/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.6024338]

/sci/ why are all of you so unhappy? Why is it that people in engineering/scientific degrees are generally less happy, less social and less pleasant to be around?

Could it be that the sciences draw a certain personality type? I recently changed my major to my minor (computer science) and switched to economics.

The whole atmosphere is completely different. Everyone seems brighter, happier. There are girls too. Whenever I take an English or Philosophy class (Lib arts school) everyone seems to much more interested and alive. Sure they don't know how to take a derivative, but they are such happier people.


Sure there are exceptions, but by and large you are either in a technical degree:
> Socially retarded
> No girls
> Feel superior to everyone else because you can do math
> Generally decreased quality of life especially in college

Or something less technical:
> Actually go out and do things
> Fucking girls everywhere
> Happiness
> People you seem to actually want to be around

[Anonymous No.6024348]

>study hard
>get good grades
>be stressed out and unsociable
>get a worthwhile degree
>get a decent job
>be happy

>take easy classes
>be sociable and meet people
>make lots of friends who also took easy classes
>graduate with worthless degree
>get shitty job
>be miserable with all your friends

[Anonymous No.6024351]

Almost 10% of my first circuits class was female. One of them was even black.

[Anonymous No.6024357]

>>6024348
But that's certainly not always true. I know plenty of people who graduated with "worthless degrees" making decent money straight out of college. They are just as social and having a blast. Meanwhile I know engineers who can't even find a job while they remain just as introverted and socially broken.

Again this harkens to my theory, that scientific degrees simply beckon to a certain type of person. People who don't mind dedicating their life to mathematical dribble. Sure you took some harder classes in college, but who really cares? Is life about learning really hard stuff that you'll 99% of the time never even use again? Or actually making experiences and doing things.

[Anonymous No.6024359]

>>6024357
>certainly not always true
It's also not true that people in technical degrees are all miserable. You're cherry-picking anecdotal examples and saying it's a trend.

[Anonymous No.6024362]

> No girls
> Feel superior to everyone else because you can do math
> Generally decreased quality of life especially in college


this is acually my life story,
i ask my self whether its worth it or not every day
the answear is usually no .. and then i
> Feel superior to everyone else because you can do math
just to feel good again

[Anonymous No.6024368]

>>6024362
I told myself the same thing every weekend for 3 years until I changed my major. Started doing drugs and having a blast. Really shows you there is another side of the coin in life in my opinion.

It's not all about making money are knowing how to regurgitate obscure and hard to do math. It's about being alive and doing things.

I guess the lesson is don't do drugs, or do. It's really up to you.

[Anonymous No.6024370]

>>6024368
or*

[Anonymous No.6024393]

>>6024368
>go to clubs and get so high you can barely remember the night
>fuck several different people who you have no lasting emotional attachment to
>have nothing to show for it but vague memories of 'fun'

no thanks

[Anonymous No.6024395]

>Is happy
>Has to flaunt his happiness to people he perceives to be less happy
I always love it when these sorts of posts show up on 4chan.

I'll just copypasta a few things /jp/:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downregulation_and_upregulation
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_tolerance


You're basically pre-programmed by biology to have a fixed hapiness level, even if absurdly bad or absurdly good things happen to you.

Lottery winners

Amputees

These people experience sudden influxes of happiness or un-happiness one way

Within several months to a year, they rate themselves as hardly any more or less happy than they were before their big event happened.

You can be a NEET, and it might be really fun for a while, but reality is that you can't be happy all the time forever. It goes for drug addicts, people on binge on anything really.

All you can do is try to live a LONGER life. And try to aim to feel satisfied when it's over.

It that's NEETism, so be it. I would think NEETism, if you have enough funds, is pretty great. Most people call this "early retirement"

The thing is they expereince a LOT OF VARIED THINGS! when not working

If you binge on anime and vidya and whatever, you'll lose whatever pleasure you got from it.

[Anonymous No.6024401]

>>6024338
>Could it be that the sciences draw a certain personality type?
Yes, it's described as INTJ personality type. Most of them are complete losers who think they are somehow superior to others this is why you mostly see INTJ "communities" around internet.

Anyway, people who are smart tend to have very big egos that direct their lives ergo they are miserable, sad and angry.

tl;dr it's very hard to be happy when you have huge ego

[Anonymous No.6024406]

>>6024395
holy shit this is the smartest retarded post I've ever seen.

you may be an idiot, but you definitely make yourself look smart.

