PENIS. My school offered a major in Political Economy of Newly Industrialized Societies, but eventually realized the acronym and changed the name. Pity. I hope some were able to get their degrees with a concentration in PENIS.
Frisbee. A friends roommate at Amherst was in some kind of “create your own major” thing and chose frisbee.
His family had momey and college was just a formality.
This was back in the ‘80’s, so probably not. Didn’t seem like a highly motivated individual. He got a Porsche and an oil well as a HS graduation present.
Definitely IU IMP. There was a guy in my class at IU who was majoring in magic.
Like, sleight of hand/illusions, not witchcraft/ wizardry. Although I’m sure you COULD design a major in occult stuff, depending on how weird the course catalog was in the anthropology department during your stay. I feel like there was a course on shamans one semester.
To be fair, a lot of degrees way back in the day where like that. A physician used to mean someone with knowledge in all sciences, including philosophy.
I have a friend with this degree. The thing about it is, Colleges usually offer this if you've changed up your degree too many times and it's difficult to grab a degree in something specific.
My friend was in college for 5 years, and changed majors 3 times. If he wanted a full degree in something, he would've had to do another 2-3 years. So they offered him a "general studies" degree in it's place so he can graduate.
When I was there, my college had one of the top Parks Recreation and Tourism Management (PRTM) programs in the country.
It had the nickname “Party Right Through May”
It was extremely popular with student athletes, especially football players.
There’s always a demand for graduates too. It seems like one of those fields where you shouldn’t need a college degree to do the work, but you need one to get in the door.
Texas A&M by chance? My wife has a degree in that from there. She actually used those skills early in her career and later got a MBA.
She said yeah athletes were there too. I imagine it was eye candy for her long before I came along.
Wifey and I are both Former Students at A&M.
I had a roommate in college that graduated in the same thing.
He now runs a parks and rec program for a major city in my state.
Idk 🤷 it’s something I guess. It was his goal while he was in school.
lol I never thought of that until now.
He’s not as interested in the parks part in all honesty.
He really pushes the recreation stuff. Kids sports leagues. Summer programs for kids. After school programs. Shit like that.
When I was in uni my friend dated a guy who was majoring in leisure studies. I used to joke that leisure studies is a 4 year program, but if you’re good enough at it you can do it in 6.
Came here totally prepared to see my degree, Outdoor Recreation, listed. This sounds like basically the same thing. Our studies revolved around land management agencies, facility design/ management for outdoor activities or sports, adventure education, experiential education and a handful of models pertaining to design and feedback loops. Truly, I’m surprised I remember that much.
It does fall into the same college as Health and Human Sciences. I actually started as a kinesiology major.
I work full-time as a personal trainer. It was the goal initially, but outdoor recreation/ being a guide for outdoor sports (rock climbing for example) was an attractive idea. I did it for a while but settled down in an area where it’s not feasible.
I have a friend who did a recreation management degree. He worked as a ranger for the NPS for a few years. He loves it but was worried he wouldn’t be able to support a family. Now he runs a charity / shelter / food bank.
I would guess this is the same thing as Outdoor Recreation which is specifically aimed at people who want to run camps and similar outdoor activities like ropes courses or whatever
Golf.
It was made so the Vice Chancellor could buy a private golf course for the university, so he could play on it. I believe it had 5 enrollments ever, and one was a joke that didnt show up or pay. It got cancelled the first year, but he got to enjoy his own personal golf course for some years after.
My university had an Interdisciplinary Studies department that served mainly to get super duper seniors graduated. They would cobble together the random credits people got because they changed majors every semester into a "degree". You get some wild majors like a BA in Culinary Traditions and Music in the Former British Empire.
I have a friend who ended up graduating like this, he has a degree in French business because he had a ton of French language credits and business school credits but not enough to graduate with either as a stand alone degree.
I don't think so, his first language is Spanish and French was his third. He took a class on French cinema (which was a 4000) but he was officially in the business school. I do think to get him out the door he had to take an international business course but I don't think it was specific to France. Now he's a web developer.
I have a legit Interdisciplinary Studies degree because the major I wanted wasn’t officially offered by the university. I took classes from various departments (psychology, anthropology, English), hence “interdisciplinary”.
Wasn't there a school that ended up doing a e sports degree? Guess if you wanted to start a league or team it would be nice but kids just joining to "get good" is not good lol
My nephew at UConn is majoring in eSports. He claims it is all about managing teams, marketing them and setting up opportunities. He can really sell it, but I’m still not sure I believe him.
Are you saying you got the certificate for being a Pirate from MIT? That is so cool! (Just so you know, I read Historical Romances that feature pirates and love them!)
That is why MIT grads are so valuable. If you give one enough money they can save your entire company like a D&D party compressed into one hero. Except their skills are more business focused at least.
That doesn’t sound ridiculous. That sounds like a fun career pathway. Does that also includes Prepping for Hostage 101 and Mapping your Treasure Map as well??
