I was sitting down to dinner with new acquaintances a month into my freshman year when the conversation turned to our majors. I was surrounded by computer science and other Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, or STEM, majors. I tensed up, steeling myself for the inevitable disparaging comment. When I put in my rehearsed response, “English and history, but my main focus is English,” there was a palpable silence. One engineering major laughed and said, “You’re kidding, right? What’s the point of coming to Berkeley if you’re just going to teach?”

This happens time and time again when I announce what I’m studying. One of three responses usually follows:

“So you’re going to teach?”

“What’re you going to do with that?”

“You’re never going to make money.”

These questions are followed with a laugh, as if my majors are not serious. People often can’t see more than one career path for humanities majors or assume those paths won’t be lucrative enough to make a living. They assume my classes are easy, just because they are not STEM classes. These assumptions are baseless. No, I don’t want to be a teacher. Yes, I have a plan and think that it is rude and invasive that this person thinks they have a right to question my choices on our first meeting. But as I explain this, I see interest and respect fade from my conversational companion’s eyes. They make caustic comments about my future or smirk condescendingly if I begin talking about my coursework. More often than not, to them, I am suddenly lesser in ability and intelligence, merely because what I’m passionate about.

English and history are what I’m interested in and what I love, so much so that getting up for an early lecture isn’t a chore but something I look forward to. But I am tired of constantly having to defend myself for them.

From the fellow student who told me that if I was stupid enough to be majoring in English then I was too stupid to be at UC Berkeley to the one who asked why I had so much studying if I was “just an English major,” everywhere I turn someone is ready to put the humanities down. And while I get this in my hometown and family gatherings, it happens most often at UC Berkeley’s campus. As Hazel Romano writes in their The Daily Californian piece “A tale of two Berkeleys,” the derision for English and humanities as a whole can be found all across campus, from social media platforms such as Twitter and Yik Yak to in-person conversations.

Sure, everyone has to confront some questions about their major. But it’s one thing to get a comment about my major once. It’s another entirely to have every other stranger question and criticize my choice. And it doesn’t go away with friends. In those inevitable “I’m failing my course” discussions, my friends from STEM majors quickly dismiss me. And any “A” that any English or history major gets is automatically written off — humanities are easy, right?

English and history classes are not easy. While we don’t always have the infamous STEM curve, we are buried up to our eyeballs in literature, primary sources and an endless parade of papers. An “A” is earned, just as much as a high grade in a STEM class is earned. And UC Berkeley’s English and history grad schools are ranked No. 1 in the world according to U.S. News & World Report, a ranking that greatly influences our undergraduate education. Despite campus attitudes, our programs are just as prestigious — or more so — as the computer science, engineering and various other STEM programs that we as a community are so proud of.

So why do humanities majors have to face the constant assumptions that we are unintelligent, destined for unemployment or simply unable to cut it in STEM classes? Daily Cal writers Albert Hsiung and Noah Kulwin wrote on the worship of science and the employability myth of the humanities, two phenomena that are extremely dangerous for the health of the humanities as a whole. It’s not just these two mentalities that perpetuate the problem. Those of us who study the humanities are forced to wonder why the idea of reading books for school seems to automatically make people turn and run with laughs of derision. Fielding one question after another, humanities majors are forced to question what it will take for people to take us seriously.

I don’t know the answer.

What I do know is that despite the STEM-worshipping environment at UC Berkeley, I’m attending incredible lectures and discussions. Even though UC Berkeley is known for its exemplary STEM education and programs, the UC Berkeley standard does not end there. The English department may not have current Nobel prize winners parking in front of our building, but we have a former Poet Laureate, award winners and people in the absolute top of their fields of study on our faculty.

The next time someone on campus asks me what I’m studying, I will tense up and give my practiced response. I will correct them when they assume I’m going to teach and if they have the audacity to ask if I want to be poor, I will ask them the same thing. At the end of the day, it comes down to one thing in my mind.

I love what I study. Do you?

“Off the Beat” columns are written by Daily Cal staff members until the spring semester’s regular columnists have been selected.

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