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A High Five to Liberal-Arts Majors: Keep Keeping It Real

Earlier this week, as the autumnal fog of Southern California season change rolled hazily over campus, the newly remodeled Price Center machine chugged smoothly along and students cemented their Fall Quarter routines and began studying for midterms, the few humanities-minded Tritons in our midst were reminded, yet again, that even after that epic tassel turn there will be no jobs for us.

The recent career fair on Library Walk — one of the many hosted at UCSD each year — surely provided relief to science-major seniors concerned over facing a harsh economy upon graduation, as the pathway was full of friendly job scouts sitting invitingly at neat white booths. There was, and consistently has been, very little attention given to the hundreds of Tritons who aren’t interested in those fields (and apparently made a horrible mistake somewhere along the line when choosing which college to attend).

Now over the past two years I’ve stood witness to countless rants from my column-writing peers about how the arts and humanities — and given our own personal standing, literature majors specifically — are basically the red-headed stepchildren of San Diego’s hottest school for science. And though it’s totally true, I’ve made a conscious decision not to go there. There’s nothing to be accomplished by sitting in a writerly bubble, writing complaints about how no one is supporting our writerly bubble. What I am going to do now is proclaim how baller each and every humanities major is.

So to all the kids who took that other chemistry series freshman year — you know, the one that starts with a course simply titled “The Periodic Table” — this one’s for you. Why? Because you’re bold. You recklessly laughed in the face of 20-plus years of parental pressure, sadist lectures from at least one desperate teacher a quarter, a global market system driven by technological advances and probably your own better judgment to pursue something greater than future financial stability.

You, my friends, are the true pioneers of tomorrow, courageously committing your time and energy to subjects that actually spark your interest. You aren’t afraid to admit that solving organic chemistry mechanisms for hours is shitty and, ultimately, pretty pointless. And for that you deserve accolades even greater than those UCSD has obtained.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and in a university overflowing with frantic begoggled premeds, it’s only fitting that these kids would receive the most career support, program funding and course variety. Sure, all that we humanities majors have to hold onto is the Mandeville Center — that administrators have suddenly decided to aggressively reclaim — and one random building hidden among the Warren College engineering thickets, but that’s just a testament to our strength of will.

Be proud liberal-arts majors! You’re awesome all on your own. Plus, what does “hottest for science” even mean? I’ve met organic chemist and UCSD Chancellor Marye Anne Fox and let me just say, hot is not the first word that comes to mind.

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