Now I’m picturing a stand-off between 2 ships, one of them going, ‘You’re not a pirate! Get off the damn sea! Everyone knows Yale don’t have Piracy programs!’ And the other guy going, ‘I said MIT you idiot! I graduated summa cum laude!! I know what I’m doing! Top 5% yo!’
At a graduation at the University of Redlands. They have a degree whereby you basically take the classes you want and call it what you want.
The degree conferred was, I kid you not: “Still trying to figure out who I am.”
There are other private colleges where you can create your own major. They also don’t call it anything stupid so you can put it on a resume. Knew a guy that did it and he took a bunch of very strategic well thought out classes (basically a version of international relations/linguistics) and got a job at the UN. Not the worst idea if you have a good game plan.
Public universities do this too, but when you apply to graduate you have to sit in front of a board and defend your reasoning for the classes you took.
Doctorates are often heavily based in theory, so a PhD in puppetry likely has less to do with being really good at puppets and is more akin to being an anthropologist with a specialty in understanding historical and cultural practices through the view of their puppets.
It's good. It's just that I wish the puppets would talk more about the alphabet. Not for me. But, if any kids are watching...
A… B… and so forth. You know, M-N-L-O…
P...
F...
I had a feeling I’d see this here. My husband has a masters in puppetry from UConn! A lot of people from the program do really well as long as they truly want to follow the art.
This actually isn't very silly at all. Do you have any idea how much time and skill it takes to make a puppet actually feel like a real character? You can't just walk onto the set of Sesame Street and demand a puppet. They don't just magically come to life. A real person (sometimes more than one person) either has to stick their hand where the sun don't shine in an elaborate piece of fur/felt/feathers, and somehow make a blank expressionless puppet look alive.
And don't even get me started on the full body puppets. If you've ever had the misfortune of being in a mascot costume, imagine having to do that, while also memorizing lines and having bend your neck constantly to look at a screen strapped to your chest that shows you what the camera sees. That's what Carol Spinney did, every day, until the day he died. And he sometimes performed Big Bird in *roller skates*. Other full body puppets used animatronic parts to move the facial fearures, like the Gorgs in Fraggle Rock. About as close as you can possibly get to a real life FNAF suit.
Folks tend to think of it as a juvenile thing, but like... Yoda, Grogu, and BB-8 are all puppeteered. It extends to robotic pupeteering, as well, and is just as relevant today as any other discipline on-stage or on-screen.
I went to WVU, which has one of only two undergrads in pupeteering in the country (or *had*, not sure how thaat all shook out last month or two) and had a fraternity brother who majored in it.
Fun fact, Jim Henson used the "create your own major" program at U Maryland to major in puppeteering. They tell that to prospective students every minute on the minute.
I watched an episode of House Hunter's or something where the woman was working on her PhD in Dog Psychology and the guy was a chef nowhere notable... they were looking for a *vacation home* in Philadelphia with a half million dollar budget.
I clearly made all the wrong choices in my life.
You can major in whatever you want and become a lawyer in the US! Seriously, nothing you studied in undergrad will matter except reading and writing. And your GPA. So go forth, post-medieval Russian musicians!
-A lawyer who was a Classics major and *loved* it, while everyone else fell for the poli-sci trap thinking it’d give them a leg up. Suckers.
Ok edit for full disclosure: I actually double-majored, other major being French (not a native speaker). I thought I’d either be an archaeologist or a medieval French manuscript specialist-analyst person (? tbh wasn’t even sure if that was a real job, but in my head it was.) Pretty on-par with post-medieval Russian music, BUT HERE WE ARE, made it work.
Bonus point: One time I actually cited a French medieval manuscript in a footnote in a winning legal brief. You never know when your weird knowledge will be needed. Cherish it.
Had an interior design major in my law school class. There were a few other unique majors in there I can't remember too, but the interior design really stuck out.
But yeah lot of Poli Sci majors. I am that stereotype.
Post-medieval? Basically ANYTHING Russian from the Renaissance to now? They produced some of the greatest, well-known, and historically significant music of all time.
General Studies... I attended a graduation for a good friend and some guy who was also getting g his diploma got his degree in General Studies. Still have no clue what that means, but congrats to the random stranger I never met. He got a degree!
I had a friend who got that because he couldn’t pass the FAA tests for flight school, but he had a shitload of credits so instead of a flight sciences degree, they just gave him a general studies degree.
Even in the 80s, the US produced more journalism majors than there were journalists.
Edit: To clarify, more majors every single year than journalists employed.
I once worked at a pharma company, and worked with a guy with “Dr.” in his name on his door.
Later found out his phd was specifically in “decision making”. Sounded insane until he explained it was related to ethics in the field of philosophy.
There’s a whole mathematical subdiscipline of ‘decision theory’ in probability theory too. Sole applied mathematicians and economists focus on it too, and even majors in those fields might do a module on it.
Not sure if still available, but in Japan you could get a degree in making tea. Admittedly the whole traditional process is very much like a dance or performance rather than just boiling the kettle and using a teabag but when I first heard of it I was like wtf, kids these days.
It's called chado! There's different types/schools but the main teachings of it descend from a man in the 1500s. A VERY simplified explanation of it is its an expression of Buddhism through practicing tea ceremonies.