[Anonymous No.6024411]

>>6024406
k ;)

[Anonymous No.6024444]

>>6024393

[Anonymous No.6024470]

>>6024393
i remember every last detail of my drug fuelled misadventures

[Anonymous No.6024507]

>>6024338
> Socially retarded
yep
> No girls
wut?
> Feel superior to everyone else because you can do math
awwww yeeeaaah
> Generally decreased quality of life especially in college
nope. best time of my life - so many hours fugging about on the internet, playing vidya, drawing, reading dem novels, playing piano. wish i had time to do all that shit now (work takes up too much time).

also, i find stem folk much more pleasant to be around than those extroverted, i-can't-into-logic socialfags.

[Anonymous No.6024654]

>>6024368
>Started doing drugs and having a blast

look everyone, a drug user giving life advice to people

[Anonymous No.6024668]

>>6024357
The fact is hard majors permit you to achieve more than easy ones, from a social utility perspective. Something money doesn't reflect.

[Anonymous No.6024672]

What makes you think everyone who visits /sci/ (or those who would otherwise fit the stereotype) is unhappy?
Each of us has unique daydreams and ambitions. Not all of them can be easily perceived over the web to have been accomplished.
That, and personality typing and distinguishment tend to play roles in how analytical people socialize and express themselves.

[Anonymous No.6024676]

Or it could be the massive amount of time spent studying and using your brainpower in a STEM program. But I guess it wouldn't make sense to someone who is destined to a life of answering phones all day.

[Anonymous No.6024681]

>>6024654
>a drug user giving life advice to people
most normal people use drugs at one time or another.

of the less normal, i believe most recent usa presidents have used drugs

[Anonymous No.6024696]

>>6024676
>it wouldn't make sense to someone who is destined to a life of answering phones all day
>to someone who is destined to a life of answering phones
>who is destined
>destined
I know I verbally degrade myself often, but this is fucking terrible. Whether your projection is positive or negative, it loses more credibility the further into the future you reserve it to.

And who ever said retaining focus on a STEM subject always takes massive amounts of brainpower? People who are into that stuff are just neurologically hardwired to handle it more efficiently. The same goes for anything which can be advanced by precision of performance and expansion of scope.

[Anonymous No.6024719]

If your classes required you to study several hour a week each, you too would be unsociable, and as a byproduct of stress, less happy.

The fact of the matter is people in STEM generally are better off after college. Yes, there are engineering majors who can't get jobs--but the unemployment rate for engineers is something like 2%. What about psychology? I won't bother searching it; I'm sure it's abysmal.

Yet, the people in these liberal arts classes are much happier than I am, at least at this time; I can accept that, but doing an easy degree can be a deal with the devil. You may be happy for these (short) four years, but time is fleeting, and after that, you've got ~60 years to go.

Not to mention, exactly how many of these girls are you sleeping with? There may be 20 girls in your class of 40, but chances are, you won't be sleeping with many of them, if any at all.

This degree might not come back and bite you in the ass; you might fare well--many people do, but you're taking quite a gamble. I, like many of those here are not willing to play dice with my future, nor my family's.

[Anonymous No.6024745]

>>6024681
>most normal people use drugs at one time or another.
Underage that's never been to college detected.

[Anonymous No.6024763]

>>6024654
hey asshat
i smoke weed multiple times every week
i drop acid about every month or two
i am one of the most successful undergraduates at my school, which has about 20 000 undergrads
this year, my junior year, i will be taking several graduate classes on theoretical physics, in one of the best and most difficult theoretical physics grad programs in the world
about half the physics majors i know smoke weed regularly or semi regularly and have at least tried acid.
of the three other students that i know that are as successful and smart as i am, one does even more drugs than me and one is a heavy drinker. only one is sober, and he has mild asbergers
so ya, taking advice from drug users is not necessarily a bad idea bitch

[Anonymous No.6024767]

>>6024763
also

[Anonymous No.6024794]

>>6024357
>People who don't mind dedicating their life to mathematical dribble.

[Anonymous No.6024799]

>>6024338
>be around more social people
>they aren't actually any happier than you, they just know how to socialize without being THAT GUY who sucks the fun out of the room the moment he chimes in

[Anonymous No.6024811]

I study maths so I couldn't comment on the engineering & science side of things, but in my classes there are lots of people engaged in discussions, the atmosphere is very "switched on" if you like.

I think the sciences generally attract more introverted types, people interested in novelty over social function so perhaps this is what you are noticing?

[Anonymous No.6024827]

Mathematics is a constant concreteness in the chaotic world of an introvert.

[Anonymous No.6024841]

>>6024811
I believe that OP is noticing this. I once had a kind in my cal 2 class who was just annoying. Always wanting to hang out with everyone and wanting attention. Most all of us, i believe to be introverts since we hate that kinda stuff, ignored him to the point where he changed his major.

[Anonymous No.6024890]

>>6024357
>muh anecdote

Get out before I pump your skull full of lead you fucking arts fag.

