skyler@violet.berkeley.edu (08/02/88)
In article <12780@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> clambert%hector@Sun.COM (Caroline Lambert [summer intern]) writes: >I disagree. What if you had a girl who did well in math and science, >but did exceptionally well in, say, languages? Wouldn't it be better for >her to become a scientist/engineer with an interest in languages than >a linguist who knows Stokes' theorem? I'm confused by this. I'm not at all sure why it would be better. Why do you think it would? I'm partly confused because I don't think that what a person studies in school has to have anything to do with what profession one ends up with. After all, it wasn't so long ago that this group had some very interesting postings from people who studied the humanities and ended up in computers. In other words, a person might love languages and be encouraged in them and yet never become a linguist. I don't have children, so perhaps that is the source of another part of my confusion. I don't see children as so malleable nor parents as so powerful that they could change or determine a child's love for a certain subject. Well, that's overstating it. I know of many parents who have killed love for a particular subject and I know of parents who have nurtured it. But I also know many students who feel an incredible amount of stress because their parents have decided what would be a good field for the child. I think that the child would be better off being a happy linguist than an unhappy scientist. And finally, I am simply confused by the assertion that one would be better in one field than another. What is wrong with linguistics or right with science? (Perhaps all my confusion simply comes from being a rhetorician with an interest in computers.) -Trish