Institutions of higher education serve not only to prepare students for the working world, but also to open young adults’ eyes to the reality of diversity and just how prevalent it is. When we think of diversity, our minds immediately go to different ethnicities, races, languages, and nations. But the fact of the matter is, there are much smaller examples of diversity that we still need to respect just as much as all of the others.
Like college majors.
It seems so silly, and you might be wondering, “how can you consider that an example of diversity?” There is a huge variety of majors that you can choose from when you apply to college, more so now than ever before. Almost everyone is able to find their niche and spend a few years of their lives learning more about their subject of choice. You’d think that we’d be able to coexist much more easily, then, since most of us are already content with where we are as individuals.
But there’s been a lot of conflict recently regarding the legitimacy of one college major versus that of another. Here are just a few examples of what I’m talking about:
Declaring a subject to be your major means that you’re dedicated to learning as much as you can about something you find interesting in some way. It means you’re spending thousands of dollars and countless hours thinking about how you can improve your knowledge of an art or a science or another subdivision of a subject.
And it hurts a lot to have your passion belittled by someone else who doesn’t really know how much it means to you.
For a lot of people, their chosen field of study is reflective of some aspect of who they are inside.
You can have education majors who want to be teachers because they want more than anything else to enlighten young minds and feel impactful in others’ lives. Psychology majors could have been inspired to take this path by drug abuse in their families or by personal struggles with mental illness. Or maybe an English major just really, really loves writing and wants a career they can be passionate about.
But honestly, it really shouldn’t matter why someone has chosen to study a particular subject. It’s none of your business. There is no reason why you should think your major is better than someone else’s. You are entitled to your personal preferences, of course. You’re allowed to have a deep, burning hatred for math, and you’re allowed to believe that there is no better subject than biochemistry. What you shouldn’t do is try to put other people down just because they don’t agree with you.
Also, fun fact: you really don’t have the right to tell anyone that their major isn’t as hard as yours.
I’ve overheard too many arguments between people of different majors based on how one of them is allegedly much more difficult than the other. It’s ridiculous; you’re comparing two studies that are obviously not the same, otherwise, they would be grouped into one discipline. You’re dealing with apples and oranges and STILL, you feel the need to tell your friends that their majors are inferior to yours simply because you can’t understand how their studies work.
Chemistry majors, music majors, dance majors, art majors, nursing majors, and everyone else in between are not wrong when they say that their coursework is challenging. You are enrolled in college because you wanted to learn more about something you’re interested in. You are testing yourself and developing new skills in a particular field, so of course, it’s going to be difficult at times. Every student goes through this regardless of what their specific classes entail. All college majors are meant to be hard because they’re challenging you intellectually in ways you haven’t yet encountered.
All in all, you should think long and hard about a comment you want to make about a friend’s major. Think about how it might affect them; it’s all fine and good, after all, until a joke you meant to be purely funny is taken to a more serious level.
Or here’s a better idea: study for all of those exams you have coming up instead of wondering why “nobody else appears to be working as hard as you are”.