Stop Belittling My College Major

In college, there are definitely stigmas surrounding certain majors. While some have the reputation of taking every ounce of life from students, others are known as the “easy” or the “joke” majors.

This one goes out to all the people whose passions aren’t taken seriously.

I have been a communication major for about a month now, and I can’t even tell you how many people gawk at the fact that I stay in the library for hours and hours each day, constantly submerged in my work. They don’t think I’m serious when I say I can’t go out because I have too much work to do.

“I’m a Biology major and I’m going out tonight; are you serious? You’re a Communication major!”

Comments such as these are always followed by a chuckle of judgment, and never fail to make me extremely upset. Why am I being criticized for studying something I am truly passionate about? Why do I have to justify my intelligence just because I’m not trying to be a doctor or engineer?

No matter what your major is, college is not a walk in the park. Yeah, science is hard, but so is literature and so is government or philosophy or accounting or any other major that a university puts together. Anyone who graduates college is doing so with a degree of expertise in a certain field. What I do not understand is how people can say being an expert at one thing is more valuable than something else. There are people who have earned awards and fame for every field. In fact, I don’t know about you but I can name a lot more famous musicians, authors, and directors than doctors and engineers.

When you choose what you want to major in, don’t even consider for a second how others will perceive it. Every major deserves the same respect, because the truth of the matter is, we all got into a university with highly-trained professors.

I consider myself lucky to be studying something I love.

How cool is it that I get to go to class every day and learn about how society interacts with each other, whether it be face-to-face or over the growing world of social media. I am becoming an expert in how certain words or actions can make other people feel, how to be persuasive, and how technology changes pretty much everything around us, just to name a few. Are people trying to tell me that having experts in this field is not vital? Do people think communication, the media, and technology are easy concepts to understand? If this were the case, this world would be made up of rainbows and butterflies because everyone would know how to please everyone. Communication is a skill we all use every day, and I’m becoming an expert in it. So please refrain from your disparaging comments.

If you have found yourself in a similar situation, it’s understandable to get upset, but the worst thing you can do is let other people’s words make you question your interests and dreams.