FUCKING SAGED, HIDDEN, AND REPORTED!

[Anonymous No.6024893]

>>6024681
>i believe most recent usa presidents have used drugs

Why do you think the West is going to shit you fucking faggot?

[Anonymous No.6024908]

>>6024763
Oh look, an outlier.

[Anonymous No.6024918]

>>6024357
>>6024357
I am going to find you and throw you in front of a train, kid. math is fun. You don't need to be an introvert to see that,

[Anonymous No.6024920]

How appropriate.

This is the banner I get when I opened this thread.

[Anonymous No.6024928]

>>6024763
hey man, i think we found the w33d particle. we blazin it now.

>successful and smart as i am
>successful and smart as i am
>what the fuck did you just say about me, you little bitch?

[Anonymous No.6024936]

>>6024338
I think it has more to do with the quantitative knowledge gained.
It use to be there was some problem and I would be annoyed. Then I learned how and why these problems happened and how easily they could have been prevented if we just did ____ which is not really asking that much.
So before I thought
"Bad things happen, it is life
> it is not like it was a perfectly preventable problem and some poor excuse for a human was responsible for ruining my day because they didn't do their job"
now I think
"I am going to f***ing kill that b****** for not preventing a perfectly preventable problem that ruined my day. I mean all they had to do was ___ "
When you realize that not only are there already solutions to these problems but that they are not that hard to implement and we could have done it a decade ago. You scream at the sky WHY!?
It has gotten to the point I plan to build all my own stuff as good design is hard to find and when I do see it it has too big of a price tag compared to what went into it.

[Anonymous No.6024934]

>>6024338
What websites the economists lurk?

[Anonymous No.6024990]

Is this true?

[Anonymous No.6025017]

>>6024841
This, the sign of a true nerd/STEM undergrad is apathy or antipathy towards social interaction for social interactions sake

[Anonymous No.6025039]

>>6024338
ignorance is bliss

[Anonymous No.6025043]

>>6024990
>dat scarf and clothing

I see people like this at my uni all the time.

I study microbiology and i think its a good median between school work and play. Although I work 20 hours a week on the weekends so i dont play.

I just study and work.

I think i might do research

[Anonymous No.6025045]

>>6024990

What I can't stand is those ridiculously permeable felt coats. What do they actually do?

[Anonymous No.6025049]

I'm very interested in STEM, culture, and arts. I live in Boston and most of the people I work with on a daily basis on the other hand are mostly interested in talking about whether it's OK for one guy to call another attractive; or they talk about their kid, or about their divorce, or some artist playing at the stadium that I've never heard of or some other shit I couldn't possibly care about. They're not all bad people; it's just we're very different, and in some ways incompatible unless I permanently hide behind a compatible persona for them.

I'm really not trying to brag. It's just that we're so different, even when I try to be friendly and take an interest in their conversations it's as hopeless as the other way around.

But it sorta wears on you after some time; we're all human, we all want companionship, and it seems that's something I have to go without.

[Anonymous No.6025051]

>>6025045
Get you laid by fat wide eyed girls who will drop out next semester.

[Anonymous No.6025054]

>>6024338
>such happier
Is that grammatical? I remember avoiding a phrasing of that form the other day because I thought it wasn't.

[Anonymous No.6025058]

>>6024990
yes.
yes this is 101% true.

[Anonymous No.6025057]

>>6024357

STEM babbies will get what's coming to them, don't worry.

Somebody has to mop floors, it's just the way it is.

[Anonymous No.6025063]

>>6025057
US still has this shitty system where the success of public education is measured in how many people go on to college. Or, more accurately, how many people waste hundreds of thousands of dollars they don't have in graduating from college.

Still, it's the best higher-ed system on Earth, partly because so much money is pumped into it. But this sort of credentialism, I think, is incredibly inefficient on the whole. Most people should find out what they like / what they're good at / what will be in demand and then go to a vocational school for that; there's simply no need for everyone to have a bachelors/masters/PhD. It's the culture of credentialism that produces a glass ceiling for anyone who doesn't waste years and hundreds of thousands on a degree they won't need in their professional life, yet it doesn't add to productivity; it only helps create wage-slaves that need to pay back loans.

[Anonymous No.6025067]

>>6025063

>it only helps create wage-slaves that need to pay back loans.

Congratulations, you have figured out the game. Now how do you beat it?

[Anonymous No.6025065]

>>6024990
true enough that it's kinda scary.

[Anonymous No.6025078]

>>6025049
you dont love biochem stfu

no one loves it

[Anonymous No.6025127]

I was chem E but switched to biochem. I finished calc 3 and realized i was just so burnt out on math. I could handle it no problem, but the effort needed to succeed in math and engineering courses compared to other sciences is just so much higher (excluding physics perhaps). It gets stressful putting in more effort to hold your head above the water than it takes to succeed by leaps and bounds in an easier major.

