Ode to self-involved STEM majors
February 26, 2020
Gabe Darley is majoring in Computer Science and English.
Tulane is a school that excels in fairly representing both the arts and the sciences. One school does not academically dominate the other in numbers nor in perceived presence in campus culture. For the most part, people tend not to discriminate when choosing friends or roommates based on academic involvement alone. Numbers nerds and literature fiends can coexist peacefully.
While friendship across academic disciplines is very common, it is not without its problems. Foremost among these is the slow but certain social devaluation of the liberal arts degree, a folly that no STEM major can truly escape.
When it comes to degrees, science majors can be egotistical. Not all are, of course, but there is a specific type of person who occupies this field and exists in large enough numbers to be noticeable.
This person is guilty of many annoying habits, not least of which is the dreaded “I was up all night” speech. All Tulane students know this rant well. Although it varies from morning to morning, the conversation one has with the speech-giver typically goes something like this:
“Hey! How’d you sleep?”
“Oh, terribly. I was up all night. I had to go to office hours, finish a problem set, submit a lab, chug two five-hour energies, inject myself with an Emergen-C/coffee mixture and fight off raccoons that invaded my bathroom trash can.”
This daily conversation sits on a long list of annoying STEM habits, among such infamous bits as: an unprompted, unnecessary explanation of someone else’s homework; police-style interrogation of career plans for your liberal arts degree; and a trip down high school memory lane — featuring their valedictorian title and ACT score.
These kinds of interactions reflect something larger, a “grind” culture in which hard work is respected and met with a social medal of bravery. Between science majors, it inspires competition, a competition for the owner of the more difficult night, the lone sailor of more treacherous seas. Between a science major and a liberal arts major, it roughly translates to “You are unlike me. I am smart because I stayed up, and you are not.”
And most importantly, the entire culture is completely fabricated.
The truth about the classes here at Tulane is that they all require hard work. To be done right, to successfully complete the quest for knowledge in any class in any program, Tulane students have to work.
Sure, there are kids who skate by without reading the books for their classes. But those people are not relegated to philosophy or sociology alone. Freeloaders are everywhere. Just because science majors are more publicly penalized through big red marks on tests does not mean there aren’t consequences for sloppy work in other fields.
Writing papers is hard. Focusing on old literature is harder. But to the cellular and molecular biology major who stayed up all night studying, it doesn’t matter if their English major friend might have stayed up writing. The scale will forever be tilted in their favor, their peer’s major forever tarred with the designation of “easy.” This in addition to the fact that, in many social science classes, there are often more papers than there are tests in the classes about hard sciences.
Suffice it to say, college is difficult in general. Tulane students of all disciplines have to work hard to get the grades they want. Within any major, you can find slackers and studiers.
So why then have we established this arbitrary designation of some majors as the most respected? Because they will theoretically yield higher salaries? Because we value numbers and facts over words and art?
It doesn’t really matter why. What matters is that scientifically minded individuals have claimed some kind of academic high ground and refuse to come down. It’s tiresome to indulge and more importantly, it’s actively harmful. No one wants to feel like they’re wasting time learning something they love.
So, science majors, put down your guns and cease firing. Beyond the fact that your sleepless-night story is boring, it damages your friendships and it damages your friends. Ask yourself: is this undeserved ego boost worth it?
chemistry major • Mar 4, 2020 at 11:05 am
This piece certainly has merit. I do believe that there are certain people (across all majors) that do look down on a liberal arts degree, but I do not believe it is to the extent that this piece describes. I agree that Tulane fairly represents both the arts and sciences and that friendships amongst the academic disciplines are extremely common (my two roommates are HIstory and English). The “social devaluation of the liberal arts degree” is real and present in society, but to boldy declare that “no STEM major can truly escape” ascribing to this ideology is not only an inaccurate representation of the academic community here at Tulane but a direct insult to STEM majors. Certainly, there may be some STEM majors that are “egotistical,” but in my experience, that has never been the majority. The “I was up all night” speech is not necessarily a statement to assert academic dominance, but instead a call for empathy and understanding. Within the STEM community at Tulane, I find there is more camaraderie than competition. The “I was up all night” conversation and the “unnecessary explanation of homework” is more “I’m stressed and I know you are too” than “I’ve done more work than you.” The trip down “high school memory lane” is not limited to STEM students and is most likely a student relating to a time where they felt more in control of their life rather than a reiteration of “I’m somehow better than you.” Of course, there are exception, including that occasional STEM student who loves to describe to others exactly how much he/she prepared for that last test in comparison to others, but more often than not, that comes from a place of academic insecurity and unease rather than malicious intent. A little bit of compassion and understanding can do wonders in those cases. I agree that classes here at Tulane all require hard work and that college is difficult in general, so I feel that it is important to show kindness towards others whose situation you may never know entirely. So, instead of telling STEM majors to stop “boring” their liberal arts friends with their “annoying” stories about the unpleasantries that may come with being a STEM major, how about all of us as students show a little empathy to each other regardless of whatever field we’ve chosen to study. We all have homework to do, anyways.
Comment • Mar 3, 2020 at 8:07 pm
I think one problem we are having in this discussion is that grades in general are not a ubiquitous, full-proof way of accessing knowledge. Grades are numeric, so they offer easy ways of accessing the difficulty of a class or the success of a student. But they are often misleading. It is true that my STEM major friends seem to have a harder time earning A’s than I do. Obviously this is not because they are less-smart. It is because the average distribution of test grades in a STEM class will typically be lower than in a liberal arts class. But does this mean one of us is learning more? Do this mean one of us has taken the “easy road”? I don’t think so. I feel challenged and intellectually stimulated by my liberal arts classes. I also enjoy them. The issue of grading is a separate conversation; Maybe our academic system has some inherent flaws and biases when comparing STEM and liberal arts. But just because the system is flawed does not mean that one route is universally harder or more respectable, nor does it mean that all STEM majors are self-involved egos.
stem major • Feb 29, 2020 at 11:24 am
I personally feel as though chem is harder than reading. we all know how to read. not everyone knows how to do chem. and that’s just the foundation, in my opinion, of why a stem major is harder.