I Need Help With A Very Important Decision!!! (NOT Related to Poker)

[BigBaitsim (milo)]

Psychology can be a useful u-grad degree. You will learn how to write well, and will learn a fair bit about people. Advanced degrees in psychology have a poor ROI as compared to other advanced degrees.

Feel free to PM me if you want to chat further.

-Dr. Milo

[Jeebus]

If you want to be a trader or broker (someone who has to work with people) or a poker player get the psychology degree and just take the fun philosophy classes to cover electives. If you want to work for people or write take the philosophy major and take some psychology on the side.
If you are going to have to interact with people and use those interactions to determine which action to persue, go wtih psychology.
Most of the curriculum in a philosophy major is logics and history of philosophy. Both of these are pretty boring. Just take the ones that are interesting.

[Bodhi]

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Philosophy is interesting but I can't really think of things that you'll learn that will aid you in the "real world".

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Ummmm, howabout writing and critical thinking? A lot of science majors I meet can hardly construct a written proposal or parse their way through legalistic prose.

[jmgurgeh]

Consider what you want to do later and maybe that will help. If you ever intend to go to law school, philosophy might be better. Doesn't sound like it though, and I'd recommend psychology in general anyway. Keep some things in mind though:

Psychology majors get work in their field generally for a few specific qualities, and those don't include the ability to write five to ten page opinion papers. The most valuable thing you're likely to come out of a psych. program with is the ability to use SPSS to run statistics, and in fact research-based garduate programs in psychology find mathematical skill to be extremely valuable. This kind of goes with your interest in economics, and there are all kinds of new things being done with actuarial risk assessment, so I can definitely see a connection there. I don't really see a connection between economics and philosophy, but ultimately only you can decide whether there is one or not based on your more specific interests within both fields.

[mosquito]

Can't believe no one has said "Fold pre-flop."

Do whatever major interests you the most. Everything
else will follow.

[Stephen Gray]

I think it's interesting that you choose to ask this question in the psychology forum. It's fairly clear that that there will be a bias toward psychology!

[JKDStudent]

I'm not even going to bother reading the rest of the responses, so if this has been said already, forgive me:

Go for the one that, following graduation, will be the easiest to get a well-paying job in. Something that will allow you to immediately support yourself comfortably, therefore allowing you to continue education in another field. As you said, that's Economics.

If you plan on dual-majoring, which is the impression I get... well, that's tough. Normally, I would say whatever one shares the most classes with the other. However, Economics really isn't going to have anything in common with Philosophy or Psych. I would say go with Psych. Not because I think it's necessarily better, but because if you go for Philosophy, you will have to spend a lot of time around pretentious emo kids who love to hear their own voices but can't say anything of value.

[Bodhi]

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Not because I think it's necessarily better, but because if you go for Philosophy, you will have to spend a lot of time around pretentious emo kids who love to hear their own voices but can't say anything of value.

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With all due respect, FU. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[noggindoc]

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if you go for Philosophy, you will have to spend a lot of time around pretentious emo kids who love to hear their own voices but can't say anything of value.

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nh

[noggindoc]

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I am a 20 year old college student and am in a dilemma about what majors I should get because I am find three majors very fascinating. However, I do NOT want to get 3 Bachelor degrees (at least not yet). So I think that I need to decide on which 2 subjects to major in, and then maybe later on down the road I can get the third one (for fun).

The 3 subjects in question are Economics, Philosophy, and Psychology. However, I have pretty much made up my mind that I will get a degree in Economics because if I go to graduate school in one of these subjects it will most likely be Economics. Also, Economics has more job prospects for people with a Bachelors degree than both Philosophy and Psychology.

So my question is, should I get a degree in Philosophy or Psychology? Basically, I want the degree that will benefit me the most personally, academically, and professionally. So, which degree would compliment Economics more? And which degree would help me receive a good/solid well-rounded education?

So, to restate my main question, I want to know which degree you think I should get (Philosophy or Psychology), AND MORE IMPORTANTLY WHY SHOULD I GET THAT DEGREE? You can answer this question however you want. You can lay out some pros and cons of each, or you can address the questions in the above paragraph. Basically, I am just looking for some more factors to consider, which will help me make the best decision. Furthermore, I do NOT care which one will help my poker game more, I just want to know which one will help ME more.

P.S. I have posted this on multiple forums, so don’t get upset if you’ve read this somewhere else[img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img].

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As someone who double majored in psych and philosphy I guess I have to chime in here. I have gone on for a doctorate in psych but I'll try not to let that sway my advice here.

Both are great. Philosophy can really teach you how to think critically, write well, understand logic and arguments, etc. While there may not be a lot of jobs "directly" applicable to philosophy, almost any job where you have to think and understand is related.

Undergrad degrees in psych are nice but you aren't going to "understand how people work" the way some might think. Undergrad psych courses are generally a cursory glance at the many different areas of psych. But they do provide some fundamental knowledge about human behavior. I really think either would go well with economics but I don't know much about economics so take that for what it is worth.

How about this -- double minor, do both. Is that possible? I think you are good any way you go here so be happy to be in a win-win situation.

Best of luck!