The Grass is Greener on the Other Side

I haunt a few listservs, and my school is no exception. We have a forum for Economics students there, which gets filled with some very intellectually-incendiary (read: provocative) conversation. Recently, an all to familiar evil crept out of the dark recesses of the internet and struck forth. Someone posted a comment about how Business students pervert Economics, and, well, read for yourself:

Being an amateur economist (it's really more of a hobby, crazy as that may sound), I have a question perhaps too redundant for this forum. Nevertheless, I would appreciate anyone's and everyone's help. I was a business minor in school per my tuition financier's wishes. I met
some rather stuck up business majors in my time and can understand to some extent the animosity between economists and business specialists. But recently, I have met more people that have strong distaste for the actual concepts of business applications, such as
business math. Anyone have any thoughts on the matter? Please speak freely and consider this a chance to get some bad feelings off of your chest or defend business experts if you see fit.

Yours,
TTirk

Given that this is nearly the exact-same argument I've heard flung at the social sciences from my Computer Science side, I thought I'd jump in the ring. The following is my response to this all:

This seems like a very provocative topic. Recently, Russ Roberts' Economics Podcast (http://www.econtalk.org/) covered a portion on Strategic Intuition. It covered a sort of Game Theory-esque way of maximizing creativity by minimizing opportunities to otherwise drain one's self of creative energies. More pertinent to this topic, Russ' conversation with a professor at a Business school somewhere East included a score of scathing comments about the education and attitude at Bus. Schools. While some of them seemed incredibly legitimate (come on, some of the meetings one'll be forced to go to are indeed useless), a lot of it simply smelled of passionate but ill-thought out ranting.

The sort of view of a "stuck up" individual who's only interested in elements of the science for their personal gain and has a harsh distaste for seemingly more difficult pursuits like Applied Math and analysis is not regulated to Economics versus Business students. I got hooked on Economics for its tangible application of Mathematics, and jumped over from Computer Science. There, C.S. majors will often conspire too against the greedy, evil Business majors who're out to steal their code for proprietary use, and pimp it out over the vast and terrible wasteland known as the free market. But the C.S. people often come under fire from Physics majors, who might think that their 'paltry' knowledge of mathematics makes them slackers who're only in it for the small gains for algorithm analysis. Meanwhile, mathematicians in general will scowl and point their hooked fingers at the lot of Science and Engineering majors, and chastise them for their perversion of Mathematics into a bunch of curve-fitting nonsense that neither reflects the real world truly nor pays homage to the holy discipline which spawned it. This is, of course, only after Pure Math majors and Applied Majors find time to stop calling each others' studies useless and nonsensical.

In general, this is whole business of trying to generalize character traits off of someone's major is nonsense in my opinion. The passion that one studies has little to do with a person, other than that it's their passion. There isn't a 1:1 relationship between personality archetype and major, much to the dismay of most students everywhere. It's a simple case of generalization, true enough.

I've taken a few business classes at SJSU. While I felt particularly uninspired by the otherwise life-changing religious experience that is Financial Accounting, I rather enjoyed Business Law. While I find myself owning a headpiece, I don't wake up every morning now plotting to acquire failing businesses through hostile acquisition and legal chicanery. If I cannot be so affected by this business class (and I can be lulled with little more than a flashing light or shiny object), I significantly doubt others can be molded into the sorts of pretentious and lazy oafs that you're describing here. True: what you study in college will change your opinion and influence how you think. But to think of this as a sort of mutagen in changing your character into a suit-wearing ambulance-chasing shark is a bit naive. Wouldn't the character traits for this behavior have to be there in the first place? If someone wants to study Business because they want to become a devil-spawned version of Larry Ellison, is it Business' fault that they graduate with a degree and begin to maraud the technology market like it's some sort of securities-based Silicon Valley Chainsaw Massacre? Hardly.

I believe a lot of this sort of “they suck”-syndrome comes from a typical student response to generalize other students' studies into something 'easier' or 'more simplified.' It's a sort of academic masturbation to indulge in the idea that your studies are more effectual (or at least, more difficult) than the other guys', and this lends itself well to the “sibling rivalry” that seems to develop between similar fields of study. Coming to terms with the full dimensions of your major may be a difficult measure, but it's far easier to take out your pent up aggression and stress by pointing your finger at the Boccardo center and saying that “those chumps have it easier.” Certainly, it doesn't help that we get pointed at by the even MORE [traditionally] math-inclined Natural Sciences and Engineering majors, who say the exact same things about the otherwise 'simplified' and seemingly quaint ruminations of the also seemingly math-inept Social Sciences. A vicious cycle ensues, and it appears that this one doesn't lead to hyperinflation.

In short, I caution myself against agreeing with you, Ttirk. It's easy enough to point and label, but I can't come to terms with myself that it's anyhing else other than a product of stress and “grass is greener on the other side”-syndrome.

P.S. I'm floored with the discussion with this group, and more than know that my choice in majors was a good one. I'm blown away that some of the very professors I take classes with will go at it on here so passionately, and eagerly continue to read this board. Thanks for the great discussion!