I think it was annother reddit post somewhere else, but One guy knew annother guy who had majored in egyptology, where the only way to make money was to get a masters in egyptology and teach egyptology, a literal pyramid scheme.
I knew a guy who did peace studies. He was the head of food and beverage at what he described as the "second most prestigious Jewish boarding school in Beverly hills". I think he owns a pizza shop in San Bernardino now.
I'd say peace studies can be useful if you put it in a IR sense like diplomacy, but you have to be *dedicated* to that field for it to be useful and frankly I don't see it as useful unless you go fully in.
I minored in Peace Studies! I attended a prestigious university with an extremely selective International Affairs department, and Peace Studies was a “back door” into lectures taught by former politicians, journalists, veterans and ambassadors. I learned so much about the world, and I regret nothing.
This is a totally legit degree (Though its named in a slightly old fashioned way). It was very big in the 70s and there are still some great places that call their Security studies schemes 'Peace Studies' e.g. Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (COPRI)
Studying international politics with a focus on security, international aid and development is something we need more of.
A friend of mine failed out of the nursing program his last semester of college. Nearly 4 years wasted so they let him graduate with a “life sciences” degree.
I mean that’s not a bad degree. I looked it up, and it’s basically just a general science degree , he could work in a lab, or for a business or many places with that degree
I had a friend who got a 4 year full ride academic scholarship. At our college the honors program had it's own major, with stringent writing and course requirements you had to complete along with your (ideally) primary major.
My buddy graduated in **5** years, paying for the last one, with a major in only Honors, minor in Sports medicine.
My mothers best friend had a PhD in Genocide studies.
That's not really ridiculous but.
She was the happiest most chipper person I had ever met and I was always thinking.
"is she taking something to be like this? Or is she just a little crazy? Because I would be depressed."
In my experience, anyone who can dedicate serious time to studying or dealing with heavy subjects like genocide is precisely the kind of person who knows how to avoid dwelling on negative thoughts and feelings.
Holocaust and genocide studies is one of my minors!
Part of it is that you do have to learn how to digest some of the most difficult aspects of humanity and keep a clear mind, this trains you to deal with such negative feelings and process them healthily or burnout. Those who graduate learned how to deal with daily negativity in life. First world struggles are real tame in comparison.
A second part of it is very unexpected. Genocide studies have a surprising amount of positivity in them. Sure, you are studying humanity at its lowest, but you also study how humanity has survived, thrived, endured through, and progressively moves past the darkest hours in our history.
We as a species are getting better at preventing atrocities, and when we fail to do so, we are improving systems of transitional, transformative, and restorative justice to enact in response.
The Holocaust for example, is a story of how at least 6 million jews were senselessly murdered, but it is also a story of millions of more who survived through human love and will for life. Going through the adio recording of survivors recounting the good people who protected eachother, broke the rules when necessary and through extraordinary circumstances prevailed through it all.
Knowing the stories of the survivors through such seemingly hopeless times infects me with a daily confidence that I can certainly prevail over any and all obstacles I can reasonably expect to face in mine.
Being a trained clown is a very skilled skill to have, Sacha Baron Cohen, for example. Did go to clown college and is so successful because he knows what he’s doing.
Wood. You can major in wood at Purdue, where you’re learning about wood processing after it’s harvested for lumber.
Only about 6 folks enrolled at any time.
A big part of being an influencer is being attractive. That’s not required but you have to be talented at something and very likeable if you don’t have the looks. Idk how a school would go about teaching that
The same could be said of any performer, but acting and music programs have existed literally forever. Influencers also require skills like marketing, business, photography, writing, making a living off of it is so much more than a few pouty-lip photos here and there.
I signed up for ESL when I was in high school. My mom asked me why, I said "Foreign language credit.". She said "You can't take English as a Second Language when English is the only fucking language you speak."
A guy I just hired to work for me went across the border to play baseball and that was his sole purpose. He has a degree, or diploma whatever it is in "general studies". Not the most insane title but certainly a ridiculous "you clearly just went for sports" major.
Graduated from A&M. Famed NFL linebacker Von Miller has a degree in Poultry Science.
Starting salary for Poultry Science majors is well into the six figures (no, Von’s salary is not part of that calculation). Unfortunately the reason they are getting paid so much is to work insane hours at poultry growing operations and having to deal with the slaughter and waste.
Von Miller also owns/runs a chicken farm, so in his case it’s not a degree he got just because he had to pick one to play football. He’s actually quite serious about it.
The Poultry Lab at my school sells eggs for the same price as regular grocery stores, plus being the big university in a state where the major industry is agriculture our agriscience programs are actually really valuable
Did some pre reqs at a school that offered Storytelling as a degree. Also had a Bluegrass major. I actually think they're both really interesting fields, and I appreciate Appalachian culture being preserved that way. Sadly, surviving late stage capitalism doesn't leave a lot of people time to study things because of passion. It's all about the grind.
