Every Thursday, I stumble out of Philosophy of Religion and make the trek from Roselawn to a macroinvertebrate identification and research class in the science center. This is one of the most jarring transitions of my week. Forcing my brain to go from talking about largely theoretical concepts with a circle of fellow students to staring at a tiny bug floating in a pool of pungent ethanol, which isn’t easy. And yet, as an environmental sustainability major, I’m incredibly grateful for the few credits I set aside each semester for classes in the humanities.
My dabbling with the humanities all started at the academics fair during an EMU visit. I was pretty set on an environmental sustainability major, even then. I knew that I cared about that field more than most others and that I felt a strong calling to environmental work. After a few minutes talking with one of the professors, I found myself drifting over to the quiet English major table in the corner.
At the time, I said that it was because I felt sorry for the professor—there weren’t many students hovering around the language and literature table. I noticed that they’d all headed to the business and biology tables. In reality, I think part of me knew that I’d never be completely content in college without a couple of classes in the humanities.
I’ve always been a little protective and defensive of the humanities. They often seem to trail along behind the other fields of study like an awkward little kid who can’t quite keep up. That’s a horrible analogy because the humanities as a broad school of thought have been a respected part of academia for a long time. Subjects like philosophy, literature, and history easily outrival the sciences in terms of historical presence in the academy.
However, every time that I hear a student sing the praises of STEM fields because of their “applicability” in the “real world,” I get just a little mad. And then I do things like sign myself up for an entire course load of literature classes just to support the often overlooked humanities at EMU.
So, in one of my particularly stubborn prohumanities fits, I enrolled myself in Philosophy of Religion. For the past five weeks of class, I’ve flailed along, attempting to make sense of a kind of language that doesn’t sound like the usual science papers that I’m assigned in class. However, in this class, we briefly talked about the ways in which the humanities are largely regarded as lacking in rigor and academic validity. For this reason, in many institutions, professors of religious studies attempt to promote ways of thinking more in keeping with social sciences than the scorned humanities. This class has made me think even more critically about the ways in which I prioritize scientific thinking at the expense of thinking in the style of the humanities. I think many of us do this.
The sciences perpetuate ways of thinking that are rooted in claiming resources and finding ways to continue the detrimental behaviors that we require for our Western lives. However, more than any physical damage that the sciences cause, they require a mindset of acquisition rather than empathy. While thinking about this editorial, I had an interesting conversation with a friend who is a fellow STEM major. He noted that the STEM fields often deal in conquest-like pursuits. These fields assume that there is A Single Solution for every problem, he argued. More importantly, this solution operates under the expectation that we as a society can continue to consume, exploit, and benefit from finite resources.
If you love the sciences, then by all means, throw yourself into the sciences. If you enter a science field because of some sense that the sciences will lead you to academic prestige and a lucrative career, then I advise that you look elsewhere.
I also want to be clear that I have loved all of my science classes. Is it a comfort that I know that I can always have a career in a lab or with some environmental science organization? Of course. Still, I have appreciated my science classes because I love the way that they consistently challenge me to think about the world around me. I particularly enjoy the ways in which we think about big systems in science classes. This is an important way to think.
However, one of the things that I have most appreciated in my science classes is the almost humanities-like way of thinking that being at a small school has afforded me. I’ve loved the spirited discussions about science and ethics, and the attention that professors have paid to the ways in which we communicate with one another and our communities about science.
When we think about the implications that science has on the world and on people around us, we employ thinking more typical of the humanities.
The humanities, unlike the sciences, promote thought that requires empathy and collaboration. I think, in particular, about the ways in which people turn to the arts and the humanities during times of intense difficulty. While an English major does not necessarily ensure a job right after college, it does equip the graduating student with skills necessary for encountering a complicated, damaged world with thoughtfulness and creativity.
