Poli-Sci majors be like "Damn, I have to become president by Thursday for my final". Business majors are like "Shit, I have to exploit the working class by Wednesday". Comm majors have a conversation due for all their assignments. Agriculture majors have a whole corn on the cob to turn in. Environmental Science majors have to have stopped global warming by yesterday. PR majors have a whole tweet to turn in. Pre-Med students have to cure cancer for their final exam. Finance majors have a white collar crime to complete. Journalism majors have a whole list of Buzzfeed quizzes to do.
We love to poke fun at other majors. We love to laugh at these type of tweets and tik toks that make us feel better about what we have chosen to spend our life doing. Though, I love these as much as the next gal, I am sick of major shaming.
I am sick of having my degree belittled whenever I get a good grade. I didn't make an A because my classes are "so much easier", I made an A because I worked hard. I didn't drop my marketing major because I "couldn't handle it", I dropped it because I realized I hated my classes and wanted to spend my life doing something I enjoyed. The reason I am not pre-med isn't because I'm dumb, it's because I don't enjoy science. I chose my major based on my interests- not my IQ. I am sick of having people think that my school that is second best in the country, home to the Peabody Awards, and home to world famous alumni is my "easy way out".
I attend school at the birthplace of higher education. We have a 96% employment rate after graduation. We are a top ranked university. The gag is- no one who goes to Georgia is dumb, so stop acting like it.
Majors are important- not because they are required but because they reveal so much about someone. They tell us what the people we love care about, what they are willing to pull all-nighters for, what they will spend tens of thousands of dollars on, what they want to spend the rest of their life doing. These small choices on Athena are truly so much more to the 20 something year olds living off of coffee and bagels.
Take the time to understand these facets of our friends.
Your PR major friends are most likely relationship focused and care so much about the people in their lives and value your friendship above all else. Your journalism friends love to overthink and love to express themselves and take great pride in how they communicate with others. Your business major friends are very goal oriented and will be your best friend when it comes to planning anything. You english major friends usually have strong emotional intelligence and will understand your hard times and probably edit your essays for free. Your pre-law besties will help you rationalize even the hardest boy problems and will probably give the best advice on what to do and convince you of it. Your pre-med friends probably work harder than anyone you know but will still make time to check in on you and help you.
The point is: our majors say so much more about us than the classes we take. These different interests make us exactly who we are. They allow us to bring different elements to our friendships and relationships. They give us our own little super powers that add so much to the world even outside of the office. These small choices in our counselors' offices are a result of who we are and where we want to be. These differences should be appreciated and embraced instead of compared. The stem majors can't write the way I do naturally, but I would die if I took organic chemistry- or any chemistry for that matter.
We have different strengths and that's cool. So maybe instead of comparing assignments and classes and projects that aren't similar at all, we can just accept that everyone is taking hard shit, everyone is crying in the library at 4am at some point, everyone has that one bitchy professor or that class that convinces everyone to change their course of study. We're all in the same boat- just with different jobs on it.
Appreciate your friends' interests. Love them for their differences. Recognize what their major truly says about them and acknowledge those interests and values and skill sets. Understand how these translate into their relationships and the real world and appreciate that. Stop major shaming already there is so much more to life than your entry level classes.