Choosing an English major and now a communications major, all my classes generally tend towards the world of humanities. Sorry STEM majors, but I don’t understand how your mathematical and analytical minds always work. I especially don’t understand how you enjoy it. No offense, though, all the power to you. I guess my mind just works a little differently. I love dabbling in “the grey area.” I love when there is no yes, no or definite answer, and that is something that has always sparked my interest in humanities.
I don’t like math. I’d rather write 15 pages than take an exam, and when history clashes with science, I recognize its importance but still get nervous. I owe my dear love of english and history to the many teachers I had in middle and high school who challenged me to think outside the box. Not to say I had terrible STEM teachers, but I just wasn’t into it.
While most people wanted to cry at the thought to getting lots of homework in English class, I loved it. It began in 7th grade where I had the most dreaded, monstrous English teacher my middle school had. His reputation was so bad that parents would call the school and ask to switch them to a different class because of how hard his content was. Honestly, I felt bad for those people who got switched out of his class. Through that class, I gained valuable experience with actively reading texts and learning my base values for revision in writing.
As I grew older, however, books grew longer and classes felt like they dragged. The same went for history. I remember the start of difficult history homework in high school, and frankly I was appalled. Nonetheless, it was this challenge to keep up and potentially do well that honed my interests in the humanities.
As I fought falling asleep in labs or during math period, I would stare at the clock. The time didn’t seem to change and I would almost hear the ticking pulsing through my body. There wasn’t much collaboration or talking, or anything that I really valued about my personal educational experience in math or science classes. Discourse is an important thing for students to engage in. It truly changed the way I saw content in high school humanities courses, and how I saw the world in everyday life.
Sadly, it came time to choose AP courses. The difficulty of those courses almost caused me to throw my interest and love of humanities into the trash. I dreaded not only my STEM classes, but the whole school day. I didn’t lose complete interest, but I felt unprepared for the difficulty. Humanities came easy to me before these courses, but I was in for a rude awakening.
I finally started to feel truly accomplished when I worked through the lengthy texts and papers, even when I didn’t do things quite “right.” You don’t always have to do things “right” in humanities, which I really love. The gratifying feeling of finishing something I put all my effort into became an addiction. Obviously, I hated the process of working hard pretty often, but I always felt amazing after I did.
In college, I have yet to feel unprepared or not ready for my college humanities courses. My math and science core requirements still exist, but most of my day is spent where I feel most interested– in a humanities class doing the things I enjoy most: discussing, revising, reading, writing and breaking new ground in skills that prepare me for my future career.