[Anonymous No.6025140]

OP I just started Economics

Are there lots of girls in the later economic courses as well?

[Anonymous No.6025142]

This speaks pretty well to your experience, as well as mine, OP.

[Anonymous No.6025146]

Okay so you have a liberal arts or soft science major who gets to fuck around all throughout college because the coursework is not typically demanding unless you're the guy or gal who's going to graduate and land an entry salary well above median.

Then you have the engineering majors who have to maintain strict social orders in order to succeed and land a mediocre position because they command much higher salaries at entry positions, even counting for cost of living.

That all being said, I am pre-engineering because I like math, I am an introvert but I can and know how to talk to people, and I understand that with hard work and determination, most engineers can earn 120K+ after ten or fifteen years in their field.

Long term benefits over a short term cost.

[SciDropout No.6025159]

I like being around people with math and science backgrounds. We don't act as happy. We don't get drunk and dance on the tables as much. We don't go around playing pranks as much. We don't even beat up people for fun much. Man, we are a bunch of bores, aren't we?

But I was visiting a mental hospital where they had a lot of very happy people. An example of "better living through modern chemistry," no doubt. Acting happy isn't everything.

[Anonymous No.6025171]

>>6024681

You fucking pathetic sack of indoctrinated childminded shit.

Have you never had a coffee or a beer.

See?

Fuck you, you indoctrinated child. You probably vote too.

[Anonymous No.6025172]

>>6024719

Nah man, the ONLY measure for life success is happiness.

That's IT.

If getting high and working 25 hours at a liquor store and having time to do what you want to do makes you happy, you are winning.

[Anonymous No.6025187]

Because girls aren't as smart as men.

[Anonymous No.6025189]

>>6024338
>>6024338
>Compsci
>Girls

You're lying.

[Anonymous No.6025193]

I wonder what life was like as a 20 something in the 80's and 90's. I wonder how easy it was.

[Anonymous No.6025194]

>>6025063
>hundreds of thousands of dollars

The average 4 year uni should run you 60k at full price. When you factor in all the financial aid and shit, you might graduate with only 40k or 50k debt, which is not that bad. You could pay that off in 5 years if you wanted.

[Anonymous No.6025211]

>>6025189
retard he said that there are girls now that he switched to econ

[Anonymous No.6025212]

I can speak only from my experience and I have to strongly disagree with you OP.

First I started studying Information Systems for w/e reason.People were happier, they had much more time to "enjoy life", they talked much more and all that and I hated it.First the though of being a useless sysadmin my hole life depressed the shit out of me and 2nd the people where dumb and annoying.

I switched to Physics and I have much better time.Because first the things I'm studying are 100 times more interesting then my other degree and 2nd the people that study the same thing are much more interesting to talk about.See I've found out that people that study math or physics have much better understanding on subject like economics,history,philosophy and everything else then the normal plebs or the people of the respective degrees.

Also this may be because of me.I have very low tolerance towards stupidity and when the "happy" people start telling me how they partied hard or how 9/11 is inside job or any other bullshit,it just annoys me. That's why I guess I have the ability to alienate this people,and I don't have much fun around them.

I mean its much more fun to me to talk with one smart guy or girl then 10 happy,stupid,bright people.

[Anonymous No.6025214]

>>6025172
I agree that happiness can be the most important thing in one's life, but these people I speak of don't want that lifestyle you illustrated.

I'd like to get across that these people at university with me, doing "easy" majors want a lot of the same things I do--like money--but they are less likely than I of achieving their financial goals. If they didn't care about money, then I wouldn't judge them in this way, but they do care about money; in fact, they make a fetish of it. Not a sexual fetish, but an idealization of the power of money. They adore expensive cars, expensive, clothes, and doing exciting things, all of which require money, and lots of it. They think they, too, can one day live as extravagantly as any other, but it's a delusion.

They envision the world they were fed by their communities: one where a university degree is a ticket to a 50k/yr salary. Things are far more bleak than this, unfortunately.

I'd like to address the example of your point, however, by stating that when one chooses a relaxed lifestyle with such a meager salary, they become trapped in that lifestyle. Say that man or woman wants a family. Dates are expensive, as are weddings, as is raising kids. In the most sincere way I can phrase it: good luck doing those things.

[Anonymous No.6025222]

>>6025194
>5 years
>not alot of time

[Anonymous No.6026541]

>>6024348
>money is the root of all happiness
If you aren't happy in college which are some of the most fun periods of your life, what makes you think you will be happy when employed, where you will be facing much more stress everyday?

[Anonymous No.6026552]

>>6025159
Well aren't you so superior