The post you link refers to departments in the U.S., Canada, Australia, U.K. and the Continent. The author argues that libertarianism has made great strides when you note the other humanities departments which have very leftist orientations. Canada is way more egalitarian than the U.S. as is continental Europe. I’ll bet you that the libertarian trending/less lefty status of philosophy compared to other departments is because of the more conservative American departments. If you subtract the other countries, I bet the 2:1 factor would diminish.

Sorry about the spam filter. Hopefully I’ve recovered all of your comments. Feel free to let me know if you want me to delete duplicate posts.

A couple of points: first, state schools usually dont charge you more for double majoring, but they do charge you more per class. Either way, the cost factor is a factor.

Second, I think you are mistaken on your claim that “philosophy departments are quite conservative in America”. Though I dont know many philosophers, my general impression is that they are left leaning. This post also seems to confirm my suspicions.

Third, engineering in the Muslim world is a whole different story. Winterspeak, a middle easterner himself, explains it well here.

Your blog is too, but I still read it.

Ok, I don’t know much about state schools; so if cost increases significantly for a double major than that factor certainly does matter. Where I went to school, we had a core number of classes that were part of the tuition cost. Anything above and beyond was basically free. Thus, there was an incentive to take extra stuff.
Also I went to a private school that enrolled mostly over-achievers in the first place. Depending on your sister’s aptitude it’s possible to double major and do well in both. But I agree that is not advisable for everybody, yet it does not follow logically that it should be advisable to nobody.

I was a liberal well before I went to law school. But I’m actually to the right of several of my lawyer buddies.

I disagree about instruction in the aforementioned fields–there’s a lot more to it. I, for example, became interested in Descartes’ concept of mathesis universalis which but for instruction I may never have come across or understood. Also, philosophy departments are quite conservative in America–you must not know many American philosophers. Lefty philosophers tend to come out of France. That’s why many leftist American academics love Michel Foucault to death (not me). I went to a very conservative school that is a hotbed of free market thinking. That does not mean that I have been indoctrinated in it. It all depends on the quality of the school and the faculty. Some schools just suck at teaching people to think for themselves…period. That goes for science too.

Your blog is too, but I still read it.

Ok, I don’t know much about state schools; so if cost increases significantly for a double major than that factor certainly does matter. Where I went to school, we had a core number of classes that were part of the tuition cost. Anything above and beyond was basically free. Thus, there was an incentive to take extra stuff.
Also I went to a private school that enrolled mostly over-achievers in the first place. Depending on your sister’s aptitude it’s possible to double major and do well in both. But I agree that is not advisable for everybody, yet it does not follow logically that it should be advisable to nobody.

I was a liberal well before I went to law school. But I’m actually to the right of several of my lawyer buddies.

I disagree about instruction in the aforementioned fields–there’s a lot more to it. I, for example, became interested in Descartes’ concept of mathesis universalis which but for instruction I may never have come across or understood. Also, philosophy departments are quite conservative in America–you must not know many American philosophers. Lefty philosophers tend to come out of France. That’s why many leftist American academics love Michel Foucault to death (not me). I went to a very conservative school that is a hotbed of free market thinking. That does not mean that I have been indoctrinated in it. It all depends on the quality of the school and the faculty. Some schools just suck at teaching people to think for themselves…period. That goes for science too.

College isn’t for everybody, I hated it. The jury is still out, but I’m confident I could have gotten far ahead without a degree.

That’s a good point - double majoring might have solved alot of my objections. But I’d probably still advise against it.

For three reasons: first, is it really worth the money? Most of the majors I would be interested in (History, Philosophy, Latin American Studies, etc) can be learned outside of academia fairly easily. You don’t need a trained professional to teach you about the history of Latin America. You can go to the library and learn it on your own, at your own pace and far cheaper. Especially today, with the advent of free online education like MIT’s OCW and Berkeley’s webcasts.

Second, many of those majors are hotbeds for political indoctrination. Many people entering college are vulnerable, have a problem thinking critically, and are easily influenced - throwing them into the hotbed of liberalism might not be the best choice (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you are a lawyer, a professional hotbed of liberalism, and didn’t follow your fathers political path).

Third, with the above in mind, the only other majors I would find advisable are those that do require some professional training to progress in. Double majoring in another science or even in economics, for example. But even here there are trade-offs. These academic choices involve work, work that is likely to take away from your primary major, and work that in the end might lower your overall primary majors GPA. And since I think the two most important factors for success are picking the right (primary) major and your GPA, in the end it might not be a trade off worth making. But it depends on the individual student and his/her passion for the subject.

When I went to the university. white natural science professors worked like fiends to steer hispanic students away from the hard sciences. Even having a hispanic college president could not save us from them.

We have to work on our children at home. We have no options. Our futures are at risk.

Thanks and good luck on your future career. I still need to make that trip to NY.