Social science and liberal arts majors—because believe it or not, not everyone wants to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer.
1. Nobody in your family understands your major.
At every family gathering, some aunt/uncle/second cousin will ask you what your major is for the fifth time. You tell them, and they either get a confused look on their face or ask a rude, passive aggressive question about your future. You pretty much have a prepared answer to explain what your major means and involves for this exact situation, since you know someone is going to ask.
2. No, sociology and psychology are not the same thing.
— "What's your major?"
— "Sociology!"
— "Oh, so like psychology?"
— *sigh*
A common misconception (that often results from the above situation), is that a lot of people have not heard about sociology as a field of study and therefor automatically group it in with psychology. If you're a sociology major like myself, this hurts a little bit, since it makes it seem like your chosen major is not important enough for the average person to know about. The easiest way we sociology majors have learned to differentiate it to others is by explaining that psychology deals with socialization and processes on an individual level, while sociology deals with it on a larger scale, dealing with problems of people in society itself. Stay strong, fellow sociology majors!
3. Yes, women's and gender studies is a real major, and yes, it is important.
Another topic that often makes holidays and family gatherings uncomfortable: Your major/minor in women's & gender studies. A lot of people, one, don't understand that this is in fact a major, and two, do not respect it as a major. Well guess what, it's real and it deserves a whole lot of respect. This is a serious major that deals with some scary, dark subjects that affect all of us, like rape culture, sexual assault, the fragility of masculinity, homosexual discrimination and the oppression of women, among others. You might not realize it, but these issues affect our every day lives, and I have a whole lot of respect for people who study this. So please, ignore your mildly sexist uncle when he proceeds to joke about your major for the rest of Thanksgiving dinner, it's him who loses anyway.
4. Your degree matters just as much as a STEM degree or any other major's degree.
You are so sick of people acting like only majors in the STEM field matter. Yeah, biology, mathematics, engineering and chemistry are all important, but don't forget that you live in a society. Social interactions literally define our daily lives, so stop pretending like studying them is not important or influential. Maybe someone with a biomedical degree will help find the cure for cancer, and maybe someone with a sociology degree will help close the wage gap or bring an end to rape culture. Maybe someone with a psychology degree will help someone get through depression or stop someone from committing suicide. Stop belittling our degrees just because they're not what society thinks is best for the world.
5. Your classes are probably predominantly female.
Unfortunately, there is still a weird stigma surrounding basically any major outside of the STEM field as being "girl majors." Yes, even in 2016 people will criticize females in the STEM field (well, and any other field) and males in literally any other field. Your sex does not define your major, and unfortunately a lot of people stick it out with subjects they're not actually interested in because it's what they think they're supposed to do or because their family thinks it's what will make them the most money (see number four above). Most of your classes for your major are probably about 60 to 70 percent female because of this. Cheers to the guys who said "screw you" to expectations and are sticking to a social science major anyway, because it's awesome.
6. You are about as #Woke as it gets.
When you spend your whole college career learning about all the screwed up parts of society, you're probably going to lean toward being pretty liberal. You're probably a feminist, you understand Black Lives Matter and are always a little skeptical of celebrity counts of cultural appropriation. You are prepared to call literally anyone out for saying something racist, sexist, Islamophobic, xenophobic or misogynistic at any time, and Donald Trump is probably your worst nightmare (same). Especially true if you're a sociology or women's/gender studies major.
7. This probably wasn't your first choice for a major.
This is probably because you didn't know that it existed before you got to college. Maybe you knew it was a thing, but didn't have any interest in it until you took a course in it to fulfill some sort of general education or FKL credit, and then you were like "OMG yes this is what I want to do." Or maybe you're like me, and you knew you loved the subject, but it still took you two previous majors to finally land on this one and stick with it (because it's awesome, or you're like me and just super indecisive).
8. The question, "Oh, what can you do with that?"
Or, "What are you planning on doing after graduation?" Or any other question insinuating that your major is not going to lead to great success in the future. Social science majors are actually in demand (it is the age of social media after all), and at least we are doing something that is going to make us happy. Not everyone is cut out for biomedical science or chemical engineering—sorry-not-sorry to disappoint. The truth is, not all of us know what we're going to do after graduation, and that's okay.
9. "I took a *insert your major here* class once!"
That's great! Glad you liked it! However, please don't try to act like you know everything about the subject because you took one Intro to Sociology class your freshman year. If you want to know more, ask me, but do not try to tell me things you think you know better than me. I spend hours and hours each week learning more about this subject, so while it is definitely awesome that you got to learn some information about it, I think it's safe to say I am more educated in this particular field.
10. You always have something to talk about during conversations.
All you have to do is bring up literally anything you've learned in one of your classes—it's bound to start or reignite a conversation. Sometimes I will randomly bring up a subject that I learned about and discuss it with whoever I'm around at the time, even my parents. For instance, you can say, "We were talking in class about the dating deficit in China because of their one child policy." This then leads to a full, albeit random, conversation. No offense to other majors, but how long can you talk about molecular biology or something similar before the person you're talking to gets bored? That's one advantage of social science majors.
11. Most of your grades are based on papers, not exams.
Once you get past the freshman and sophomore year, most of your assignments will start to lean more toward papers than exams. This means less studying, but a whole lot more freaking out about not knowing what to write. Not to mention the procrastination, because let's be real, the best papers are written the night before they're due (okay, not always, but you know).
12. You get frustrated with ignorant people.
There is a difference between being politically incorrect and being downright offensive. When people joke about certain things or make ignorant comments, it is incredibly difficult not to shake them and/or yell everything you've ever learned or researched at them, but it's typically no use. Some people will stick with their views no matter how much research, information or common sense there is against them, so don't waste your energy on a fight you can't win.
13. All your classes are held in the *older* buildings on campus.
Unless you attend a liberal arts university, most of the money for buildings and renovations probably goes toward the medical sciences, engineering and maybe business. Meanwhile, we get the social science building and Cooper Hall (at USF), where you have to take your luck on whether the AC is going to be broken or 10 times too strong in your class, causing you to dress accordingly. No offense to the older buildings, they have *history* and work just fine, but the science buildings just look so pretty!
