Recently, I attended a work meeting where we went around and introduced ourselves. Being that the meeting was full of college students, you had to include what you were studying. By the time we got to me, majors like astrophysics, electrical engineering and computer science (EECS), and comparative literature were already brought up, so I assumed mine weren’t going to shock anyone. You can only imagine the look of surprise and instant reactions I got when I said, “Majoring in architecture and political science and minoring in journalism.” Immediately I heard “OMG” and “What?” as if I said something insanely philosophical. It took me a while to process, but it turns out that when you major and minor in three VERY different things, people are bound to bring it up in every conversation you have with them.
And I mean EVERY conversation. The day after that meeting at work I figured I’d get some looks of confusion and questioning but nothing big. In the four hours at my work shift I couldn’t even count on my hands and feet how many times I heard “What was that list of majors you have,” “Are you okay,” and my favorite “Do you even like all three of those things?” Nothing tops being able to say things like “Absolutely terrible” or “I actually want to study medicine” and seeing people’s jaw drops and looks of concern as if you told them you were dropping out.
It doesn’t stop there though! Now every time I walk into my workplace and see any student worker, I automatically get asked how the struggle is. The struggle is real. Even when I say I’m ahead of my classes, there’s always a look of doubt in my colleagues. Not to mention, I always feel like I get sympathetic eyes from the student workers. You can’t forget the constant requests to build more housing for Berkeley or solve global warming either, because those are apparently what every architecture and political science student is aiming for!
The moral of the story is that if you’re a double major like me, maybe don’t tell people both of them. Or avoid the conversation entirely. That is, unless your favorite thing is giving everyone drop-dead shock any and every time majors are brought up.