So I've been going through majors/concentrations like a guy goes through toilet paper, which, of course, means I'm on to something new, yet again. Naturally, as the toilet paper analogy goes, I'm quickly approaching that stage where I hit that hard hollow center, and I have to dig through my wallet to find old receipts to wipe my ass with. Erm, anyway...
Here's a complete Genealogy of Majors:
- 1999-2000: Law
- 2001-2003: Comp Sci
- Fall 2003: Comp Sci + Something in humanities
- Winter 2004: Comp Sci + {something in humanities, or cinema/media studies}
- The week of March 20, 2004: Comp Sci + Military Strategy/History (i.e. CompSci+PoliSci+Hist)
Show Rest of Post
I think this latest one just might work... or, rather, it has to if I want to graduate (ever). I'm fairly certain I don't want to do compsci, but I have to do a combo to utilize the work I've already done (and besides, I like compsci in general, just not the classes I have left). My initial "something in humanities" was just too vague and nebulous, to the point of being unrealistic/impractical. Cinema and media studies potentially may have worked, except I'm more into film production than film theory/studies.
Military History/Strategy would work because it's something I've always been interested in, and it's also a viable area of study. At some point, probably around the time I became an ardent pacifist, I began to suppress and reject my interest in things military as a primal and childish fascination. But then, I accidentally came across the reading list for a class on European warfare, and realized that military history was, indeed, a serious area of study. I then re-examined my earlier convictions about my interests, and came to the conclusion that my being a pacifist didn't necessarily exclude me from studying that which I opposed (though which I nontheless hold a secret fascination for). Hypocritical? Probably. But hey, we're all allowed to have one or two of those, aren't we?
In any case, that means I'll be applying to do Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities (IS-Hum) with CompSci as the major field, and History + Political Science as the minor and supporting fields. I have to do History and PoliSci because all the military history and strategy related classes offered here are more or less equally split between the two.
So, by now, you're probably wondering, what's CompSci gotta do with war? A lot, actually. Especially in modern warfare. But, of course, that's not what I want to do my thesis on. Everybody knows modern warfare is all about technology. Nothing to see there; so let's move on. What I want to do for my thesis is to work on a realistic tactical and strategic simulator (RTSS). A RTSS would be very similar in concept to an RTS (Real Time Strategy game), except there's more emphasis on realism and its primary purpose is simulation, rather than entertainment. As opposed to an RTS game, an RTSS won't necessarily be fun to use, or even easy enough to use without some training.
Who would be interested in RTSSs?
- The military: Obviously. And I'm sure they've already got stuff like it.
- Historians: When scientists need to perform experiments that can not be done in the real world, they routinely turn to computer simulations. I propose that simulations can potentially play a vital role in furthering our understanding of military tactics and strategies (especially in pre-modern warfare).
- Game makers: Since RTSSs are, essentially, uber-realistic RTS's, whatever goes into RTSS's can be applied to RTS's.
- Film makers: Massive was cool. But as they found out when a bunch of guys ran away, a battle is more than just a group of individually intelligent agents violently interacting. A realistic battle typically would involve some level of cohesion and structure that many of the battle scenes in LoTR lacked. (While we're on the topic, it seemed like they had the rate of attrition way off in those massive (Massive-generated) battle scenes as well).
Oh crap, I need to go to bed.
Posted Wed, March 24, 2004 07:50 by Ginger
That last one sounds like a pretty awsome concentration. Good luck dealing with the ISHum people, and let me know how it goes, 'cause I'm thinking about doing something within that concentration too. Hope your break's going well, Ginger
[moderate]