College Majors & Real Life

COMPUTER SCIENCE: 
  
     COLLEGE 
     Spend most of your time in a dimly lit lab, playing the latest
     games and drinking Jolt. Interact only with other CS majors, 
     and only via the "Net". Become passionately involved only in 
     the continuing IBM-Macintosh debate. Express a passing interest
     in the maximum modem speed possible via telephone lines. Write
     everything as if disk space were not a factor, as they can 
     always make 'em larger. 
  
     REAL LIFE 
     Spend most of your time in a dimly lit office, playing "Flight
     Simulator" and drinking gourmet coffee (at least four cups per
     hour). Interact only with your own project team, and then only
     via e-mail.  Become passionately involved in the continuing 
     debate over who's to blame 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.
     Continue to consider yourself superior to social work majors. 
     Become very proficient in compiling and sending out resumes. 


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 of 
     course, supply and demand. Become passionately involved in the
     continuing debate over whether or not a "little" inflation is 
     good for the country. 
  
     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 the 
     newscasters explain your report to unsuspecting viewers. Listen
     to President explain that the economy sucks because of
     unemployed psychologists. Blame everything on the Balance of 
     Trade and the President's lack of foreign policy. 


PHILOSOPHY: 
  
     COLLEGE 
     Read books by dead guys. Debate whether a tree falling alone in
     a forest will say, "Oh, no! 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. Interact only with your
     own project team, and then only via e-mail. Become passionately
     involved in the continuing debate over whether anything at all
     is real or not, and if it is, does it matter anyway.  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 poly 
     dimensional shapes and arguing their properties with other 
     mathematicians. Scream when they steal your work. Steal their 
     work. Be a social outcast. Don't become passionately involved 
     over any debate. 
  
     REAL LIFE 
     Teach disinterested, disrupted stupid kids math. Regret that 
     you never switched to comp sci. 


ENGINEERING: 
  
     COLLEGE 
     Compute everything to the Nth degree at least six times, even 
     if it takes all week. Listen to the Professor explain (and 
     believe him) how everything you're learning is not only 
     applicable to real life, but standard current industry and 
     field practice. Become passionately involved in the continuing
     debate over how to make anything quicker, better, more powerful,
     more efficient, more durable, and of course always assume cost
     is not a factor. Look down at comp sci and math majors, since 
     you have to know everything they do plus all that engineering 
     stuff. 
  
     REAL LIFE 
     Engineers have no real life.