upper division sciences are easy. The exception is environmental sciences which are inexplicably both easy and professional feeder degrees.

    If you want communist professors, your best bets are gender/critical/ethnic/cultural studies, geography, and sometimes anthropology depending on the university. American Indian / Caribbean / Oceania / Indigenous studies will be lefty too, but not Marxist because of its European origins.

    Polisci, international studies, econ, business, biological anthro, and some psyche departments are right-winger factories.

    Area studies is what the CIA funded to replace anthropology and Orientalism after they reckoned with the anti-colonial upheavals of the 60s and 70s, but because it takes the CIA's anything besides communism goes philosophy, they can still be a lot of fun.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Warning on Anthropology; You'll learn in excruciating and painful detail why the world is such a fucking mess, and there's no comfortable lies that make it easier. Also, Anthropology is not "Easy A's". You don't have to do math but you do have to put your brain through a wringer and challenge a lot of how you look at the world. If you're a very good reader and writer you can bullshit your way through to a point, but after the 200 level classes you need to actually pay attention and learn theory.

      At the upper levels you'll also need to be able to use spreadsheets and do some data analysis. If you go through it as a degree you'll have to do field work, which means convincing strangers that they can trust you and then spending weeks or months hanging out and learning about their lives.

      You'll never make back the cost of your tuition unless you go in to marketing or some similar exploitive profession because no one in power cares about decolonization, indigenous rights, or the lives of poor people. If you go to enough symposiums and talks and discussions you might meet some cool old Marxists who can help you break out of the western colonial mindset. It's a valuable discipline if you're going to try to organize diverse groups of people because the whole core of the discipline is about breaking your preconceptions about the Other and trying to understand them way they understand themselves

      • Nagarjuna [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Also, Anthropology is not “Easy A’s”. You don’t have to do math but you do have to put your brain through a wringer and challenge a lot of how you look at the world.

        I didn't find it any more challenging than just like, being a communist. Its a lot of the same ways of thinking, imo,. It's like organizing but instead of convincing people to come to your event where you yell at a landlord, it's convincing people to talk to you about their shitty ass experiences in the healthcare system.