Every day, my Facebook timeline is bombarded with magazine listicles of “The Top 10 Highest-Paying College Majors” or “College Majors Not Worth Your Money”, all repeating the same ideology that has unfortunately infected our mindsets about higher education: college is about finding a job that can make you money.

This isn’t anything particularly out of the ordinary. I have heard more than one person refer to a humanities major as being “unrealistic” as if it is somehow fantastical to register for art or creative writing classes at a university. Surely, it is physically possible for me to get a degree in history, but I know that what they mean is something reflective of a bigger condition in today’s society.

Especially in this modern age, technology continues to permeate our lives and the demand for those in the STEM field also continues to grow. Of course, STEM professions have always been incredibly important to our world.

Where would we be without the great engineers, inventors, and mathematicians that have come before?

And the admiration received by medical personnel is more than deserved considering the work that they do and the consequences of that work.

But when you focus mainly on the potential financial gain of college, you are losing the important opportunity to do something greater with your life and something better for your community. As clichéd as it sounds, the minute you leave high school is the minute you can begin doing or finding what you love, then figuring out a way to do it for the rest of your life. Whether that is plumbing or painting, it is up to you to decide which will make you want to get up every morning.

This is not a delusional idea made by one idealistic 20-year old (although I understand that I am young and idealistic and sometimes have stupid thoughts, this is not one of them). This is not “unrealistic”. It is incredibly achievable if we begin to change the way we think about the humanities.

Here’s the truth, in the bluntest way possible: at many colleges, not all, it is easier to get an A in a humanities course than a science course. Books can be “sparknoted” online. Essays may not be graded as harshly in certain classes. There are no labs to complete.

This, however, does not indicate that it is in any way easier to be a creative writing major than an engineering major. Everything you do is as hard as you make it out to be.

Even when you do all the readings (for there is a ton) and write all the essays, you still might not grasp an important concept. A humanities major chooses if he/she wants to put in the effort to truly try in his/her studies, and when that happens, it is just as hard as any major in the STEM field.

It is extremely difficult for me to write an essay I feel completely satisfied with. It takes me hours sometimes to understand a certain chapter I just read. Just because I can get an A on a test doesn’t mean I really learned the material. To succeed in my field, I have to show that I understand what I am learning through papers, research, and presentations—just like others can prove that they understand by solving a math problem.

But there are no direct problem solving routes in the arts. We have to find our own ways instead of following those of others, and oftentimes, those ways are wrong. We know the field does not have many jobs available for graduates, so those who really want to succeed have to try even harder to stand out (and an “A” won’t do).

We struggle with different problems than other majors do. Our workload is not the same and not comparable. To say that one major is “easier” than another is both petty and immature. To call a career goal “unrealistic” is disrespectful to the field and the person you are talking to.

Once we realize that great advancements in the sciences would be futile without the enlightenment that the arts give us, we can begin creating a more challenging, more hopeful, and less condescending educational atmosphere for those who choose to make their careers out of taking our world with all its beauty and complexities, and painting it on various canvasses for us to see and future generations to appreciate.