Kelly luu

LONELINESS

“Hi, can I study here?” I asked my floormate, who I saw working in my residence’s lounge.

“Sure, of course!” my floormate smiled, as she returned to typing up her bio lab. I plopped on to a sofa and took out my Classics reading — my goal was to complete 50 of the 160 page assigned weekly readings — which wasn’t so bad, especially compared to the one that I had for Writing, and the novels that I needed to begin for English.

My head jolted up when I heard my floormate’s laptop shut. “Ugh! Bio is so hard, why did I decide to go into Sciences?” She started to pack up her stuff, and declared, “I should’ve gone into Arts and Humanities instead!” She waved to me as she headed towards the exit.

I smiled and waved back to her, as I put on my headphones. But when she left, I started to laugh. I didn’t think that she’d find the Arts and Humanities any easier.

People often find the notion of needing “brain power” to study the Arts and Humanities quite surprising. For instance, I once was helping a friend with an essay, and after nearly 3 hours of discussion to discern a general argument for her thesis, explain the function, and effectiveness of essay structure, writing rules and argument’s purpose in society, she told me: “I didn’t think that English was so logical — I always thought it was completely interpretive and a ‘do what you want’ kind of thing … I didn’t think it’d take this long to even create a thesis.” Not many will come to the realization that my friend had come to: unlike my friend, few would sit down with me for hours to understand that the Arts are, contrary to popular belief, logical.

And that’s the loneliest part of being an English major: there are few of us, and even fewer would want to understand that what we’re studying is actually useful.

However, that loneliness didn’t really settle until after coming into first year. Apart from being the only one of my friends not in STEM, I only know of two other people on my residence’s floor that are in English. To add to that loneliness, I also refrain from showing any excitement or “geekiness” for my major; even in everyday situations, like waiting at the bus stop, I can’t escape being met with, “but I don’t understand — why would you want to study English?”

Looking back, my floormate was not entirely without basis when she assumed that I was in the Sciences; few would want to choose this field, when the value of a person is squeezed into their ability to make money, and show that they’re instantly, and quantitatively purposeful. To answer the student that I met at the bus stop, I compare English to a mutual course that we were taking, Business 1220, to be taken more seriously: instead of mentioning “passion” or how I’ll “contribute to society”, as most would go about if asked about their major, I explain that English concepts are necessary in business wherever being “convincing” is involved.

I believe that the Arts and Humanities do have a purpose, as society ceases to function without it, and it is in fact, what humanizes society (it’s called the Arts and Humanities for a reason). But of course, that qualitative observation would take a lot more sentences to become convincing — and even more would be required to present any of the more valued quantitative data — but I guess that’s why I’m writing this in the first place.