I was recently at a University-sponsored event that drew a considerable number of parents. My parents didn't even come to my chorus concerts when I was in elementary school, so it comes as no surprise that they frankly don't give a damn about my extracurricular activities now that I'm 20.
Consequently, if I wanted to get that parent-sponsored food, I had to talk to someone else's parents. Here is what a conversation with one dad looked like:
"So, Lucia, what's your major?"
"Political science."
"Oh...that's nice...what law school do you want to go to?"
"I don't, sir."
"So what are you going to do with a degree like that?"
"Go to graduate school and teach."
"Well, then you better marry rich, young lady."
I turned red. It turns out that his kid is a business and biochemistry senior.
Already accepted to medical school too, as the dad proudly added.
Growing up in a family with four doctors and an engineer, I have been tormented about everything from my inability to get past high school trigonometry to my interest in gendered language.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard, "Those who can, do. Those who can't teach," I would be paying my own tuition.
I don't understand the disdain many science-oriented people hold for the humanities and social sciences. One Molecular biosciences and biotechnology student recently told me that what I do is "a lot of hand waving."
Instead of showing offense at the stranger's comment, raging against my family or waving a hand with one finger up at the MBB student, I thought I should set the record straight.
While many on the east side of campus may disagree, grant money is not a measure of utility. The next time you think that what you are doing is so much more complicated and important than what we do in the social behavioral sciences and humanities, think again.
Someone had to teach your pompous ass to spell so that you could write that research proposal. Someone had to research the public policy implications of your work so that it could be patented.
Someone had to spend years of his life studying obscure grammar systems so that the miracle drug, procedure, or technology you came up with could be distributed in foreign countries.
I have great admiration for the people who devote their lives to improving the world through empirical sciences. I acknowledge that everything from the quality of the water I put in my coffee in the morning to the wiring of the iPod I listen to before I go to bed, are the products of hard work and commitment from the science community.
I wish more science majors (and their parents) would express a similar sentiment to us. What we do does not generate much money, but that is not the capital we deal in.
The enrichment, improvement and expansion of possibility of the human mind are just as respectable as the enrichment, improvement and expansion of possibility of the human body.
The work of campus organizations, like the Consortium of Science, Policy and Outcomes, aim at bridging the gap between what appear to be opposites and create a dialogue between them. The marriage of science and social and behavioral disciplines is possible and desirable - even if we're going to be the trophy wives.
Lucia Bill is a political science BA/MA student. To tell her how much you hated your eighth grade English teacher at: lucia.bill@asu.edu.
