I’m a Sociology major.
No, I don’t want to be a social worker. I answer this question right out the gate because that’s what everyone asks me when I tell them this. This past weekend I attended the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology conference in Denver, CO. Although the problem had plagued me before, I had never realized how misconceived my major (Sociology) really was, until I went. And for that matter, all the Social Sciences are incredibly misunderstood.
Not that social work isn’t a rewarding field, because it is. Social Workers don’t get paid nearly enough for the job they do – but that’s another topic for another day. Yet sociology is perceived as only being useful in one area of industry, and that’s just not true. Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Political Science, and History, to a point; are the basis of just about every other discipline. Sociology and Psychology have many striking similarities to Marketing, Business, Communications, Economics, and even Biology.
My peers in my Business and Communications classes are stunned to learn that I already know half of the material because I already learned it in my Sociology classes. And that needs to change. People need to appreciate that we are social animals, everything comes from the social environments we live in and how we perceive those environments.
You can’t sell, research, or organize something involving humans unless you know what makes them tick. That’s why private companies and the government are hiring more and more of those in Sociology in Psychology fields. You can research and observe employee efficiency, consumer purchasing patterns, criminal behavior, etc. So rejoice my fellow Social Science majors, our time is coming!
In the meantime, we should really learn how to network this thing better... Because people need to know, the Social sciences open up a whole new understanding into the world of the human mind. You just have to open your mind.
