In high school, studies are pretty much equal among everyone; people are taking the same required classes, just at different levels with a required elective, but for the most part everyone is on the same page. In college a very common question for a student or a forthcoming student is, "What is your major or area of study?" This question can come from all sorts of people such as advisors, professors, upperclassmen, and peers. Being asked this question always leads to a series of follow up questions such as, "What do you plan on doing with that?" or "How do you plan to make a living off that?" Since I am undecided in my major, when I am asked this question the follow-up is usually something along the lines of, "Oh, good for you!" or "So you really have no idea?" Besides my personal experiences of constantly being asked what my major is, often certain majors uphold certain reputations.
For example, at Marist College the only program/majors that you have to have a separate application and be accepted into is the Fashion Program, in the categories of Fashion Merchandising and Fashion Design. Yet, they are two of the most commonly ridiculed majors. Unfortunately, these are not the only two. Majors that fall under the School of Liberal Arts or School of Communications are often seen as the “easier majors” or majors that anyone can do. Most of the time, the School of Business and Science are seen as the "harder majors" by some of the people that are in them, while those in the School of Communication or Liberal Arts are brushed aside as pursuing an "easier degree."
What is often forgotten is that while a business degree or science degree is incredibly challenging, that does not lessen other majors that are challenging in their own ways. Your degree might be more based on tests and quizzes, while art or fashion degrees rely solely on real world projects and actually learning hands-on from the start. Plus, we are all required to take a certain amount of core classes in college, classes that go along with our majors, and classes that go along with our minors. So stop talking about how much harder your major is than someone else, how much more busy you are, and how your degree is going to be worth more. Because in all honesty, none of that is true. YOU are in charge, you decide how to manage your time and future, and quite frankly you are wasting your so-called precious time judging others. This is not to solely single out science and business Majors, this is for anyone who has ever thought they were above someone because their major was “harder.”
Lastly, it is your choice! What you choose to study, is up to you, so if everyday you feel miserable and dread going to class maybe you should be reflecting on yourself before you reflect on others. My good friend Sara Meredith often quotes, "If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life," meaning, it is more important to be happy with what you do than to do something that makes you miserable and will feel like so much more work because you dread it. So please, stop talking about how much worse you have it or how impractical another major may be because odds are, they are just as busy as you. And -- to everyone in college -- don’t let people walk all over your major. It’s your choice and your life. No, I don’t understand every major perfectly and what they have to go through, but the beauty of studying one thing in college is that I don’t have to. Don’t go out of your way to make people feel bad or less than you because they aren’t in a “hard major” and don’t try to pretend like you know everything about a fashion major or journalist’s classes just because you wear clothes or watch the news.
To all of the communications majors, art majors, and fashion majors out there, or really anyone who feels brought down by others in other majors; keep doing you. Because while you’re doing what you love and never feeling like you’re working, there are some people in certain majors just doing it for the attention and the opportunity to explain how hard their life is. No one’s major is a joke. No one’s degree is less than any other. And frankly if you believe the opposite, maybe you should test out a class in the opposite field to gain some much-needed perspective.
