How Much Is That Psychology Degree Worth?

[Armando Ramos]

Except that isn't quite the way you told it here in 1998...

Come on! Cut the guy some slack...he's what, 86?

Klempner supposedly was born in 1938, which would make him about 77.  But I'm sure there are many who would prefer to see him 86'ed.

Speaking of psychology degrees (as we were before Klempner derailed the thread), here's Klempner's delightful tale of how he switched from physics major to psych major.  Just a sophomoric moment, you know, no worries about innocent people rendered "despondent" by his antics.  Sound familiar?

KRRC was, in a backhanded way, responsible for changing me from a physics major into a psychology major, thereby refocusing my life. In the summer of 1957, the idea arose to send a letter to all incoming freshmen, telling them about the new campus radio station, and inviting them to participate. I wrote the letter, and invited people to communicate with me during the summer. Four people responded charmingly, and we exchanged many letters over the next two months, becoming true penpals. Then, a week before we’d all be leaving for Portland, in a sophomoric moment (well, I had been a sophomore), I wrote to those four (Bob, Karen, Marjorie, Gwil), thanking them for participating in a psychology experiment, in which a virtual person had been created by the class, to see if we could fool people into thinking he was real. There was no such person as their penpal John, they were told; the entire class had jointly written the letters, and we hoped they didn’t mind. Well, they did mind. One became despondent and nearly did not come to campus; one wrote an angry letter to Dean Shepherd; one went into detective mode and determined the falsity of the letter after several phone calls; and one wrote a charming letter back, saying that he, too, was a theoretical construct, a UNIVAC program. All subsequently became good friends. And I decided that the behavior of humans was more interesting than the behavior of particles. By October, I had declared a psychology major.

http://www.reed.edu/reed_magazine/nov200...index.html