I was thinking tonight about how we stereotype people. And in my context, specifically college majors. Or rather, not so much stereotypes, but allowances.
Let's look at the jocks first. (I am not trying to pick on any one group, don't worry, I'll get around to almost all of them.) The jocks are generally allowed to be less motivated at academics. As a society we don't expect them to be super intelligent. If they were, in the case of football, we wouldn't necessarily let them go out and run the risk of having their brains beat out. So, the jocks are allowed to be "stupid meatheads."
The science major. Well, I have a lot of friends in the science department. They are totally allowed to be complete and utter nerds. (To them, that was a compliment.) In fact, society expects them to geek out about the most obscure things at the most random times, look at "Big Bang Theory" for goodness sake. I would say that society takes great entertainment from their intelligence. It's okay for them to be socially awkward at times. "Oh, he's a science major...that explains a lot."
Math majors kind of have the same allowances as the science people.
Art majors. Both of my parents were art majors. ...yeah. Well, artists are allowed to be eccentric and mostly just really weird. They also get pegged as high hippies a lot of the time too. (That is not always the case.) It's okay for an art student to dress different from everyone else. It's okay for them to look like they're totally in their own little world.
Music majors are similar to artists. Only, they get the allowance for huge egos as well. Or, we'll call it confidence.
And then we get to the English major.
{insert awkward pause}
Well, they're kind of the culmination of all the things listed above. The most common response to "I'm an English major" is that glazed look that just screams, "Oh...you're one of those stupid kids that didn't know what they wanted, so you picked the dead-end major with no real options after graduation." It always comes from the grocery store employees too. (I just wonder what they think art majors are going to do, seriously.)
They're also allowed to be nerdy and geek out about literary allusions in pop culture. I always love when that happens, it's like I have an inside joke with the writer. (Half the time, I wonder if the writer actually understands that we made a connection...maybe it was an accident.)
And we're also allowed to be a little weird, a little "high" as it were. And if the English major is going into writing, there comes the ego.
But you know? Just once, I would like to have my own little niche that I fit into instead of having one foot in all of them. You know? I want someone to be able to look at me, without noticing my books or journals, and think, "English major," the way I can do with just about any other major on campus.
Let's look at the jocks first. (I am not trying to pick on any one group, don't worry, I'll get around to almost all of them.) The jocks are generally allowed to be less motivated at academics. As a society we don't expect them to be super intelligent. If they were, in the case of football, we wouldn't necessarily let them go out and run the risk of having their brains beat out. So, the jocks are allowed to be "stupid meatheads."
The science major. Well, I have a lot of friends in the science department. They are totally allowed to be complete and utter nerds. (To them, that was a compliment.) In fact, society expects them to geek out about the most obscure things at the most random times, look at "Big Bang Theory" for goodness sake. I would say that society takes great entertainment from their intelligence. It's okay for them to be socially awkward at times. "Oh, he's a science major...that explains a lot."
Math majors kind of have the same allowances as the science people.
Art majors. Both of my parents were art majors. ...yeah. Well, artists are allowed to be eccentric and mostly just really weird. They also get pegged as high hippies a lot of the time too. (That is not always the case.) It's okay for an art student to dress different from everyone else. It's okay for them to look like they're totally in their own little world.
Music majors are similar to artists. Only, they get the allowance for huge egos as well. Or, we'll call it confidence.
And then we get to the English major.
{insert awkward pause}
Well, they're kind of the culmination of all the things listed above. The most common response to "I'm an English major" is that glazed look that just screams, "Oh...you're one of those stupid kids that didn't know what they wanted, so you picked the dead-end major with no real options after graduation." It always comes from the grocery store employees too. (I just wonder what they think art majors are going to do, seriously.)
They're also allowed to be nerdy and geek out about literary allusions in pop culture. I always love when that happens, it's like I have an inside joke with the writer. (Half the time, I wonder if the writer actually understands that we made a connection...maybe it was an accident.)
And we're also allowed to be a little weird, a little "high" as it were. And if the English major is going into writing, there comes the ego.
But you know? Just once, I would like to have my own little niche that I fit into instead of having one foot in all of them. You know? I want someone to be able to look at me, without noticing my books or journals, and think, "English major," the way I can do with just about any other major on campus.
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