What did you study in college?

[BookTenTiger]

I love it when a poster suddenly breaks out some deep knowledge about economics or philosophy or apple growing, and backs it up with a college degree. It demonstrates to me how our hobby is just one part of everyone's lives, and everyone on here has many other fields of expertise.

So if you went to college, what did you study? Did you enjoy it? Do you use the knowledge or degree?

If you want to go to college (either back or for the first time), what do you want to study?

Let's make sure to keep this discussion respectful and not lay any judgment on folks' degrees, college experiences, or choices to go or not to go to college.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I got my undergraduate degree at University of California Santa Cruz. Go Banana Slugs!

I got a major in Modern Literature and a minor in Education.

I loved going to UCSC. The school is spread out in the forested hills above the seaside town of Santa Cruz. To walk to class I'd pass through redwood forests and past bluffs looking over the sea.

Studying Literature was perfect for me, a shy kid who loved to read. I really got to learn a new way of experiencing media, and I feel like studying Literature actually helps me understand the way people communicate and express themselves through speech, writing, and art.

I went on to get my teaching credential from Sonoma State University, a state school about two hours north of San Francisco. My experience there wasn't as great. All of California was in a budget crisis, and so the school was shortening classes, canceling classes, and trying to get as many students through as quickly as possible. I honestly didn't feel prepared to be a teacher my first year, and the learning process was painful and traumatic. But I survived and am still teaching 10 years later!

 

[monsmord]

My undergrad was music/composition. I'd hoped to score for film and stage. Aaaaaand, yeah, my parents advised me to stick with architecture, the original plan. Who knew parents knew stuff? When scoring didn't pan out immediately, I fell into computers, did that for decades, and now, middle-aged, I'm working on my fiction craft. I still harbour hopes of finishing my one-act opera after Poe, a song cycle on some weird fiction, et al. All my hobbies and interests keep colliding. Last week, I jotted some notes on a gaming musical!

 

[DeviousQuail]

Econ with a minor in mathematics. I love working with data and I've been able to use what I learned in every job I've ever had with the exception of the last four years as a stay at home dad. That has been all willpower and learning to not feel weird about being the only dad in my parents group.

I think the most enjoyable part of getting my degree was having to take all the courses required for my liberal arts degree. I loved my economics and math courses but college level courses on astronomy, history, writing, anthropology, etc just blow every high school class out of the water.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Econ with a minor in mathematics. I love working with data and I've been able to use what I learned in every job I've ever had with the exception of the last four years as a stay at home dad. That has been all willpower and learning to not feel weird about being the only dad in my parents group.

I think the most enjoyable part of getting my degree was having to take all the courses required for my liberal arts degree. I loved my economics and math courses but college level courses on astronomy, history, writing, anthropology, etc just blow every high school class out of the water.

I've spent this last year being a stay at home dad for my newborn!

 

[Ryujin]

I always wanted to be a "scientist" which translated by my child's brain actually meant engineer. I had also considered Law, Design, and Technical Writing. Still do some of that stuff on the side, in various ways. As I was coming up on college age my parents split and my father was a deadbeat, so community college it was. (I later learned that he was never going to help out with post secondary education and I'd have been out the door on my 18th birthday anyway.)

I ended up taking Electronics Technology and graduated as a technologist. Unfortunately this was around the time when tech was starting to boom (early '80s) and everyone, and his brother was getting into computers as the "way to make it big." The classes were fully 50% larger than previous years, even after adding more. I often felt like I was teaching myself which was OK, because my high school electronics shop teacher had been a Canadian Navy electronics guy. He only started teaching after retiring and had us doing college level work, in grade 12. In first year a friend and I saved maybe half the class from failing a required course, by holding tutoring sessions between classes. The Statics and Dynamics instructor had been elected to cull the herd.

In second year we went through 4 instructors for Basic Electronic Theory, in the fist month and a half, before a new guy was hired. When he started trying to explain to the class how a standard transistor circuit was a non-inverting amplifier, but couldn't make the math work (it's not), I knew that I had to do something; get out. I went to the course coordinator and petitioned for advanced standing. Even said I would take the final exam right then and there. Nope, the best he could do was give me leave to not attend class, except for test dates. I won the only bursary available to the course that year. Third year came and went, and I was in the top 3.

Did I enjoy it? Not really. It was a necessity if I was going to do anything like what I wanted to. The experience soured me a fair bit on standardized education, even if I currently work in a post secondary institution.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Well, right out of highschool I jumped in with both feet into an engineering program. I helped tutor other students in calculus in exchange for their notes from lectures, during which I often worked on my D&D campaigns. After a particularly boring hydraulics class, I started questioning why I wanted to do it.

I've always been an artist with a gift for math - torn in two directions. Too much of a dreamer to pay attention in class, but good enough at tests to get by. I'm also terrible at doing what I'm told.

In the end, I bought a struggling Comic & Game store at the age of 19, and with no business experience whatsoever, I learned as I went and turned it around. 28 years later, I do well enough to support a family of four, five employees, and get to play D&D on weekends as part of my job. (Though not for the past two years. Business has been good during that time, but it's not near as much fun. A lot of headaches, but it's hard to complain when compared to many jobs.)

