If you aren’t majoring in something that entails you go to medical school for 10 years, then you’ve probably heard that your major is a joke. You know it’s not. You never knew the perils of pursuing a humanities degree or pretty much anything other than a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) degree. Us “joke majors” have something to say.
We are majoring in something that we love to do. You would think that everyone would be supportive of others following their dreams, right? Wrong. Apparently if you aren’t a math- or science-related major, you are doomed to fail at every endeavor you do and you are one of those young people that are ruining the planet. Basically, you are squandering your potential, you’re lazy, you are going to end up homeless and/or jobless.
We know what we want to do with our lives and we know we’re on the right path to get us there. We knew what we were doing when we chose to pursue a “joke” degree, when we could have easily chosen a S.T.E.M. degree. The idea that non-math and science majors are jokes is hurtful for a lot of people, because what if the only thing we’re is good at is music? Should we force ourselves to struggle through med school? Should we be unhappy for the rest of our lives? It’s just a common practice to dismiss a major because you think you know all about what it’s like to be an English major or a psychology major. We would like to see you take an upper-level psychology class or write papers upon papers comparing and contrasting different elements of obscure literature. College is a challenge. All majors test you in specific ways. Just because we’re crying over a psychology book every night and not a chemistry book doesn’t mean we’re taking the easy road out.
Most college students get the idea that everyone’s major is uniquely challenging. We feel for a person no matter if they have three hours of calculus to do or an entire PR project to work on. The real issue is with adults. When we tell an adult our major we can see their hope for us die in their eyes. It doesn’t matter if we tell them exactly what we want to do and all of the things we’re involved in; they have already dismissed us. They make us doubt ourselves. Here’s a newsflash -- we already doubt ourselves! We may know what our endgame is, but some days we wake up and think “I’m going to end up starving and broke my whole life and there is no way I can do this.” We move past our doubt, though. We have to.
Another argument that goes along with “joke majors” is the lack of money in them. But since when has money been more important than passion? Should we mold ourselves to another degree and then end up hating it and our job for the rest of our lives? Even if we’ll have money to buy a fancy car? We don’t think that’s worth it. We value our dreams and happiness over a fleeting income.
Our major doesn’t mean we took the easy way out either. We’re going into competitive fields. We have a game plan that a bunch of other people have too. We have to work hard. We can’t be lazy. We want to succeed just as badly as any math or science major does.
There is such a negative stigma around humanities degrees. Following your passion and going after what you want to do in life is brave. Us “joke majors” know what we want and how to get it. It’s not by switching to a major we hate or being lazy. See you in 10 years, when we’re running the world and loving our lives at the same time.
