Have you ever been told you do not work as hard as someone in a different major than you? Or have even thought or told someone they do not work as hard as you? If the answer is yes, think about why that mindset is normalized and why it is harmful.
You’ve had a long day of classes, readings, midterms and other commitments. You’ve failed to get sufficient sleep throughout the week and have had barely any time to enjoy yourself. You get home, and you just want someone to talk to about how burnt out you feel, so you start some small-talk with another classmate. You talk about how tired midterms have made you, and how excited you are for when they are over.
“What is your major?” your classmate asks.
“Oh, I’m a Political Science major,” you answer enthusiastically.
“Oh, at least you’re not a STEM Major,” your classmate starts, “then you would really be suffering.”
Your classmate goes back to typing on their laptop, and you sit there, feeling dismissed and a little bit embarrassed.
“Am I even working that hard?” You ask yourself, “Is what I’m doing worth and respect or admiration?”
This scenario, which is very common for plenty of students studying the humanities or social sciences, reflects the harm of dismissing people based on a perceived amount of productivity. The idea that certain majors are “harder” than others is tragic, but also highlights the underlying lack of confidence, which is created by narrow definitions of success and hard work.
Though I am only in my second semester of college, the experience has been nothing short of the persistent presence of struggles being dismissed, the competitiveness among peers and, worst of all, the superiority complexes among different majors.
I first noticed this in high school between Advanced Placement (AP) and non-AP students. The AP students defined what hard work was and everyone else could never work as hard as them or be doing work that was as important as them. This is only one example, and unfortunately, I’ve seen this carry over to college with majors.
There is often an unspoken superiority complex that other students have over humanities and social sciences students. When students express their interests for the humanities and social sciences, they are not taken seriously. They are assumed to not be working as hard as, say, STEM or business-related majors.
This piece is not meant to invalidate the hard work from STEM or Business-related majors, but it is instead meant to advocate for students who choose to study humanities and social sciences. Because what everyone studies, no matter what major, is important.
When people mock people studying the humanities and social sciences, they bring structural factors into it, bringing up job salaries and explaining that the only way to secure a “good job” is through STEM or business-related majors. This is not useful to someone who is not interested in either.
Workload is also a big issue when it comes to belittling humanities and social sciences majors, with comparisons of readings to difficult long math problems, essays versus exams and many other classroom differences. Humanities and social science students are used to hearing phrases such as “what job will that get you?”, “must be nice to just do a lot of reading” or “you’re lucky to not have as many exams as other majors.” While these comments seem slight, passive and are often swept under the rug, it essentially translates to “because I don’t think you work hard enough, what you are doing isn’t important.”
Hard work cannot be so easily measured by types of coursework. To make a career or future out of any passion requires hard work. The idea that the humanities and social sciences are fields of study that are unimportant and shouldn’t be celebrated is perpetuated by people who have narrow views of what success and hard work look like. People apply this logic to majors they deem unimportant, so they can label something as “hard” or “easy” in order to lift themselves up. The concept of certain majors being superior to others solely based on insecurity and a need to know a specific answer for how to succeed in life.
There is also a death of passion among humanities and social sciences majors because they are conditioned to think that what they do does not require hard work or is useful. When students end up choosing majors out of fear instead of choosing out of interest, because their preferred field of study is undervalued by society, we as a society suggest that curiosity is second to subjective value and that insecurity should override synergy.
This implied hierarchy of majors is common in campus cultures across the United States, as far as I know, and may even extend internationally. It is so easily accepted that where your major stands on the hierarchy defines self-worth, when really, the hierarchy does nothing but tear students down and make them feel as though they have to meet a specific standard.
The unspoken superiority complexes and implied hierarchy among college majors is subtle, but very harmful. It erases the feelings of certain majors to build up others, and it kills passion. It should be a principle that hard work is not so easily determined by what type of work is done. Hard work is fed by passion and the drive to succeed. What matters is not what you choose to do, but what you make of it. With that being said, you also only get to define what constitutes hard work and success for yourself–not the next person.