Last week, I wrote an opinion piece on why my residential college's coffee house at UC Santa Cruz should remain open, despite administrative efforts to close it. And while I hate to continue to defame the institution that will be giving my degree this coming spring, I've noticed some other significant sources of educational deterioration at our campus in the couple of years I've spent here.

I am a double major in both Politics and History of Art and Visual Culture (or HAVC, which is essentially art history), which fall into the social sciences and humanities, respectively. For all of the classes I've taken in the sciences and social sciences, I have always been required to enroll in a section or lab with a teaching assistant (TA) outside of lecture to ensure complete understanding of the material and time to teach extra material. Sections within the Politics major are usually incredibly helpful, as they provide a space for me and my peers to have conversations about the material in a less intellectual way, explaining difficult concepts in laymen's terms and making apt comparisons in the contemporary world. You get to hear other people's perspective,s and they can help you formulate more nuanced theses on papers or become more comfortable talking in front of large groups, stating your opinions, whatever you feel you need to work on.

For HAVC, on the other hand, I have only had two classes with sections, both of which were lower division, entry-level classes with vast enrollment sizes. In every other HAVC class, I have had to go without this equally useful space for dialogue in which we have opportunities to look at other pieces from artists we've studied in class, hear other people's visual interpretations of artworks and get help from TAs on the readings and papers.

However, this past quarter, I took my HAVC senior seminar, the capstone for the major. In this class, only 20 people were enrolled, and because of this, it functioned much like a discussion section hybridized with some lecture components. This class is one of the more rewarding learning experiences I've had since being in college; I was able to have deep conversations with my equally engaged peers, analyzing art pieces and theories of extreme complexity. We got to know each other well, and thus, became more comfortable dialoguing with one another, bringing all sorts of perspectives and readings to the works we looked at. This level of student involvement made writing my 20-page senior thesis exponentially easier, as I had many levels of analysis at my disposal when crafting my arguments.

As mentioned in my previous article, I understand that financial cuts have to be made across the UC system, but I am highly disappointed in what they've chosen to cut, as it has negatively impacted students. HAVC lectures are now generally upwards of 100 students (the same size as those lower division ones), which would be fine if we had time for breakout groups in the form of similar sections for more hands-on learning. But we don't, and I think it is a huge disservice to those who are struggling or those who are trying to engage thoroughly with material, which is pretty hard to do when you're just looking at slides of artwork in a large lecture hall.

Ironically, I know many of my friends in other social sciences, notably psychology, complain about the level of emphasis put on attendance and participation in section. This frustrates me to no end because I crave those opportunities for substantive dialogue with like-minded individuals who yearn to learn as much as I do. And while one would expect the arts being relegated to the second tier of importance to be something beyond collegiate-level academics, it is unfortunately as ever-present on public college campuses as it at elementary, middle and high school ones.

So, as a humanities major who has seen the preferential treatment given to the social sciences majors, I ask that we be given at least some more funding for these sort of programs. Our TAs and grad students are capable and eager to help, and our students need help and are eager to learn more. We deserve these resources just as much as the other departments do, and denying us a heightened understanding of our major topic of choice is a disservice to our students and their futures.