I'd say dropping out worked out fine for me.

After "only" about 20 years, my mom stopped asking me when I'd get a "real" job!

 

[TheLibrarian]

As an undergrad I double majored in History & Religion.

Upon graduating, I was shocked to find that no one was hiring in those fields.

I didn't get it so I doubled down and got a Masters in History.

I still didn't get why folks weren't knocking down my door for my expertise upon graduating.

Then I got another Masters in Library and Information Science. That was the ticket. Now I'm rolling in money and have a harem of b!tches. I'm a pretty big deal.

More seriously... I think I always liked to help folks discover new things and better themselves through learning. So becoming a librarian was a really good fit for me. Currently I use those skills in a corporate setting which actually pays pretty well.

 

[dragoner]

.

 

[beancounter]

One guess...

Accounting

 

[J.Quondam]

Wait...
Was I supposed to study in college?

 

[Gnosistika]

I got my fine arts degree 24 years ago, I always wanted to be an artist. Then a year after I got my degree I went into teaching martial arts, then soon after ended up in the security cluster. Was a CPO for many years only to end up being a project coordinator at a telecommunications company. Then about 10 years ago my team and I were retrenched and I fell back on teaching much needed specialised safety and selfdefence in the rural areas, then Covid happened. So now I am a house husband/consultant while my wife's career is skyrocketing. I still haven't produced any fine arts

 

[BookTenTiger]

Well, right out of highschool I jumped in with both feet into an engineering program. I helped tutor other students in calculus in exchange for their notes from lectures, during which I often worked on my D&D campaigns. After a particularly boring hydraulics class, I started questioning why I wanted to do it.

I've always been an artist with a gift for math - torn in two directions. Too much of a dreamer to pay attention in class, but good enough at tests to get by. I'm also terrible at doing what I'm told.

In the end, I bought a struggling Comic & Game store at the age of 19, and with no business experience whatsoever, I learned as I went and turned it around. 28 years later, I do well enough to support a family of four, five employees, and get to play D&D on weekends as part of my job. (Though not for the past two years. Business has been good during that time, but it's not near as much fun. A lot of headaches, but it's hard to complain when compared to many jobs.)

I'd say dropping out worked out fine for me.

After "only" about 20 years, my mom stopped asking me when I'd get a "real" job!

That's an awesome story. Where is your game store?

 

[DeviousQuail]

I've spent this last year being a stay at home dad for my newborn!

Nice. The growth from 1 to 2 is incredible. Enjoy it because once they learn how to say no things start to get tricky.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I do want to go back to school and get Masters in Education. Then maybe in ten years get a PhD in Education. I am very interested in the research side of it.

Although it would also be fun to get a Master's in Literature... I love talking about books!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

That's an awesome story. Where is your game store?

Just outside of Vancouver, in Canada.

Hourglass Comics and Games

(Which is where you will find, that while I am very good at selling comics and an excellent DM, I have no skills whatsoever on designing and maintaining a website). Also, no interest, which might help if it were) otherwise.

 

[Hex08]

I went right to college after high school with no idea what I wanted to do, I chose my university because my girlfriend was going there. I majored in getting drunk and was eventually shown the door. I would go back on and off again but never completed a degree. Finally, in the mid-2000s I realized I was tired of sales and went back to school again. This time it was all online and I got my Bachelors in Network Administration I also almost completed a second degree in Network Security. While I never used my networking skills in a job I have spent time in Tech/IT fields but not currently.

 

[billd91]

Undergrad: Political Science (which at my college was called Government) and Mathematics
Graduate: Political Science (MA), Library and Information Studies (MLS)
So, of course, I've worked in medical records/claims software for the last 25 years...

 

[Richards]

My undergraduate degree was in Mathematics at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. It was originally going to be Mathematics Education with the thought of becoming a math teacher, but I was on a 4-year Air Force scholarship and during my freshman year the Air Force decided they were no longer going to award scholarships for Mathematic Education...I could either switch to a straight Math degree or pay my own way through college. Suddenly straight Math seemed the way to go - I figured I could always pick up an education degree later on. (Spoiler: I never did.) But that worked out okay; I graduated, got commissioned, and spent the next 20 years in the ICBM career field: starting out as a missileer pulling alerts at Minot AFB ND and from there sticking to various jobs in the ICBM codes field. When I retired, they converted my billet to civilian as I left and then hired me to replace myself. I've been an Air Force civilian since 2007 and have enjoyed it. (My first decision as a civilian: no more shaving my face! I don't necessarily want a beard, but if that's the price I pay for not having to shave it's well worth it.)

I also, along the way, picked up a Master's in Business Administration, something I didn't really want and have never really used, but not getting a Master's as a Captain was a pretty good way at the time of not making Major and I didn't want to shoot myself in the foot. And the Air Force paid for most of it, so all I had to do was attend the classes at night and during weekends and put in the work, so it would have been foolish for me not to have done it.

Johnathan

 

[Ryujin]

Wait...
Was I supposed to study in college?

Yes, but what was optional. For example the room immediately outside of our electronics lab was the secretarial course's typing classroom.