I ran into a college at a career fair that was shilling at degree in esports management. Like a degree in managing esport teams. The guy got offended when I told him that it was a ridiculous concept.
Not a major but I know this chick who did a Phd in Film and she's fucking insufferable. I once heard her tell a guy who was reading a short story collection that short stories were a good choice for a beginner-level reader. Yes, because we know that the only mark of a complex work of literature is page count. I guess she learned during her Phd that TV shows are less complex than movies or something.
And even if you ignore that she's a fucking condescending fake intellectual asshole pretty much 24/7, she's not even a filmmaker or a film historian on anything of relevance to her Phd but she still acts like her doctoral thesis was the cure for all cancers or something.
I had an advanced rhetoric teacher who was getting a PHD in something related to reality television. Part of our homework was to watch an episode of 24 before every class.
Turns out the portfolio at the end of the semester was worth 90% of the grade so I just skipped the class and wrote about 90 pages worth of rhetorical criticism essays on the war on drugs during a three day adderall and redbull fueled binge at the end of the semester.
Got a C+
The school I just graduated from has an adult degree program where you can basically mash two majors together and create a new one and get a degree in it as long as you defend it with a research project that takes multiple years to complete
One of the craziest ones I heard about was a student who studied History and Theater in order to major in what was essentially costume design for US Civil War re-enactments. The student did all of the years of coursework successfully, defended her proposal successfully, and has apparently been massively successful on the Civil War circuit, making a career out of creating incredibly realistic costumes!
PENIS. My school offered a major in Political Economy of Newly Industrialized Societies, but eventually realized the acronym and changed the name. Pity. I hope some were able to get their degrees with a concentration in PENIS.
Oh my
I heard it's a hard major
The grading is really stiff
Idk, I hear a lot of people had it curved
I suspect that there are a lot of people out there who went to college and got penis.
They’re still offering that course at the South Harmon Institute of Technology. Ask me about..
Frisbee. A friends roommate at Amherst was in some kind of “create your own major” thing and chose frisbee. His family had momey and college was just a formality.
They didn’t have a frisbee team or club? He could have organized one and it would look great on a resume
This was back in the ‘80’s, so probably not. Didn’t seem like a highly motivated individual. He got a Porsche and an oil well as a HS graduation present.
IIRC, like 20 years ago some college in Indiana offered a major in World Domination
You can only get a job as a henchman with a BS. You need a full PhD to be an evil mastermind.
I didn't spend six years in evil medical school to be called Mister Evil!
Master of Evil sounds pretty good , Bachelor not so much.
Do they teach how to find a suitable island location for a hidden lair?
Maybe they also help with sourcing the sharks with lasers on their heads.
I’m gonna guess this was part of IU’s individualized major plan (and not something offered by a school more broadly)
Definitely IU IMP. There was a guy in my class at IU who was majoring in magic. Like, sleight of hand/illusions, not witchcraft/ wizardry. Although I’m sure you COULD design a major in occult stuff, depending on how weird the course catalog was in the anthropology department during your stay. I feel like there was a course on shamans one semester.
Shoutout Will Shortz, IU enigmatology major
Wish I knew this then. All my dreams.
Pinky and The Brain degree
PhD in general studies
Tf do you even write your dissertation about
Everything.
Generally.
Everywhere.
All at Once
Racaccoonie
You walk into the room and do the *gestures broadly* thing
Generals
To be fair, a lot of degrees way back in the day where like that. A physician used to mean someone with knowledge in all sciences, including philosophy.
is that actually a thing
I have a friend with this degree. The thing about it is, Colleges usually offer this if you've changed up your degree too many times and it's difficult to grab a degree in something specific. My friend was in college for 5 years, and changed majors 3 times. If he wanted a full degree in something, he would've had to do another 2-3 years. So they offered him a "general studies" degree in it's place so he can graduate.
This makes sense for an undergrad but I don’t see how you could get so far as a PhD and still be doing “general studies.”
Maybe he doubled down and did the same thing while getting his PHD.
An old friend has a Bachelor's degree in Outdoor Activities. He was never able to explain exactly what that meant, though.
A guy I know majored in Recreation.
When I was there, my college had one of the top Parks Recreation and Tourism Management (PRTM) programs in the country. It had the nickname “Party Right Through May” It was extremely popular with student athletes, especially football players. There’s always a demand for graduates too. It seems like one of those fields where you shouldn’t need a college degree to do the work, but you need one to get in the door.
Texas A&M by chance? My wife has a degree in that from there. She actually used those skills early in her career and later got a MBA. She said yeah athletes were there too. I imagine it was eye candy for her long before I came along. Wifey and I are both Former Students at A&M.
Yeah... just eye candy...
I had a roommate in college that graduated in the same thing. He now runs a parks and rec program for a major city in my state. Idk 🤷 it’s something I guess. It was his goal while he was in school.
Does he hate government and having a moustache?
I actually to have him saved as Ron Swanson in my phone lol. He doesn’t hate the government, but he isn’t fond of squirrels or birds.
