It’s that time of year where every university student is either in the middle of a 6 week long midterm season, celebrating the end of midterms only to start to focus on finals, or being overloaded with final papers. Whether you’re in Engineering or Fine Arts, you’re probably right in the middle of the most serious part of your semester.
We’re all in the same boat. We’re all stressed. We’re all working hard. We’re all students.
So what’s with the constant battles and snide remarks of STEM kids against Arts kids on the train ride home about “having it easier” or “not understanding that X’s workload is greater than Y’s” (was that enough math lingo??)
I’m going to be brutally honest here, but besides the infamous twitter parade of jokes about the disciplinaries, the “I’m better than You” facade is ridiculously unnecessary and super immature. No one’s degree is better than any others. And until you’re doing a PHd or in a super elite Master’s program, you might as well drop the eye rolls and undermining comments.
This isn’t to say that nursing’s six-class schedule and clinical isn’t a daunting amount of stress and work, and that engineering students don’t deserve their round of applause for coming out of every year with an impressive GPA to stay in their program, but there needs to be recognition of the design students who have just created a project out of ‘garbage’ materials and showcased it in front of hundreds at an event all while juggling papers and assignments from other courses, and all the students in ridiculously overlooked (and underfunded) faculties.
Every single degree is valid.
And I’m strongly emphasising this for myself too. When I first entered university I was constantly faced with backlash from fellow students, friends, and family of how I’m “too smart” to be doing what I’m doing or how I’ll “never get a job” with my degree. Regardless, I had looked past it and chose Arts as a way to expand on areas of interest and to look at the more cultural and social formations of society and education that are often looked past.
However, the prodding and nit-picking never stopped. From this belittling of my passion to write, read, and learn what I wanted to learn, I started to see my own degree as a joke. I started to question if this was a ‘waste of money’ or if those around me were better off and smarter than I was(which in some cases is true but I’m not going into details of why otherwise that’s a whole new can of worms to deal with). The criticisms and subtle mockery led to a week-long mental breakdown, and led me to discover a graduate program I’m deeply invested and interested in. And you know what I need to get there? The English degree I’m in the middle of completing now.
I did the right thing for myself three years ago choosing my faculty and major. And I’ve looked past the copious amounts of negativity to excel and broaden the field I am deeply passionate about. Isn’t that what everyone should look for in their education?
Whether or not you’ll end up as a doctor or on the supreme court, or in an office job, teacher, engineer, pharmacist, writer, professor, you’re exactly where you need to be NOW if you WANT to be there.
I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face, (and I’ll even advocate for those who don’t choose school as their life path), but every degree is valid.