Spending the last few years in the biology department has clued me into an abundance of stereotypes involved with my major: super nerdy, always smells like formaldehyde, lives in the library, etc. What I was not expecting is that my major supposedly reveals information about my sex life.
A British website called StudentBeans.com conducted a survey amongst college students asking them to report how many people they had slept with since starting school and what their majors were. Economics came in first place for most sex with an average of 4.88 partners, followed by social work and counseling majors with 4.7. The poor environmental science majors came in dead last (right behind the theology majors) with an average of 1.71.
A University of California Berkeley study took this a step further and asked its students how often they have sex, with categories ranging from “I have never had sex” to “three or four times a week” to “Every day. Without fail.” I’m afraid I’ll have to be skeptical of anyone who answered with the latter.
Even the designers of the Berkeley study admit it’s likely that some students were dishonest with their answers, according to The Daily Clog, but the results are intriguing nonetheless. I also have a feeling that the surveyors weren’t expecting to have it picked up by Nature, so marginal errors were likely no big deal.
In this study, engineering students were found to have the highest number of “I have never had sex” responses, with a little over half of the students surveyed responding this way. Science students weren’t far behind with a little less than half answering the same thing. Those interdisciplinary studies students, however––a bit of an opposite trend. Apparently they never go to class.
The study also reported one science student’s answer to be “whenever the lab is unoccupied.” I would like to give that person a high five.
Beyond the numbers, the question I have is this: Do these trends really have anything to do with the majors? With surveys like this, it’s hard to be sure, and all we really can do is speculate. But thinking about the people I know in my major (those whose sexual activity I know something about, anyway), there is a high amount of variability.
Looking at some of the trends, I could suggest reasoning behind them. The theology majors, yes, probably a little predictable due to chastity and related ideologies, but many of the others seem haphazard with no real reason that immediately comes to mind.
As a science major, the amount of free time I have for extracurricular activities (wink) can definitely take a hit when the semester really kicks into gear. At its worst, I find myself in a shocking state where sleep seems to be the most appealing way to spend time in a bed.
Senior and musical theatre major Matthew Duhamel agreed.
“I think it depends on the workload for your major,” Duhamel said. “If you’re, like, a nursing major then you have less of a social life. But other majors with less work let you go out more and increase your chances of getting laid.”
Thinking about my friends in majors that are thought to be more demanding, I can’t deny that this trend seems to be apparent. They work more, go out less and generally seem less likely to fall into the hook-up culture that our generation is known for. And then I look at my friends in something like the art department who seem to constantly be getting action and consider the idea of an “artist’s temperament.” Of course this isn’t true for every single person; the same behaviors can be seen on both sides. But without really realizing it, these sexual stereotypes by major have been in my mind for a while.
“I believe that more physical people who participate in some athletic activity would be more open to a sex life that was more frequent,” said Ashley Caraway, a junior dance major. “So it’s a possibility that those with a major such as dance, sports therapy, etc. would be more comfortable with a frequent sex life.”
Another thing to think about is the people who are usually involved in each department. After all, those are the ones that you’ll be spending the most time with, whether you like it or not. At UT, this is especially true due to our small class sizes. 
By the time you start your upper level courses, you know pretty much everyone who will be there before you even step foot in the room. Some majors tend to have more males than females and vice-versa, and that would likely have an effect on your chances of meeting someone.
“In some majors, not only is there more time to socialize, there’s also more of an emphasis not only on one’s socializing skills but also on their image,” said Nolan Padilla, a senior biology major. “In some majors there just simply isn’t time for frivolous activity.”
After reading the statistics about engineering majors, I called a friend from home who graduated with that degree to tell him what I found. He was entirely unsurprised and said, “It’s hard to go fishing when there isn’t any water,” referring to the lack of females in his program.
Perhaps there is something to this. It will probably never be answered with true accuracy, but one thing that I would like to comment on is that none of these studies involve an evaluation of quality. So, which major is having the best sex? Quality over quantity, I always say. I’ll keep my eyes out for that survey.
Hannah Webster can be reached at hannah.webster@spartans.ut.edu
Hi my name is Morgan and I personally do not agree with this article because what it fails to mention is all of the factors that can go in to the number of sexually partners one might have. Also it fails to mention the other reason one might have picked a major. By all of this information I mean that when the article states the major choice you makes dictates your number of partners it does not discuss the reasoning for those sexual partners. For example, there could be one in the biology major category who has had plenty of partners and might have only been a biology major due to his parents force. Therefore having no influence on his opinions of women or his choosing to sleep with them. Also there could be one in a communications department in a long term relation ship therefore making his or her number one, even those the artsy departments were known to have more then one. You see, in college there is so much that goes in to the amount of partners. I believe that a better what to have stated this is to claim the the amount of work load would help determine you amount of partners because it is not exactly the work it’s self but how much of ones time is taken up by that work instead of something else. Such as, going out to party’s or clubs and meeting people that could potentially become partners. While a major may determine some of what a persons character is made up of it really has little to do with how much or how little one has relations with people.
Hi my name is Morgan and I personally do not agree with this article because what it fails to mention is all of the factors that can go in to the number of sexually partners one might have. Also it fails to mention the other reason one might have picked a major. By all of this information I mean that when the article states the major choice you makes dictates your number of partners it does not discuss the reasoning for those sexual partners. For example, there could be one in the biology major category who has had plenty of partners and might have only been a biology major due to his parents force. Therefore having no influence on his opinions of women or his choosing to sleep with them. Also there could be one in a communications department in a long term relation ship therefore making his or her number one, even those the artsy departments were known to have more then one. You see, in college there is so much that goes in to the amount of partners. I believe that a better what to have stated this is to claim the the amount of work load would help determine you amount of partners because it is not exactly the work it’s self but how much of ones time is taken up by that work instead of something else. Such as, going out to party’s or clubs and meeting people that could potentially become partners. While a major may determine some of what a persons character is made up of it really has little to do with how much or how little one has relations with other people.
Hi my name is Morgan and I personally do not agree with this article because what it fails to mention is all of the factors that can go in to the number of sexually partners one might have. Also it fails to mention the other reason one might have picked a major. By all of this information I mean that when the article states the major choice you makes dictates your number of partners it does not discuss the reasoning for those sexual partners. For example, there could be one in the biology major category who has had plenty of partners and might have only been a biology major due to his parents force. Therefore having no influence on his opinions of women or his choosing to sleep with them. Also there could be one in a communications department in a long term relation ship therefore making his or her number one, even those the artsy departments were known to have more then one. You see, in college there is so much that goes in to the amount of partners. I believe that a better what to have stated this is to claim the the amount of work load would help determine you amount of partners because it is not exactly the work it’s self but how much of ones time is taken up by that work instead of something else. Such as, going out to party’s or clubs and meeting people that could potentially become partners. While a major may determine some of what a persons character is made up of it really has little to do with how much or how little one has relations with others.