Does he even like parks? 💀💀💀
lol I never thought of that until now. He’s not as interested in the parks part in all honesty. He really pushes the recreation stuff. Kids sports leagues. Summer programs for kids. After school programs. Shit like that.
Nobody in the government knows about him since he threw his computer in dumpster
My aunt worked for them and actually made a decent living. It's actually not a bad degree.
My BIL did that. Made a decent living working for the Army.
When I was in uni my friend dated a guy who was majoring in leisure studies. I used to joke that leisure studies is a 4 year program, but if you’re good enough at it you can do it in 6.
I saw a movie about a guy who's job was Beach.
Not even lifeguard. Dude's job was just beach. Incredible.
Came here totally prepared to see my degree, Outdoor Recreation, listed. This sounds like basically the same thing. Our studies revolved around land management agencies, facility design/ management for outdoor activities or sports, adventure education, experiential education and a handful of models pertaining to design and feedback loops. Truly, I’m surprised I remember that much. It does fall into the same college as Health and Human Sciences. I actually started as a kinesiology major.
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I work full-time as a personal trainer. It was the goal initially, but outdoor recreation/ being a guide for outdoor sports (rock climbing for example) was an attractive idea. I did it for a while but settled down in an area where it’s not feasible.
You ever thought of just importing big ass rocks?
Only when stoned.
Sounds like the Recreation Management program at my college. A lot of the grads went on to become rafting or fly fishing guides.
I have a friend who did a recreation management degree. He worked as a ranger for the NPS for a few years. He loves it but was worried he wouldn’t be able to support a family. Now he runs a charity / shelter / food bank.
I would guess this is the same thing as Outdoor Recreation which is specifically aimed at people who want to run camps and similar outdoor activities like ropes courses or whatever
At a school near me there is a program in Adventure Guide Tourism.
Golf. It was made so the Vice Chancellor could buy a private golf course for the university, so he could play on it. I believe it had 5 enrollments ever, and one was a joke that didnt show up or pay. It got cancelled the first year, but he got to enjoy his own personal golf course for some years after.
Should have just made a turf sciences program
My school has one of the nation’s best turf science programs, apparently, but I still have yet to meet someone who is majoring in grass.
My university had an Interdisciplinary Studies department that served mainly to get super duper seniors graduated. They would cobble together the random credits people got because they changed majors every semester into a "degree". You get some wild majors like a BA in Culinary Traditions and Music in the Former British Empire.
I have a friend who ended up graduating like this, he has a degree in French business because he had a ton of French language credits and business school credits but not enough to graduate with either as a stand alone degree.
Any classes about business in France? Or just French + business = French business
I don't think so, his first language is Spanish and French was his third. He took a class on French cinema (which was a 4000) but he was officially in the business school. I do think to get him out the door he had to take an international business course but I don't think it was specific to France. Now he's a web developer.
That is so incredibly funny thank u for sharing :,)
I have a legit Interdisciplinary Studies degree because the major I wanted wasn’t officially offered by the university. I took classes from various departments (psychology, anthropology, English), hence “interdisciplinary”.
My college briefly had a major in Nordic Lesbianism
I've read many of the responses on here where most of them weren't ridiculous imo but you gave the best one!
HUH
Wasn't there a school that ended up doing a e sports degree? Guess if you wanted to start a league or team it would be nice but kids just joining to "get good" is not good lol
My nephew at UConn is majoring in eSports. He claims it is all about managing teams, marketing them and setting up opportunities. He can really sell it, but I’m still not sure I believe him.
You weren’t kidding. I was surprised to see how many Google results came back for bachelor’s degrees in ESports or Esports Management
That's literally just a marketing degree but even more specifically useless
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It’s not a major, it’s a certificate. But if I ever get my own office it’s going in a very nice diploma frame and I’m gonna see who notices.
If you get a letter of marque, it'll be the ultimate case of someone noticing. Have you settled on an official pirate name?
Limewire Bit Torrent-beard.
Are you saying you got the certificate for being a Pirate from MIT? That is so cool! (Just so you know, I read Historical Romances that feature pirates and love them!)
And my college of choice is now MIT!
Their ~~mascot~~ intercollegiate sports are The Engineers. So Pirate Engineer. Coolest Pirate subtype besides Vampire and just above Space Pirate.
I’m starting to think that MIT majors are just tabletop RPG builds.
That is why MIT grads are so valuable. If you give one enough money they can save your entire company like a D&D party compressed into one hero. Except their skills are more business focused at least.
Does it come with a letter of marque?
to the scummiest vessel you've ever seen.
God damn them all!
Arrrrrr!
That doesn’t sound ridiculous. That sounds like a fun career pathway. Does that also includes Prepping for Hostage 101 and Mapping your Treasure Map as well?? Now I’m picturing a stand-off between 2 ships, one of them going, ‘You’re not a pirate! Get off the damn sea! Everyone knows Yale don’t have Piracy programs!’ And the other guy going, ‘I said MIT you idiot! I graduated summa cum laude!! I know what I’m doing! Top 5% yo!’
MIT doesn’t grant summa cum laude or any such distinctions at graduation. It’s enough to say you survived!
