 "Photo: Tamir Kalifa/The Daily Texan")
A new study shows choice of a college major can determine more than a student’s future career, it can also be an indication of their level of faith.
According to research done at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, there is evidence of a correlation between students’ college major and their levels of religiosity.
The study pulls data from a decades-long project and focuses on the before and after results between high school and college students, said Miles Kimball, a professor of economics and a lead researcher of the study at the university.
“This began after we made casual observations at churches that different professions had different religious attitudes,” Kimball said. “The M.D.s had different attitudes than the grad students in the social sciences, so the question we wanted to explore was — are science and religion compatible?”
Researchers found that students who majored in the social sciences or humanities became less religious based on measures of attendance at worship services and personal importance of religion to the individual. Education and business majors were among those that adhered most to religion through the same criteria.
“The greatest antagonist to religion seems to be postmodernism, not science,” Kimball said. “The biggest difference about the social sciences is that postmodernism introduces the idea of relativism in students’ thinking. When students come to college with an established religious background and begin to learn about different cultures, different ideas and people who think very differently, some of that certainty crumbles.”
Vocational majors like business or engineering retain a student’s level of religiosity better because it is more career-centered, and focuses less on “big ideas,” Kimball said.
Ministers at churches located near the UT campus acknowledge that majors do play an effect on religiosity, but that the causal relationship may not be reciprocal between the two.
“I’ve dealt with students who have chosen their areas of study because of their Christian background,” said Charles Kutz-Marks, senior minister at University Christian Church. “Two girls I knew came in wanting to study Spanish and pre-med because they were very people-focused and wanted to use their skills in other countries.”
Students who experience some change in religious affiliation do so because they undergo some type of religious crisis where their inherited religion is seriously challenged, Kutz-Marks said. He doesn’t see many students change majors because of a change in their religious beliefs.
Students interested in studying religion at UT pursue their degrees primarily because of academic interest, and not necessarily because they have a commitment to their personal ideology, said Martha Newman, chair of the religious studies department.
“There are many students that are not religious, but want to study religion because they think it is an important factor to study,” Newman said. “The curriculum allows students to explore religions in three geographical regions of the world, and then specialize in one area that particularly interests them.”
About 15 to 20 religious studies majors graduate each year, with many of them going on to pursue careers or graduate degrees in teaching, anthropology, international relations and other liberal arts fields, Newman said. Only a small percentage of students associate religion with being more conservative or textually censored.
“The interest in this subject may be due to the diversity we have here at UT, but more broadly, I think this pattern between [religion and career choice] is chronologically based,” Newman said. “It’s not so cut-and-dry — religion appeals to students because it’s the 21st century and they need to examine various political thought in order to understand how society works today.”
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Watch out, the Texas Board of Education will soon eliminate social science curricula to protect Texans from losing their religion and to restore church loyalty. After all, if folks start thinking for themselves, they might vote (oh my gosh!) Democratic...