Whenever I look through Princeton Undergraduate Announcement, I'm always amazed at the huge range of departments and classes. At a University like ours, the number of different departments and fields of study is truly remarkable.
Yet this diversity of studies can provide for some rivalry between departments. Engineering and English majors will sometimes compete over whose major is better. So do Economics and Comp. Lit. majors. And History and Math majors. And Philosophy and Molbio majors. And Woodie Woo and Chemistry. In fact, a student in just about any department thinks that their department is better than all the others.
And these students have a number of reasons for thinking so. Econ majors and Engineers emphasize the great jobs they'll get after college. They talk about being able to build bridges or analyze markets, construct planes or understand complex fiscal policies. They focus on the utility that their studies have. Personally, however, I love literature and philosophy. I think that studying it for its own sake is very important. But what troubles me is how I sometimes dismiss these Econ majors, Engineers or some other non-literature major as boring, uninspiring and pointless. It is sometimes very hard for me to understand why someone would want to study fiscal policy, or why someone would want to know how to build a bridge. Why wouldn't everyone want to be a literature major? While I understand that these are important fields of study, I find myself completely discounting anything that doesn't inspire me.
But then people will ask me, "Well, what are you going do with an English major?" And when I think about it, it's a good question. What am I going to do with an English major? Personally, I want to teach and write. And I can't figure out why everyone doesn't want to do that. I see the value in someone knowing how to build a bridge or how to influence the economy. I see the value in knowing how to go about changing policy or analyze DNA. But I don't want to do any of that and, because of this, I dismiss those things as unimportant.
So I was talking to my friend in Woodie Woo about how excited I am with some ideas I'd been reading. She tells me how her class on Latin American Politics is really great and how she really wants to go and work down there and use her knowledge to help the people. And I ask myself the question that so many people ask me, "What am I going to do with an English major? Is that going to help people in Latin America, or Africa, or even in the United States?" At first the answer is a resounding No. I ask myself how I can justify reading literature and philosophy when millions of people are homeless, starving and miserable. How is my English major going to help any of those people? In effect, I am now dismissing my English major as unimportant.
And then I realize that I may not go down to Chilé to do work in a small village, or I may not reform the welfare system or even find a more efficient way of building a bridge. I realize that, though I may not think so, every field of study is essential and important. And, as long as I keep doing what excites me so much, I'll do something good for the world. I reassure myself with this idea, because, as Harold Thurman Whitman said, "Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who come alive." John Lurz is an English major from Lutherville, MD. He can be reached at johnlurz@princeton.edu.
Read More
An open letter to President Eisgruber and VP Calhoun concerning minoritized student safety
Patrick Jaojoco, Brandi Bushman, and Humza Gondal"We — the undersigned leaders, community members, and allies of cultural affinity groups of Princeton University — condemn in the strongest possible terms the University’s utter disregard for the safety and wellbeing of its students of color."
"We — the undersigned leaders, community members, and allies of cultural affinity groups of Princeton University — condemn in the strongest possible terms the University’s utter disregard for the safety and wellbeing of its students of color."
On the occupation of Clio Hall and the treatment of Graduate School staff
Cole M. Crittenden“There are real power differentials on this campus, and we all have an obligation to be mindful of them. The students, postdocs, and faculty who occupied Clio Hall seem to have abused their privileges in the ways they treated staff as an expression of protest. That is wrong.”
“There are real power differentials on this campus, and we all have an obligation to be mindful of them. The students, postdocs, and faculty who occupied Clio Hall seem to have abused their privileges in the ways they treated staff as an expression of protest. That is wrong.”
Regulations on ‘disruption’ restrict dialogue at Princeton. Let’s change the standard.
Rishi Khanna“When Princeton administrators suppress mere disruptions tied to progressive speech, they effectively suppress a substantial portion of the speech itself.”
“When Princeton administrators suppress mere disruptions tied to progressive speech, they effectively suppress a substantial portion of the speech itself.”