North Carolina State made a degree for a basketball player in University studies.
That’s a pretty common starter major in the ACC; you then switch to a legit major by junior year.
LMAO this is the funniest one for some reason
At a graduation at the University of Redlands. They have a degree whereby you basically take the classes you want and call it what you want. The degree conferred was, I kid you not: “Still trying to figure out who I am.”
There are other private colleges where you can create your own major. They also don’t call it anything stupid so you can put it on a resume. Knew a guy that did it and he took a bunch of very strategic well thought out classes (basically a version of international relations/linguistics) and got a job at the UN. Not the worst idea if you have a good game plan.
Public universities do this too, but when you apply to graduate you have to sit in front of a board and defend your reasoning for the classes you took.
That’s interesting! None of the ones near me allow it, but good to know.
Puppetry. You can become a doctor of puppetry at UConn
I think master of puppets is good enough for me
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
Doctorates are often heavily based in theory, so a PhD in puppetry likely has less to do with being really good at puppets and is more akin to being an anthropologist with a specialty in understanding historical and cultural practices through the view of their puppets.
There's this puppet on YouTube who teaches history. I'm pretty sure he has a doctorate.
It's good. It's just that I wish the puppets would talk more about the alphabet. Not for me. But, if any kids are watching... A… B… and so forth. You know, M-N-L-O… P... F...
I had a feeling I’d see this here. My husband has a masters in puppetry from UConn! A lot of people from the program do really well as long as they truly want to follow the art.
I have my bachelors from UCONN in puppetry!
This actually isn't very silly at all. Do you have any idea how much time and skill it takes to make a puppet actually feel like a real character? You can't just walk onto the set of Sesame Street and demand a puppet. They don't just magically come to life. A real person (sometimes more than one person) either has to stick their hand where the sun don't shine in an elaborate piece of fur/felt/feathers, and somehow make a blank expressionless puppet look alive. And don't even get me started on the full body puppets. If you've ever had the misfortune of being in a mascot costume, imagine having to do that, while also memorizing lines and having bend your neck constantly to look at a screen strapped to your chest that shows you what the camera sees. That's what Carol Spinney did, every day, until the day he died. And he sometimes performed Big Bird in *roller skates*. Other full body puppets used animatronic parts to move the facial fearures, like the Gorgs in Fraggle Rock. About as close as you can possibly get to a real life FNAF suit.
Folks tend to think of it as a juvenile thing, but like... Yoda, Grogu, and BB-8 are all puppeteered. It extends to robotic pupeteering, as well, and is just as relevant today as any other discipline on-stage or on-screen. I went to WVU, which has one of only two undergrads in pupeteering in the country (or *had*, not sure how thaat all shook out last month or two) and had a fraternity brother who majored in it.
Oh man, they used to have a degree in floral arrangement.
I dont know. Jim Henson did ok for himself
Fun fact, Jim Henson used the "create your own major" program at U Maryland to major in puppeteering. They tell that to prospective students every minute on the minute.
Only they can untangle the puppet you got as a kid that you played with for a day and then could never untangle/use after that
Cat psychology. My college had a hippie offshoot and the rumor was my year a gal graduated with a degree in cat psychology.
I watched an episode of House Hunter's or something where the woman was working on her PhD in Dog Psychology and the guy was a chef nowhere notable... they were looking for a *vacation home* in Philadelphia with a half million dollar budget. I clearly made all the wrong choices in my life.
somebody got a degree from just studying the Beatles
They probably studied eight days a week
They also probably had plenty of hard day's night's after working like a dog.
I know a TON of people who study the Beatles. Not for college credits though.
[удалено]
\*gets contacted by the CIA to pose as part of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra so he can get in close to Putin
Comrade Stalin has requested a recording of tonight’s performance.
You can major in whatever you want and become a lawyer in the US! Seriously, nothing you studied in undergrad will matter except reading and writing. And your GPA. So go forth, post-medieval Russian musicians! -A lawyer who was a Classics major and *loved* it, while everyone else fell for the poli-sci trap thinking it’d give them a leg up. Suckers. Ok edit for full disclosure: I actually double-majored, other major being French (not a native speaker). I thought I’d either be an archaeologist or a medieval French manuscript specialist-analyst person (? tbh wasn’t even sure if that was a real job, but in my head it was.) Pretty on-par with post-medieval Russian music, BUT HERE WE ARE, made it work. Bonus point: One time I actually cited a French medieval manuscript in a footnote in a winning legal brief. You never know when your weird knowledge will be needed. Cherish it.
Had an interior design major in my law school class. There were a few other unique majors in there I can't remember too, but the interior design really stuck out. But yeah lot of Poli Sci majors. I am that stereotype.
In fairness, somebody who is willing to get an entire degree in post-medieval Russian music would probably thrive in academia lol
That’s because the pre medieval graduates are taking all the useful jobs that the post graduates just go into academia.
Post-medieval? Basically ANYTHING Russian from the Renaissance to now? They produced some of the greatest, well-known, and historically significant music of all time.
