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 "World of
Warcraft"
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.