It’s a typical night in my dorm’s common lounge, and I’m working on some writing as my friends work nearby. I can’t help but listen as they debate physics and the benefits of various coding languages, speaking English but nonetheless a language I can never hope to understand. I stare helplessly at my screen where my fictional character sits stuck in the middle of a Montana highway, waiting for me to rescue him and take him back to civilization. “What should I do with him?” I consult my friends, somehow thinking this is a good idea.
“Have him abducted by a spaceship! Or, or, open up a wormhole and have him be sucked into it?”
I sigh, resigned, and stare at the window. It’s not that these aren’t good suggestions but… is the spaceship trope really what I want to use for an upper level creative writing final project? At a school where the primary major is engineering, it can be incredibly difficult to find like-minded individuals for academic discussions. To be fair, I too came in as a STEM major, deciding towards the end of freshman year that I’d far rather pursue my passion for writing and major in English instead. Still, it can be lonely when only two people in my friend group are fellow writers, and only two more are non-STEM majors.
It can honestly be pretty entertaining sometimes, though. My friends and I have had some hilarious misunderstandings as a result of our different disciplines. For example, one of my computer science major friends will say something along the lines of “Isn’t C so great?” and I’ll get all excited.
“Yes, it’s fantastic! There are so many great words starting with C. I mean, cat car carbonation current…”
“No! No more poetry! I was talking about the programming language.”
“Oh…”
Or take the other time when my friend decided to see who could come up with the best futuristic world. I had no idea that he was referring to technological inventions, so I excitedly raised my hand to go first and pitched an idea for a dystopian novel I’d been kicking around, eager for feedback. Only when I was met with blank stares did I realize the grave mistake. Despite these awkward encounters and misunderstandings, however, I still do greatly enjoy the company of these lovely people, even if we can’t always have the most intellectually even conversations.
