The phrase “Everyone’s a critic” will always hold true. The world will always be full of others who will label and define something overdramatically and without their own experiences at times. College is full of these judgements, and there’s probably no bigger judgement that people make when they first meet someone than of their major. It’s one of the first things we learn about a person we meet – it’s one of those easy small talk questions right next to, ”Where are you from?” and “What year are you?”
We’ve all heard some of the generalizations, some of them nice whereas others just plain cruel. If you’re majoring in anything related to English or the arts, you’re pretentious and never going to get anywhere in life. Any sort of STEM major? Man, you picked a good field but you must hate your life, one day you’ll just hate that job of yours too – good luck with that. You’re majoring in Education or Communications? Why don’t you go and pick a real major instead of just wasting your time, you’re probably only doing that program so you can slide your way to a degree with little work and lots of partying… Hear how wrong this is all finally starting to sound?
It’s extremely disappointing when people judge you based on your major, especially when they don’t truly know anything about it. We’re all college students, all here for the same exact reason: to get a degree that we’re proud to hold and one day get a job from that we will love while we pay off our thousands in debt. When you think about it, we’re really all in this together. Yet it seems constantly that depending what major we hold, we’re bashed and slammed with the opinions and generalizations of other people. We shouldn’t be looking at majors the way they’re portrayed by the media, we should be listening to the person instead. What is the story behind them choosing that program? Why do they have such an interest? Where do they plan to go with it one day?
I’m one of those people who looks for the story. I love seeing the passion in someone’s eyes and hearing the way they talk and how genuinely excited they get to express it. This is real insight into who they truly are; the name of the major means nothing compared to that. Additionally, you can get anywhere in this life with hard work and with that some great connections – so that Theatre major you criticized? You could be seeing their name in lights one day. Every student works just as hard as every other to get where they one day want to be; each major is difficult in its own way.
The next time you ask someone what their major is, don’t judge them right off the bat. Be more open to hearing what they have to say about it and listen to their story. You’ll learn a lot more about them that way than you will through some online article or other person who doesn’t truly understand because they aren’t in their position – and respect is a nice quality to hold in life, too. I'm more than my major, and I'm sure you are as well.
