【Miscellaneous】Department and way out

To be honest, I have always felt that seeing these two things as having an obvious causal relationship was originally a misunderstanding caused by being too lazy to think deeply about the message.

From what my 70-year-old mother said, the department is not equal to the way out. Even in the era when college students were rare, it was not uncommon at all.

It's just that the media likes news that can increase reading traffic and stimulate readers' negative emotions, so they will try their best to stab people's insecurities with these news that have not been news for a long time.

But why do you say this is a misunderstanding?

It's very simple. Although there are popular and unpopular departments, there are tens of millions of different forms of human aptitude and talent.

I couldn't find which book (sorry QQ) mentioned this at the moment: the contemporary university teaching system is actually designed after the assembly line of Volkswagen, that is, the standardized process.

This set of SOPs presupposes that we will be assembled, mass-produced, shaped by different courses in the same way as assembling cars and making cans in college, and it is expected to be mass-produced into the expected shape of each field upon graduation. .

But after all, people are not canned, and the rich diversity of life will not be limited to this kind of education.
Therefore, in every popular and unpopular department, there are alumni who have learned a lot, and alumni who are relatively simple.

But even if you were born in a popular department, and did not end up doing the foreseeable career in the department, is it a defective product? of course not. It's just that their interests and expertise are different from the expected direction of the assembly line.

As long as there are people who work hard and earnestly in their work position, they should be regarded as a successful person who does not lose to entrepreneurs!

Just like the Japanese title of the Japanese drama "Reading Girl" wrote: " Simple, but powerful! " Every ordinary job has its secrets and bitterness. Maybe anyone can do it on the surface, but it really needs to be done. It takes a lot of research and hard work to achieve excellence.

Taking a step back, if no one in the whole society is willing to do those simple jobs that are not enough to show off, then our daily life will not be as comfortable and comfortable as it is now. Don't forget this.

Mencius said: One hundred workers are prepared for the needs of the day. Not true.

It is necessary to mention here that Taiwan (perhaps not only Taiwan) has a very bad atmosphere, that is, there is a lot of prejudice against all walks of life.

Among the particularly pernicious suspicions are:
" I always think that the person/occupation/faculty next door has an easier life than me, or even takes advantage of it."

Once you fall into this kind of suspicion, when you watch others succeed, you don't think about how much energy and effort you put behind the success, but only focus on "Why not me!?". So envy turns into envy, and envy turns into resentment.

This kind of harmful way of thinking will cause everyone to suspect that the person next door has an easier life than me, so everyone stops and doesn't want to continue to work hard on their own position, always wondering if I missed it easier shortcut. (fear of missing out)

Perhaps it is this mentality that has created the prevalence of Taiwanese fraud groups. After all, when it comes to the fastest and most profitable business, there is nothing more than fraud. But in the end, these big fortunes add to the troubles and tragedies in most people's lives, which is really nerve-racking.

Having said that, it's actually like this. Recently, I have seen some people say that the philosophy department has a way out than some popular departments. (Khan laughs)

I would have rarely stated in public what subject I was from.

Because there are many seniors and juniors around me who are eloquent, eloquent, and learned to be rich. A three-legged cat with a crooked skill tree, even if I say two sentences like this, I am forgetful to the point of thinking, "Damn it, I forgot where I came from! QQ". I often worry that my unprofessionalism will make this knowledge more scorned. So I usually squat in the corner and quietly admire the performance of those who are more outstanding. (The cheerleader elf in charge of applauding)

But when I saw students from a popular department after graduation, faced with unsatisfactory life, and suddenly cued up the philosophy department, I didn’t feel like I was being praised at the moment. ) What are you talking about?", even a little angry.

For the first time, I feel that I need to work hard to come out for the friends around me who are not engaged in philosophy work, but are also doing simple but powerful work in society, and make it clear that philosophy people are graduating from popular departments. Sheng is envious of how his life "before" was lived.

Yes, evil, I'm that guy from the philosophy department.

Why do you say I'm even a little angry?

Because, I believe, those who study in popular departments should never once have felt that philosophy department is a promising department before they encounter a disappointment in life. Otherwise, you will change departments, and you won't study all the way to a popular department until graduation.

(By the way, the philosophy department is a famous springboard department. Half of the students who enter every year want to change departments, the other half want to get a reputable school status, and the last 1% really want to study philosophy. And usually The person applying to be transferred to the philosophy department has only three cats, two of them are guys who are about to be expelled from the school and want to come and go. If the unfortunate encounter with the principal who is not good at arithmetic, he will question how we stay in the evaluation. I don't live in students, and I don't want to use us as a springboard to recruit more students? )

Then why did you change your mind when life was not going your way? Are you so untested in the love you've learned? Why are you only now starting to complain that the popular department I'm studying in is not good enough, and it's not as good as the unpopular departments that I never seriously wanted to transfer to the past when I was a student?

I think this change of heart has become too regrettable. Just as people who work hard (if they are not criminals) are successful people, the knowledge that is read well is also useful knowledge. Maybe you don't know where to use it now, but you know what will happen in your life? Nobody knows.

You think this way, probably because there is a very bad atmosphere in the society that affects your judgment, called "I always think that others have an easier time than me".

So you think that other people can get a better way than me when they study an unpopular department. It must be because my path is too narrow and fixed. Maybe his path is better? (Better option for anxiety attacks)

But are things really what you think they are?

When other people are admitted to popular departments, the whole family celebrates with cannons, the school bears the halo of winners, and is envied by relatives and friends during the semester, what are the students of the philosophy department doing?

I'm sorry, we are fighting against the prejudice, discrimination and questioning of philosophy in the whole society, and even self-doubt that just pops up.

Start with optional volunteering, and you'll start to receive less-than-friendly "suggestions."

