Wednesday, August 06, 2003

unknowingly touching the lives of kith and kin

A weblog-unnamed relative is planning to go back to college, and today she sent me the following e-mail in discussing her plans:
Regarding psychology, that was my first consideration when I started ICCC [Iowa Central Community College, located not that far from where I grew up, and, incidentally, pronounced "ick"] back in 1987. At that time, you made a comment along the lines of: unless you plan to teach, psychology is a dead science. Also, certain people you spoke with said, "counseling" is not nearly as rewarding as what they had anticipated. Prior to these statements, I was 50/50 for accounting or psych, but leaning toward psych.

As a first thing, admire me while I resist the pesky urge to be annoying and point out that if one was leaning toward psych, then one wasn't really 50/50 on the matter.

Instead, I keep wondering, really, did I say this? I have zero recollection of this conversation. In 1987? I would have been a sophomore or junior in high school then. Considering the backed-up intellectual cesspool that was my high school, how could I even pretended to know anything about this. What did I even mean by dead science, unless you plan to teach? That doesn't even make sense. I may have been saying something about the kinds of jobs that specifically look for a psychology major, but what would the liveliness of the science have to do with it. And why would I have called psychology dead? Was I talking about sociology and she just misheard me? I'm now sitting here mortified that the life plans of family members may have been altered by a much younger me shooting off my mouth about things I didn't really know anything about. Was I guilty of this then? Do I still do this now?

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