Wednesday, November 05, 2008

The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker?

At the pub the other night I spent a long time watching the table across from ours, trying to work out what discipline the group belonged to. I'll warn you now, I don't have an answer, but I'm soliciting guesses.

Clues:

  1. There were two old guys who looked like they should have retired long ago, both wearing casual clothes (jeans and t-shirts) and both with extreme amounts of white facial hair. I'm guessing they were the profs.
  2. Then there were nine young people. All but one were female. They all looked like they were in their early twenties.
  3. Every single one of the young women was wearing black. At least on top. Funky yet expensive-looking. And large, sometimes ethnic-looking jewelry.
  4. They all had short-and-funky haircuts.
  5. They were talking in groups of twos and threes, and while the conversations sounded friendly, none of them ever smiled.

So, it's a discipline where most students are female, but the profs are male. It's not law, because they weren't wearing suits. They were too dressed up to be anthropologists, and wearing too much black to be most sorts of scientists that I could recognise. And they take themselves too seriously.

So, history? Literature? Philosophy? They looked unhappy enough to be philosophers...

What does your radar tell you? Who do you think they are?

9 Comments:

Kate said...

Hmm, I would guess a social science. Maybe Psych? Ling? Sociology?

Lucy said...

I would guess comparative literature, based on the black and seriousness. I'm not sure casually dressed profs fit that theory, but I only know grad students in comp lit.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't think psych. I'm in psych, and we're not serious or trendy lol. And the sociology programs I'm familiar with tend to have at least a few hippie types. I'd guess philosophy or literature as well.

quietandsmalladventures said...

art or english lit. but with the haircuts, i'm leaning towards art.

Jenny said...

I wouldn't think english lit - I know a lot of the lit students here and they certainly would never be caught in black if they didn't have something bright and clashing to go over the top.

I'd agree with the sociology guess. Not quite sure why, it just seems to fit.

Inside the Philosophy Factory said...

Psych or English perhaps?

For sure it isn't philosophy, as only about 35% of worldwide philosophers (including grad students) are female... If it were one guy and the rest female, that would mesh with my grad school experience...

Bardiac said...

They had WAY too many social skills for any English department I've known! (okay, maybe if they're medievalists...)

Liz Miller said...

Drama?

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