...if use is not an appropriate criterion for decision making in the academic life, what is? Love. ...The virtues of love as a criterion for choosing a college major...it is not pretentious. "Use" is pretentious because it claims to know something about the future that it doesn't really know. Love is immediate... [love] guarantees that you will work to your highest potential...it is part of who you are, and not just something you think, often wrongly, that you can use.