Spring Break
The effects of your chosen major
Emily Riley
Issue date: 5/31/07 Section: Forum
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The fellow student in charge showed me around the place and after business was over, we came to the small talk; and as I have discovered, small talk between college students most indefinitely reverts to one revolving question, "What's your major?"
When I told this curious soul that I was a French and anthropology major, he hesitated and then blatantly replied: "Oh, one of those easy majors where you don't do anything."
Besides my befuddlement to this guy's audacity to insult a potential tenant, I was hurt. I wondered what it was that made him feel this way. Perhaps he had taken a class in one of my subject areas that he did not enjoy; whatever it was, and even though I am not solely defined by my area of study, I felt personally attacked. In college, picking your major is everything; it is strategic and it is considerate of your interests and motivations.
For me, it was all of these, but mainly came down to sheer enjoyment of my coursework and the professors that made the subject intriguing while encouraging me to take risks with my education. Why, then, do we categorize people in terms of what they study? Choosing to study a certain subject is a very personal choice, one that many people know will take them places they never thought possible.
This all telling, infamous inquiry has become the only way that we students know how to communicate or relate to one another. It is the first thing we use to fill the awkward space, a feeling that we need to seem interested in each others lives. Our majors, those titles, serve as a beacon of intimate motivation and a signifier of our personalities. If our area of study is interesting, we must be interesting, if it is a major that the person asking has no interest in, you simply get a sympathetic yet apathetic look. Revealing what our major is can be a risky move, a quick snap judgment of whether the two of you will get along.
This troublesome idea prompted me to start a little experiment. I decided that every time someone asked me what my major was, I would give them a different answer. Just as my mind changes about every five minutes, so would my area of study. It was a great way to recreate myself and imagine what my life would be like had I chosen to study anything else but French and anthropology. Before this experiment, I never realized just how focused on our titles we are as a means to try and relate. A girl the other day that I was meeting for the first time, asked me what I was studying.
"Environmental engineering," I replied. "I'm working on an aquifer study right now" (stole that one from my French roommate last year). She got this look like she was searching in the back of her brain for something to say and then told me she thought that sounded really complicated and task oriented. Surprised, I wondered where she got that response from.
During this experiment I changed my major at least 20 times. In the process I received elaborate, seemingly calculated answers about my fake majors where people thought they were simply dead awful, or something they wish they had picked to study.
Some people were hesitant to tell me what they thought and many others had stories of professors from that department. When I told one guy that I was a business major he invited me to a party the next evening. Another girl, upon hearing that I was a philosophy major told me about the Monday night praise at the campus church.
To many, my major signified my interests, and specific goals, offering to hook me up with an agency working on forest restoration, a software design computer, grad schools offering master's in developmental psychology.
Every major got a different reaction, even if the person had no previous experience with the specific field of study.
On the eve of my graduation, I am looking forward to moving on, taking what I have learned and expanding upon that in a new environment. Although graduate school seems daunting, and trying to find a legitimate job is scary, these are not the primary reasons I am nervous to leave school. In the world I have created in school, I am involved in social activities and a community that is interested in what I am studying and what I have to say. There are professors who grade my papers and take into consideration that I am still learning and developing. They have encouraged me to explore new options and reassure me that it is OK that I have no idea what I really want to do in life. Once I leave this safe haven I will not be so privileged.
Which is why I feel reasonably concerned to go into the real world without a specific title to my name; two words or a short catch phrase to describe what I was doing in college, and my goals for the future.
I have been somewhat of a difficult student for my advisers and professors; I can never seem to settle down and be content with doing just one thing; mixing and matching majors, going abroad several times, and possessing a wide spread of interests in a variety of subjects. Not only has this made their lives more difficult, but it is soon to make mine taxing as well.
For some reason this society is elaborately focused on titles. "What do you do? What are you studying?" We constantly need a way to identify ourselves and the things we do from eight to five each day; without it we are lost. How do we talk about our lives without the title of married, divorced, student, and business man?
I have always understood the significance of titles, but I have never appreciated the constricting feeling I get from them. Maybe, honestly, this is because I have never been able to find one for myself. In fact, I envy many people that have a clear idea of what they wish to do and a comprehensive way to inform others of just what that is.
One of my friends told me they are off to grad school to seek a degree in "tech information administration." What does that mean? And more importantly, I am dying to know how they came up with this name! Is there some secret degree code that I know nothing about?
There must be someone who can give you a title based on combining all of your interests so that you can get on with your life; or am I doomed to forever be without a title, or worse yet, stuck with one title, never to be seen for more than what is on my business card?
As Emily graduates this spring with degrees in French and anthropology, we take the time to congratulate her 25 column submissions over the course of the 06-07 school year. Emily has engaged the Barometer and the OSU community in a wide variety of topics written from both local OSU and distant Senegal.
Cheers Emily
Emily Riley is a senior in French and the international degree in anthropology. The opinions expressed in her columns, which appear every other Thursday, do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Barometer staff. Riley can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.
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