Like many other freshmen, I’ve gone through my fair share of major-related existential crises. At one point during the fall, I became so stressed about practicality and post-graduation job prospects that I nearly switched from studying English to biology. Recently, there’s been a huge cultural push to encourage students to develop an interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.
I wholeheartedly agree that this is a positive initiative — after all, where would we be without doctors, researchers and engineers?
However, I fear that emphasizing STEM fields can also implicitly devalue the humanities.
Guilt often washes over me as I watch my pre-med track friends arduously prepare for organic chemistry exams or lab practicals.
Their efforts and successes often seem more praiseworthy, more commendable and more admirable than mine. I sometimes wonder if an A I’ve earned for an English paper is a grade of similar value and achievement to, say, an A on a chemistry exam.
As the old adage goes, comparison will kill you, and comparison between majors is no exception.
It’s nearly impossible to compare the thought processes, work and skill that it takes to pull off an exceptionally written paper with what it takes to ace a calculus test.
The sciences and humanities are inherently different, although I will admit that I find the ways in which they can inform each other fascinating,so it seems silly that they must always be at odds with each other for our approval. Respect for different fields of study is not a finite resource and we should quit acting like it is.
Sadly, this is hardly ingrained in our cultural consciousness. Ever since deciding to study English, I’ve fielded a countless amount of questions that generally fall under the umbrella of, “And what do you plan to do with an English major?”
Last semester, Kathy Smith, one of my English professors, turned this very common question on its head by encouraging our class to ask ourselves, “What can’t I do with an English major?”
I can understand how, from an outsider’s perspective, English can seem fairly wishy-washy and self-indulgent. After all, a great deal of our coursework is solely made up of reading and discussing novels, essays and poems. Compared with something like accounting that translates easily to the “real world,” reading “Pride and Prejudice” instead of learning how to use Microsoft Excel can seem utterly useless and trivial.
English is about much more than simply reading something, though.
Yes, it is about reading some sort of text, but it’s also about analyzing that text, considering what methods the author used to convey his or her intended meaning, evaluating the message of that text, thinking about that text in historical and social contexts, synthesizing that text with another text. This leads to forming enough conclusions about all these questions to be able to write coherently about that text. In other words, learning how to take in information, understand it and use it to draw conclusions about larger ideas and concepts. This is something that you’ll have to be able to do regardless of whatever career you find yourself in post-graduation.
Developing these critical thinking skills transforms you into an adaptive person, capable of negotiating a plethora of work settings and tasks.
This is what the humanities are all about, and like STEM, they’re difficult, intriguing, necessary and most of all, valuable.
acgroove@umail.iu.edu
