I Can Be a PhD Too!

After six years of singing "No more teachers no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks" I am now once again back in school; more specifically, I am working on my MBA. It's been about a year now and I'm probably a little less than halfway through but so far the experience has been fun. I think I'm able to enjoy the classes a bit more now due in large part to the fact that I've been out in the working world for some time so I can relate to some of the concepts they teach us in class now. It's always a benefit when you have some background to what you're learning and that's never more true than in college classes. I used to be in awe of the students who I went to college with who were taking classes and holding down jobs. I was even more in awe of those few who also added to their burdens by double-majoring. For me it was enough work to handle one major, let alone two. But perhaps the reason for it was that they didn't have the minor I was looking for.

It was recently reported that Claremont Graduate University is now proudly offering the first doctoral psychology program focusing on what makes people happy. Now you may think I'm joking (and in case you're wondering... yes... I am writing this to illicit smiles as part of my admission essay to the program) you can look it up online and see that it is the truth. Now I think it's a noble effort to want to find out what makes people happy. Were the world but a bit happier I think we would be in a much better place. Perhaps it would be like the happy utopia we see in shows like Star Trek where the world is at piece and we are only fighting enemies from space with bad nose jobs and weird accents. Still; doesn't this strike anyone as being a bit.... subjective?

I profess that I'm not a psychologist and although I've taken courses in psychology in high school and college, there is a difference in theory and reality. There are many different schools of thought when it comes to psychology and it's difficult to nail it down to one theory that is superior to the others. Also, how can you say that someone is happy and when someone is not? According to the news item, the course will focus heavily on research methodologies and statistics. Again though, my question still stands; how can you measure something that is so subjective. If you ask me to rate the level of happiness I am on Friday versus the happiness I experience on a Friday that is a payday, the difference will be there but it's so much harder to describe.

Perhaps the course will help narrow down the criteria and we will have choices reduced to yes and no type queries that will either give us very broad results or will make it quite clear as to what really makes us happy. For me, happiness can come from reading a book I enjoy, riding my bike for another few miles, eating chocolate and liverwurst. For others it may be chewing tobacco and singing off-key; for psychopathic killers, happiness is often something much more disturbing. The point is that there is such a broad spectrum that I can't see how someone will make progress in determining what makes us happy. Will the end result be research in development of a happy pill which will make everyone laugh and smile all the time, even in the face of adversity?

Perhaps. Or perhaps the ultimate goal of the course will be to spring up a bevy of 'experts' who will go on talk shows and news programs talking about the psychological reasoning behind why someone did something. I mean you have criminal psychologists on television trying to justify why a killer may have murdered someone, we'll soon have happiness doctors telling us that it isn't his fault due to his seeking happiness. I can see it now, instead of the insanity plea there will now be the happiness plea. Locking up murderers will be wrong because the founding fathers were the ones who said "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." You can't stifle the people! Wow! Looks like I already have my doctoral thesis done. Just call me Doctor Happy.