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I'm wondering which degrees develop well-balanced, clear thinking, and satisfied students?
Which degrees equip one to live a good life? Or is this an unrealistic expectation from institutions of education?
* Income, outdoor lifestyle, opportunities for travel. Good phd topics across economics, law, environment and civil engineering. And, you make (some, admittedly very poor dress sense, I mean those shoes...) people happy.
Look, it's bizarre but even actuarial studies can be immensely rewarding. Who knew statistics on when and how people die was so fascinating? It's impossible to say a priori which field of study "is the best one" because taken seriously, they all are. It depends who you are, what drives you, and your capabilities latent and overt.
Now law. That's where great minds go to die.
When I was at uni I thought it was arts. That was the 80s. I've had a great life, fruitful, fun, fulfilling and well renumerated for over 40 years from studying computer science in a tiny British post 1950s redbrick university.
I am not sure I'd recommend that now.
The student debt crisis is economically stupid and an attack on the young.
I think which degree program one chooses has little to do with the criteria you listed. "Personal growth," "wisdom," "well-balanced," "clear thinking," "a good life" all describe vague and subjective states or measures. And those states change according to one's situation and over time -- "wisdom" and "good life" don't describe objective static features, only how one subjectively feels at the moment. Choices you make at typical college age -- 18 to 25 -- will affect the rest of your life but in ways you can't predict, and you can't ever know you made the "best" choices. And what makes you happy at 20 years old may not seem like a good decision at 40 years old.
The purpose of a university degree program mainly comes down to profit for the institution, with any education transmitted almost incidental. You have to get an "education" yourself. A school or university can, at best, give you access to resources you otherwise wouldn't have access to, and a credential that intends to prove participation and accomplishment according to a defined curriculum, relative to your classmates. It may also communicate wealthy parents or decades of loan payments.
Physics IMHO. It's weight lifting for the mind, teaches you judgement, precision, and abstraction while insisting results be grounded in physical reality. What better skills for the acquisition of wisdom?
Get in some classical philosophy if you can, as Aristotle answered the question beneath your question - how does one become wise? One becomes wise by imitating the actions of a wise person.
Physics and Aristotle provide the escape from modern philosophy which emasculated itself with the phrase "normative statements cannot be derived from empirical observations". More commonly stated as "you cannot derive an ought from an is".
For me it all led to a study and practice of the oldest Buddhist material in the Pali Canon. This is quite different from the semi-digested pap offered up as "mindfulness" these days. Fascinating stuff, sharing the qualities listed above for Physics.
Best of luck and don't forget to enjoy it all.
Your question, if sincere, communicates some misunderstandings of personal growth and the place of university degrees in that process. I think which degree program one chooses has little to do with the criteria you listed. "Personal growth," "wisdom," "well-balanced," "clear thinking," "a good life" all describe vague and subjective states or measures. And those states change according to one's situation and over tim…