In Defence of Arts Students (Cara)

We all know the clichés. Scarf-wearing, pretentious, lattè-sipping poseurs, right?

With their philosophy books carefully but jauntily displayed, despite them having only read the Wikipedia summary.

Three contact hours a week, spent drawling about their notion of identity.

Reject the stereotypes! I’m proud to be an Arts student, even if I do poke fun at the fact I have a four-day weekend and baulk at the idea of waking up before midday. As bold and obnoxious as it may sound,  I posit that a lot of the negativity we are on the receiving end of stems from good old-fashioned jealousy.  I hear your groans already, but please, hear me out.

What makes being a BA candidate really valuable, for me, is the fact that we’re studying what we are because we’re passionate about it. With the Melbourne Model, there’s no point pretending that the letters B.A. (Melb) after our name are going to realistically open that many doors after graduation, the way that a biomed or commerce degree might. So why do we persist, sighing over the Hegelian dialectic among stacks in the Baillieu? Well, simplistic and naive as I confess to being, it’s because we like it. What we study, in my less-limited-than-it-used-to-be experience, tends to be incredibly relevant to the world we live in, most notably from a social perspective. One of my Arts friends went as far as to posit that everyone should be made to do a handful of Arts subjects before they start their bona fide degree, so that they can enrich their worldview a little. Sociolinguistics has made me reflect on the way we all use words every day to categorise people into identities, politics and history have given me an understanding of my role within a western democracy, psychology has pretty much revolutionised the way I conceive humanity.

Do you follow me? These are the skills and knowledge resources that would improve anyone’s life, whether or not it guarantees some fabulously well-regarded career path, and so be it. This said, I do acknowledge that I mentioned this to a friend studying science and she insistently protested that what she learns in her subjects are as relevant and enlightening as what I do. I suppose it takes all types, but I for one can learn much more by studying conceptualisations of the nation than bent over a microscope;

but I’m really glad that there are scientists out there. The last thing I’m suggesting is that we all become Arts students. I’m suggesting that we respect everyone’s degree equally, and stop with the stupid clichés, please. They’re not funny any more. (On a final note, a Commerce-student friend of mine confessed that she is irriatated by the stereotypes surrounding her degree as well, so I don’t suppose that Arts kids have the monopoly on the issue, but I do think we seem to be the most poked-fun-at degree.)

Now, I need to go get a skinny soy latte from Castro’s and look down on people who haven’t read Nietzsche, while rolling cigarettes moodily and adjusting my beret.