What is sociology exactly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it's the study of the causes and consequences of human behavior. you can go on to work in urban planning (traffic patterns, housing developments, school planning), law, Human Resources...any number of things.

This is the first sensible answer on the entire thread.

[Anonymous]

I was a sociology major. Yes, a lot of athletes majored in it at my college, but I think it’s because the grades for a social science can be subjective, as opposed to math/science, not because it’s dumb or worthless. And they can miss class for games and still be competent in the subject because they didn’t miss some huge lesson on a mathematical concept that would impede their ability to understand more advanced math later in the semester or another math course.

I’m not in a sociological related field right now, but my friends who are are are mostly PhD professors who are published authors on their focused topic. One friend has studied immigration patterns and gets invited to do talks all around the country and internationally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is a very easy, useless major.

This. My college boyfriend was a sociology major and I don't think he had 10 minutes of homework over 4 years of college combined. Everything he learned was common sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is a very easy, useless major.

This. My college boyfriend was a sociology major and I don't think he had 10 minutes of homework over 4 years of college combined. Everything he learned was common sense.

I was the pp sociology major. I was constantly doing required reading and writing papers. At my university, sociology was one of the only majors that required an undergraduate thesis. We had an entire semester to devoted to writing our thesis and it had a lot of requirements. Just because your boyfriend didn’t do his homework doesn’t mean nobody had any.

[Anonymous]

Sociology majors go on to do a wide variety of things- many end up in the nonprofit sector doing programmatic or development work (that's what I did), others pursue law school, social work, HR, or go on to get a MBA. It's not a particularly lucrative undergraduate major, and it does have the reputation of having been 'dumbed down' in many schools over the past few decades. I found it fascinating and I went on to get my MPA in nonprofit administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems like the generalist social science degree, hard to narrow down. You don't seem to hear as much from sociologists as from political scientists, historians or economists. What is this degree?

I thoroughly enjoyed my sociology classes!

[Anonymous]

My friend majored in it, got a phD in it and now teaches it as a tenured professor. Her focus is on microlending among poor communities in developing countries. It's a fascinating topic. She doesn't make a lot of money but she has family wealth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I took Sociology 101 as an elective. I remember nothing from it. No substance to it at all.

I don’t remember anything from any 101 level class that I’ve ever taken. I went to a t10 university too. It was all intro and boring.

A big failure of so many introductory courses is that even though they are often the only course in that subject many students take, they are more drudgery than engaging.

I loved a geography course I took in the eighties. They didn't use a textbook, and the professors mostly just talked about their research. We read articles and did a few excercises. There were probably gaps in my readiness for GEOG 201, but who cares? I was never going to take that.

[Anonymous]

Behavioral economics and data science, plus insight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like the generalist social science degree, hard to narrow down. You don't seem to hear as much from sociologists as from political scientists, historians or economists. What is this degree?

I thoroughly enjoyed my sociology classes!

Me too. Not a major or minor but a few electives and 101.

[Anonymous]

Sociology doesn't carry the same respect as economics, although both allow you to study similar topics (you'd be surprised at the range of topics economists look at). Econ is just a more rigorous field with higher standards of proof and less ideology (the typical sociologist if well, well left of center and it plays into their work). Econ just gives a stronger analytical foundation as well as a wider variety of options for the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I took Sociology 101 as an elective. I remember nothing from it. No substance to it at all.

I also took it. We studied Eskimos and Amish people. Our teacher had just moved to NY from the Deep South and was struggling with massive culture shock. She was SHOCKED to find out we weren't all super religious church-goers for instance. We collectively very quickly figured out that if we tied ANY answer whether verbal or written, to Jesus, that she was pleased.

Your sociology professor was shocked at NY college students not being practicing Christians?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My friend majored in it, got a phD in it and now teaches it as a tenured professor. Her focus is on microlending among poor communities in developing countries. It's a fascinating topic. She doesn't make a lot of money but she has family wealth.

This is development economics. It seems every successful sociologist is really just an economist in disguise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friend majored in it, got a phD in it and now teaches it as a tenured professor. Her focus is on microlending among poor communities in developing countries. It's a fascinating topic. She doesn't make a lot of money but she has family wealth.

This is development economics. It seems every successful sociologist is really just an economist in disguise.

They’re social sciences and they have overlap. Quantitative questions aren’t reserved for economists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is a very easy, useless major.

This. My college boyfriend was a sociology major and I don't think he had 10 minutes of homework over 4 years of college combined. Everything he learned was common sense.

I was the pp sociology major. I was constantly doing required reading and writing papers. At my university, sociology was one of the only majors that required an undergraduate thesis. We had an entire semester to devoted to writing our thesis and it had a lot of requirements. Just because your boyfriend didn’t do his homework doesn’t mean nobody had any.

A lot of people are skeptical about the value of traditional liberal arts education. It's quite saddening. I think humanities and social sciences offer fascinating insights and train students to be critical thinkers and effective communicators. And to contemplate important human and societal issues that can't be measured in financial terms.

My kid is majoring in political science (somewhat akin to sociology on the taking crap from people about your major scale). People never stop asking whether he plans to go to law school or run for Congress (he doesn't). The study of how people govern and how policies are developed and enacted through political processes is just interesting to him. And distribution requirements and a minor are developing his other skills. At a challenging college, even the "easy" majors are hard work, as PP above notes.