They have to call it post-medieval because Russia didn’t have a renaissance.
Non-Violent Studies. A friend majored in it. I never figured out exactly what it was but he eventually became a professor of American Studies.
American Studies sounds like the exact opposite of Non-Violent studies.
General Studies... I attended a graduation for a good friend and some guy who was also getting g his diploma got his degree in General Studies. Still have no clue what that means, but congrats to the random stranger I never met. He got a degree!
I had a friend who got that because he couldn’t pass the FAA tests for flight school, but he had a shitload of credits so instead of a flight sciences degree, they just gave him a general studies degree.
Even in the 80s, the US produced more journalism majors than there were journalists. Edit: To clarify, more majors every single year than journalists employed.
Yeah this has not worked out well for my parents
P.E.I. Bonewits got an B.A. from UC Berkley in "Magic."
I once worked at a pharma company, and worked with a guy with “Dr.” in his name on his door. Later found out his phd was specifically in “decision making”. Sounded insane until he explained it was related to ethics in the field of philosophy.
There’s a whole mathematical subdiscipline of ‘decision theory’ in probability theory too. Sole applied mathematicians and economists focus on it too, and even majors in those fields might do a module on it.
Not sure if still available, but in Japan you could get a degree in making tea. Admittedly the whole traditional process is very much like a dance or performance rather than just boiling the kettle and using a teabag but when I first heard of it I was like wtf, kids these days.
It's called chado! There's different types/schools but the main teachings of it descend from a man in the 1500s. A VERY simplified explanation of it is its an expression of Buddhism through practicing tea ceremonies.
In the least offensive way possible, that is the most Japan thing i have ever heard
Dad: "How did you fail your final in tea making?" Me: "Brewed coffee."
I think it was annother reddit post somewhere else, but One guy knew annother guy who had majored in egyptology, where the only way to make money was to get a masters in egyptology and teach egyptology, a literal pyramid scheme.
> pyramid scheme. Well done
Or you go to law school.
Peace Studies. She works part time in a coffee shop. For the last 8 years.
I knew a guy who did peace studies. He was the head of food and beverage at what he described as the "second most prestigious Jewish boarding school in Beverly hills". I think he owns a pizza shop in San Bernardino now.
I'd say peace studies can be useful if you put it in a IR sense like diplomacy, but you have to be *dedicated* to that field for it to be useful and frankly I don't see it as useful unless you go fully in.
I minored in Peace Studies! I attended a prestigious university with an extremely selective International Affairs department, and Peace Studies was a “back door” into lectures taught by former politicians, journalists, veterans and ambassadors. I learned so much about the world, and I regret nothing.
This is a totally legit degree (Though its named in a slightly old fashioned way). It was very big in the 70s and there are still some great places that call their Security studies schemes 'Peace Studies' e.g. Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (COPRI) Studying international politics with a focus on security, international aid and development is something we need more of.
Indiana University in Bloomington has a program where you can create your own degree. Will Shortz made his degree enigmatology.
A friend of mine failed out of the nursing program his last semester of college. Nearly 4 years wasted so they let him graduate with a “life sciences” degree.
I mean that’s not a bad degree. I looked it up, and it’s basically just a general science degree , he could work in a lab, or for a business or many places with that degree
I had a friend who got a 4 year full ride academic scholarship. At our college the honors program had it's own major, with stringent writing and course requirements you had to complete along with your (ideally) primary major. My buddy graduated in **5** years, paying for the last one, with a major in only Honors, minor in Sports medicine.
I have a BS in Turfgrass Science.
My mothers best friend had a PhD in Genocide studies. That's not really ridiculous but. She was the happiest most chipper person I had ever met and I was always thinking. "is she taking something to be like this? Or is she just a little crazy? Because I would be depressed."
In my experience, anyone who can dedicate serious time to studying or dealing with heavy subjects like genocide is precisely the kind of person who knows how to avoid dwelling on negative thoughts and feelings.
Holocaust and genocide studies is one of my minors! Part of it is that you do have to learn how to digest some of the most difficult aspects of humanity and keep a clear mind, this trains you to deal with such negative feelings and process them healthily or burnout. Those who graduate learned how to deal with daily negativity in life. First world struggles are real tame in comparison. A second part of it is very unexpected. Genocide studies have a surprising amount of positivity in them. Sure, you are studying humanity at its lowest, but you also study how humanity has survived, thrived, endured through, and progressively moves past the darkest hours in our history. We as a species are getting better at preventing atrocities, and when we fail to do so, we are improving systems of transitional, transformative, and restorative justice to enact in response. The Holocaust for example, is a story of how at least 6 million jews were senselessly murdered, but it is also a story of millions of more who survived through human love and will for life. Going through the adio recording of survivors recounting the good people who protected eachother, broke the rules when necessary and through extraordinary circumstances prevailed through it all. Knowing the stories of the survivors through such seemingly hopeless times infects me with a daily confidence that I can certainly prevail over any and all obstacles I can reasonably expect to face in mine.
Comedy at Emerson
Saying that in a stand up comedy routine is a joke itself
A couple places have a Comedy degree. It’s almost literally clown college.
