Opinion
In Defense of Pointless Majors
April 12, 2009 - 11:00pmA moment of silence —
due deference to the memory of the first two programs made martyrs in the name of cost-cutting, budget shortfall and the new “E” in education — not endowment, emergency or extra copies of former-president Lehman’s new book in the presidential suite in Day Hall, but Economy.
As the German Studies Department shuffles sadly off the platform with the remains of its Swedish and Dutch language programs — don’t forget to take those two staff jobs with you — and the hooded henchman of the administration sharpens the axe on a Redbud stump, who is the next in line for the cutting board? Viticulture, landscape architecture, American studies? Your major?
Economy this, economy that, blah blah blah. All we’ve gotten is press release after press release quoting Provost #567, about transparency, quality of education and the principles on which Cornell was founded, “where any person can find instruction in any study.” But when Skorton’s red pen signs the death sentence for the next hapless victim of the economic crisis, what have we got?
Silence.
Silence is exactly what they, and we, and even the administration, don’t need.
Enter yours truly. After spending the first (almost) four years of my journalism “career” writing news for The Sun, attempting to navigate the tentacles of the Cornell Press Release Office, I put down my yellow pad and my press pass. I was exhausted and disillusioned, particularly by the last bout of dismally Draconian devices arrived at by the administration as a “last resort” to balance the budget.
We’ve had to make some hard decisions.
We don’t even know what’s coming next.
Believe us, if we knew, we’d tell you.
But in case you haven’t noticed, I am now a columnist. I was thrilled to be myself again. I would revel in the realm of the ridiculous, the forgotten Straight tradition of shenanigans. Until now. Destiny calls, and I must answer.
Though I have always had an opinion, I have now been imbued with the power of expression, and by God I am going to shout it from the inky pages, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Except throw it away. If you do, please recycle.
Thus, I begin my defense of pointless, impractical or otherwise useless majors by first admitting my personal investment in such a defense: I am an English major.
Let the stereotypes ensue.
This disclaimer prelude is purely for you, the reader, lest you subsequently cry, “I am appalled at the monstrosity of subjective journalism and bachelor of arts bias!,” and thereby attempt to refute or undermine the aforementioned unrealized argument.
I have a very good and very intelligent friend. This friend is rightfully incensed about the decimation of a particular Physical Sciences Library, recently deemed dispensable and deceased by the Almighty Axe. This same friend, granted in a late-library, little-sleep state of mind, recently asked me, “What are you doing at an Ivy League University?”
Why did he ask me this? Because I have not taken calculus.
A “crime” he called it.
And of course he’s right. I have blatantly cheated and abused the system. I have enjoyed every class I have taken in my major, have rewarded myself after a long hard day by doing my homework — reading! Blessed reading! — before I went to bed, and have even looked forward to class at 10:10 a.m.
I have enjoyed English, and, ergo, it must be a pointless major. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake is an expense we can no longer afford. Next Trustee meeting, I am recommending it be moved up in the line for the guillotine. Make monetary room for calculus! I’m sure the mob would agree.
No, I don’t have a career path so to speak, so Cornell won’t be able to put me in a promotional packet and sadly, I think they’ve already given up on asking me for alumni donations and I am not even an alumni yet.
No, I wouldn’t ever dare propose that the also ever-shrinking budgets of some esteemed grad schools help fund the continued education of such a subject that will never help the world. A world that, of course, doesn’t really need literature. Or a coherent sentence. Or the study of a language spoken by roughly 10 million or 27 million people — a conclusion I’m sure Sweden, the Netherlands, and a number of other countries will come to any day now. They’ll consult the next Cornell committee about how to save their drowning economies.
You shouldn’t be scared. It’ll never happen to you, or your major. You are important. You belong at an Ivy League University. You matter.
If you thought you came here to learn, or least of all, to enjoy learning, you were wrong. If you thought that academic diversity was a necessity to produce future generations of critical thinkers and innovative leaders, you were wrong. You are a walking pile of much-needed money admitted to be educated in ways to make your own little piles of money to continue the system of admitting more piles of money. A campus chock full of automaton ATMs.
In conclusion, I have no defense. Pointless is what I do — I told you I was an English major.
You are not yet an 'alumna'
You are not yet an 'alumna' yet. Maybe you should spend a bit more time honing those writing skills.
Choice bits:
"I have enjoyed every class I have taken in my major, have rewarded myself after a long hard day by doing my homework — reading! Blessed reading! — before I went to bed, and have even looked forward to class at 10:10 a.m."
You are switching between your different past tenses here. Where are the editors?
"No, I wouldn’t ever dare propose that the also ever-shrinking budgets of some esteemed grad schools help fund the continued education of such a subject that will never help the world."
What?
"Or a coherent sentence."
This isn't a sentence.
"Or the study of a language spoken by roughly 10 million or 27 million people — a conclusion I’m sure Sweden, the Netherlands, and a number of other countries will come to any day now."
What?
Honestly you don't have much of a defense. I think you are trying to write a parody here, but it actually reads more like a serious critique when taken in the context of your confusing logic and lack of coherent english.
The liberal arts are a critical part of a useful education, and provide important social context to how we live as human beings. They are the joy of our civilization and I don't think (despite your rants) that people are questioning their relative worth. In your case, however, they seem to have been wasted on someone who either doesn't have the ability or won't make the effort to think clearly.
It is also a little rich that you are apparently so incensed at the suggestion that you should take a rudimentary course like calculus 1. It isn't as though you're being asked to take some sort of quantum mechanics class, we're talking about the next thing after algebra and the basic foundation of what we as a species have accomplished over the past few hundred years. Technically minded people typically enjoy branching out and experiencing new things, maybe you should look into it.
Of course maybe I shouldn't be surprised at the blatant intellectual laziness of someone who is unwilling to experience anything at all out of her comfort zone. It seems to fall right in line with the kind of shallow and confused thinking that allows you to comfortably characterize technically minded people as automaton ATMs (by the way automaton is not an adjective) or walking piles of money incapable of doing more than reproducing more little piles of money.
Those two programs deserved a strong defense, and I guess at least you tried. But your shrill and ridiculous column has done nothing but insult two fine programs that have had a lengthy history of academic scholarship.
English Majors
Don't even go there. If there’s one thing the current economic downturn is trying to tell us it’s this: Business leadership needs more English majors. Not because better spelling and punctuation will lead us out of this mess, but because clarity of thought and an understanding of human motivation will.
I, too, majored in English, and thanks to an education that has as its highest values the ability to analyze the abstract and to sort out where people (okay, characters) “are coming from,” I was able to enjoy (for the most part) a 25 year career in business management. Had I not been armed with an undergraduate education in English, I’d never have slogged through the ambiguity, muddled through the conflict, looked past the immediate, or discovered the audacity to lead.
While you often see ultra-specialized technical skills called out in job ads, you must know they're simply creating an army of qualified niche-filling followers. English majors have genuine leadership potential. The ability to write well, read between the lines, anticipate human behavior and think critically are what define leaders. If you're learning that in school, you are preparing yourself to do far more than appreciate education for education's sake.
While this all sounds nice
While this all sounds nice and might allow you to think your education has helped you, Susan, in reality it just isn't true.
English majors are NOT trained to think critically, and they are not trained to think logically. They do not, generally speaking, have a very good idea of how to understand the WHY or HOW of the world around them.
This is why english, despite being a very popular major, does not generally produce leaders.
This does not mean english isn't an important or valuable major, just that it isn't the best way to instill critical/independent thinking skills and the ability to solve problems.