How Not To Choose a Subject Combination or Course of Study

These days, when young people pick subject modules, classes, or whatever they're called in various institutes of higher, middle, nondescript or banal education, they tend to make a few errors which are in general common to humanity. There are only a handful of these errors, but having committed some of them myself and watched in creeping horror as others have also succumbed, I am fairly well qualified to comment on them.

The main errors are:

1. Choosing a subject based on department strength or teacher ability. There is more than one problem here. You could be looking at a department that seems strong because of self-selection (everyone here only took the subject because they were greatly enthusiastic about it, so the results are always good), correlation which is not directly causation (everyone here was picked because they did well in some prior test, and so the department's results look good because the students are good), or good PR (the department looks good because they are adept at reflecting the good statistics and deflecting the bad ones). You could be looking at teachers which behave like these kinds of departments, or you might pin your hopes on a particular instructor only to find that you end up with an inferior colleague.

2. Choosing a subject because you are already good at it. This can be convenient, and you ought to do well regardless of instruction. However, note that at a different level, your preconceptions about a subject (reinforced by the fact that you think you know it well) may actually make you a slower learner. And if you are already good at it, what have you really learnt?

3. Choosing a subject because other people do well at it. Maybe it's a really easy subject, or maybe it's not very strictly evaluated. Maybe others do well, but that's because they are smarter than you, different from you, or they (like you) think that others do well at it and so they should too.

4. Choosing a subject because it looks related to what you think you'll be doing in six years' time. In the past, you could be fairly confident that a degree in Economics would set you up for life. Now, Economics degree-holders are cannon-fodder for MBA programmes. Nobody trusts economists, everyone knows that economics is one form of shamanism that doesn't work reliably, and if you're going to be a serious economist, you should do a basic degree in something else first. Only in the professional disciplines do people slave away at a six- or seven-year degree (including apprenticeship in whatever sense that discipline uses it) and almost always find themselves actually working at what they planned to work at. The rule ought to be: learn as broadly as you can first, and then specialise. Note, however, that some universities specialise in using the glory of their reputation to hoodwink employers in this respect: Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale... you know which ones I'm talking about, especially when you can pay them a small fee and be given an MA.

5. Choosing a subject (combination) that your friends have chosen. This is probably the best reason of the five possibly erroneous reasons. If this is what it takes to keep the fellowship going, go ahead. It worked for the hobbits, it might work for you. Later on, when you are all doctors and need a lawyer... well, let's not go there. It is enough to say that networking span depends on dispersion of nodes rather than duplication.

There are other problems. If you know where to reach me, email me and I'll give you personal advice. I'll even talk to your parents if you need them to help you make a decision. Or if you're parents, I'll talk with your children (but I won't necessarily agree with you or them).