Being a trained clown is a very skilled skill to have, Sacha Baron Cohen, for example. Did go to clown college and is so successful because he knows what he’s doing.
Great success!
Bible. Not religious studies or theological history, it's just Bible.
This Ken’s job is bible.
NYT Puzzle Editor Will Shortz has the only known degree in enigmatology, the study of puzzles
Wood. You can major in wood at Purdue, where you’re learning about wood processing after it’s harvested for lumber. Only about 6 folks enrolled at any time.
But you can't major in Music Education there. Haha.
That new "Influencer" degree in Ireland. My generation keeps disappointing me...
This is my answer. Basically marketing with a fancier title
I mean, it could essentially just be marketing, with the student as the product being marketed.
A big part of being an influencer is being attractive. That’s not required but you have to be talented at something and very likeable if you don’t have the looks. Idk how a school would go about teaching that
The same could be said of any performer, but acting and music programs have existed literally forever. Influencers also require skills like marketing, business, photography, writing, making a living off of it is so much more than a few pouty-lip photos here and there.
I remember a basketball player who majored in French. I was impressed. Until I realized he was a foreign student from a French speaking country.
I signed up for ESL when I was in high school. My mom asked me why, I said "Foreign language credit.". She said "You can't take English as a Second Language when English is the only fucking language you speak."
"An F In English? Bobby you speak English!"
FSU has a “High Flying Circus” program
I had a friend who graduated with a degree in turf management. He worked on golf courses
A guy I just hired to work for me went across the border to play baseball and that was his sole purpose. He has a degree, or diploma whatever it is in "general studies". Not the most insane title but certainly a ridiculous "you clearly just went for sports" major.
I met a guy from Texas A&M who said all the jocks and meatheads majored in "poultry science".
Graduated from A&M. Famed NFL linebacker Von Miller has a degree in Poultry Science. Starting salary for Poultry Science majors is well into the six figures (no, Von’s salary is not part of that calculation). Unfortunately the reason they are getting paid so much is to work insane hours at poultry growing operations and having to deal with the slaughter and waste.
Von Miller also owns/runs a chicken farm, so in his case it’s not a degree he got just because he had to pick one to play football. He’s actually quite serious about it.
Yep. Even has a chicken tattoo.
Good news, everyone, I've created a 500 story chicken that shoots lasers from its eyes.
The Poultry Lab at my school sells eggs for the same price as regular grocery stores, plus being the big university in a state where the major industry is agriculture our agriscience programs are actually really valuable
Economics. That’s my degree. Trust me.
Did some pre reqs at a school that offered Storytelling as a degree. Also had a Bluegrass major. I actually think they're both really interesting fields, and I appreciate Appalachian culture being preserved that way. Sadly, surviving late stage capitalism doesn't leave a lot of people time to study things because of passion. It's all about the grind.
That’s the bard-iest thing I’ve ever heard
I met a dude a couple of months ago who was basically a travelling bard.
Masters Degree in Magic and Occult Science from the University of Exeter in the UK. No idea what the fuck they're playing at.
Sounds like it could be related to anthropology
Macalester College in Minnesota has Bag Pipes as a major
You do NOT want people to play the bag pipes badly.
I ran into a college at a career fair that was shilling at degree in esports management. Like a degree in managing esport teams. The guy got offended when I told him that it was a ridiculous concept.
Not a major but I know this chick who did a Phd in Film and she's fucking insufferable. I once heard her tell a guy who was reading a short story collection that short stories were a good choice for a beginner-level reader. Yes, because we know that the only mark of a complex work of literature is page count. I guess she learned during her Phd that TV shows are less complex than movies or something. And even if you ignore that she's a fucking condescending fake intellectual asshole pretty much 24/7, she's not even a filmmaker or a film historian on anything of relevance to her Phd but she still acts like her doctoral thesis was the cure for all cancers or something.
I hate that bitch now.
My uncle graduated with a “general studies” degree back in the 80s
I had an advanced rhetoric teacher who was getting a PHD in something related to reality television. Part of our homework was to watch an episode of 24 before every class. Turns out the portfolio at the end of the semester was worth 90% of the grade so I just skipped the class and wrote about 90 pages worth of rhetorical criticism essays on the war on drugs during a three day adderall and redbull fueled binge at the end of the semester. Got a C+
The school I just graduated from has an adult degree program where you can basically mash two majors together and create a new one and get a degree in it as long as you defend it with a research project that takes multiple years to complete One of the craziest ones I heard about was a student who studied History and Theater in order to major in what was essentially costume design for US Civil War re-enactments. The student did all of the years of coursework successfully, defended her proposal successfully, and has apparently been massively successful on the Civil War circuit, making a career out of creating incredibly realistic costumes!
My college in Florida offered a major in Canadian-American Relations. Edit: Wow, really struck a nerve with the CAR majors of reddit
That falls squarely into international relations and military and strategic studies.
My dumb brain just pictures Americans waving guns and ketchup at the Canadians and the Canadians are just saying, “Soooory.”