Then after you are officially admitted, relatives around you will not expect you to have a bright future. When parents chat with others, they won't feel proud of their ancestors, and maybe they will feel like a dwarf.

Perhaps this description is too abstract to imagine such a situation. For example, there were seniors around me who wanted to study at the Institute of Philosophy, but were opposed by their family members, and were eventually kicked out of the house for lack of food. That senior once won the thesis writing award and is a very good and smart person, but so what? Helpless, it makes one's nose sour.

Will this happen to popular departments? I don't think there will be until I leave school and the gears of fate turn to the next.

Not only relatives, but even the bus driver, the auntie at the breakfast shop, and even passers-by who got lost on campus and whom you kindly took with you will ask you mercilessly, "Why are you reading this?" , "Will you commit suicide or go crazy after reading it?", "Are you going to fortune-telling in the future? Will you read Feng Shui?" (Positive solution: If you read Chinese philosophy, you can read the Book of Changes, and Western philosophy is the mother's womb of science. , so divination is not possible, please turn right to the Department of Religious Studies).

This overwhelming questioning and contempt will follow you all the way to interviews until you find a decent job.

I have come across a very incisive example myself. The wife of one of my relatives graduated from the law department of ZTE. When she got married, her relatives proudly showed this as an advantage to all her relatives and friends, even though she did not have a lawyer's license (and still does not).

When this lady heard the name of the national university I was studying at, she looked quite admirable for a while, and then she heard that it was the Department of Philosophy, and her face immediately fell down and despised you. Look, the school I attend is a national university a few blocks away from Chung Hsing University, and she can despise me because my department is too unpopular. This is really interesting.

So, when popular science students disguise themselves with the envy of everyone and move forward firmly towards the dream they think may be realized (at least what they are reading now is what they will definitely use in the future, right?), philosophers may not only not If you are too sure about the specific future, you may find it interesting to read the theory, but you don’t know what to do. At the same time, you have to pay a lot of psychological costs to face external criticism and advice.

It's like walking on a road that no one has traveled, and an unknown wilderness filled with weeds, and you have to be careful where there are snakes.

I can't really say it's pleasant, but I honestly don't blame these philosophically biased people for anything wrong.

The knowledge developed by human beings is mainly divided into two types: one is theory and the other is practice.

The theoretical type is more abstract thinking, such as philosophy, mathematics, and physics, which belong to this category. It is the "first principle" that governs everything. Anyone who has watched Musk talk about learning will notice that he advocates that grasping first principles from the differences between individual things is the key to rapid learning.

This first principle is actually the core of these theoretical knowledge. In fact, this is not an uncommon statement. If you read Plato's "Dialogues" ( Philebus : 14c-18e), it is said: If we want to grasp knowledge correctly, we cannot fly directly from individual examples to principles. , but to examine the differences of these individual cases one by one, to "see" first principles in them, and to generalize and analyze it, to place their conceptual order and relationship, and vice versa. According to Musk's erudition, he must have missed such a classic passage.

Compared with the pursuit of first principles, law, medicine, business management, etc. are more practical-oriented. For ordinary people in the market, they are very specific and have specific and conceivable occupations, just like a piece of red-leaf fresh cream cake ready-made in front of them. (good to eat!)

Immediately you can think of its possible uses, taste, texture, and desire for it. But if I put the "Table of Chemical Elements in Red Leaf Fresh Cream Cake" today, I believe that no one will have any association or desire, but will only say: "Is this edible?"

Of course you can, but you don't know that it is also a perspective of the red leaf cake. (laugh)

Therefore, for these philosophical people who have studied unpopular and abstract theories, if they are not academic, the first question to enter the workplace is: where is the practical part?

I don't have statistics to tell the truth, but as far as I know, I've never heard that philosophy departments are particularly popular for media or publishing. Although some seniors are in the publishing industry, they are actually connected by church members, and they are not entirely made by the power of the department.

After all, there are also Chinese and History or Books Departments (or other departments that I don't know about) in the publishing industry, and there are also Communication Departments and Journalism Departments in the media industry. However, in many professional departments of practice types (physicians, lawyers, accountants, etc.), usually only those from the department can squeeze the narrow door. Although I do not mean that this is not difficult, the competitors are certain.

That is to say, if you study in a philosophy department, you must also become your own vocational training center, learn more specialties than other disciplines with a stronger practice orientation, and learn not to lose to those related departments in order to be persuaded The company hired you.

Therefore, if a philosophical person who has successfully found a job in a non-philosophical profession says:

I am able to achieve something today, thanks to the department I studied.

Then I can tell you for sure: this 2,000 percent is humility!

Because abstract theory can be really applied, not only need talent, but also need a lot of effort.

We all know that mathematics is the only constant truth, and it won't just won't . Until you figure it out, until you see what you've learned in the changing things (like in the movie A Beautiful Mind, where mathematicians see mathematical relationships in everything), that treasure chest won't open . Compared with a department with a clear career orientation, it is far from simple to rely on the power of the department to produce a cake.

And the person who usually says this actually means that he has struggled with discrimination and prejudice, confusion, self-question, frustration, struggle, etc. ) from the perspective of self-integration. (I had swallowed a liter of tears by myself before this)

As Nietzsche said in Thus Spoke Zarathustra: If you want to become a transcendent person, even if you have to do all the things that are painful and even hopeless, you must say to them gladly: "Yes! " .

(It's not the original text, just the effect. After all, who said that Nietzsche is very healing? Nietzsche's requirements are bloody and sweaty.)

This is their love for their own destiny, but also for philosophy and life.

Even if I was denied by so many people in the process, I am still willing to read philosophy again, experience these sorrows and pains again, and say a word with such love and gratitude . (a fool's romance)

Don't overlook the struggle and blood and tears of these people.