One of my husband's esoteric intellectual pursuits is philosophy, and I find it intimidating. I have tried to read it, but my eyes start to cross. I managed (long ago) to get through some of C.S. Lewis's nonfiction, which was heavy, but not as heavy as other philosophers, and I was a Christian at the time, so it didn't hurt that he was speakin' my language/preaching to the choir.
I've read some history/biographies about philosophers, my favorite one being The Courtier and the Heretic about Liebniz and Spinoza. And I'm reading about Rousseau now (wanker!). But I can't plow through their works!

My preferred areas of study include memorizing a lot of interesting facts and new words. Like studying language, or taking medical courses. I love history, but I've only loved one history class out of the many I've taken. I'm more of a self-teacher in history.

About the science degrees you mentioned: they sound cool, but not intimidating to me. Now, math; that's intimidating! I know the Physicist has to do all kinds of calc. But when I was in college, I rocked at Physics math while I barely passed math. I guess it was important to me that it had context.