Don’t get me wrong, I’m as quick as anyone to roll my eyes at psychology/sociology/communications/education majors. In the academic world, they are simply uncool and there’s nothing they can say or do about it. However, as a fellow “soft scientist” I feel a responsibility to make a case for the underdogs of the university playground.
Four of my best friends are biology fanatics. They can hardly suppress a dramatic fake gag at the mere mention of the “ology”s on the other side of the science spectrum. For their love of equations and absolutes, the statistical analysis of human behavior based on surveys and subjective observation is the scholastic equivalent of identifying shapes of various animal species in passing clouds. To them, philosophies about human nature, theories of communication, and hypothesis of sociological phenomena are matters of opinion that any stratospheric warm front of hot air could transform into the likes of a crocodile holding a balloon. They want data. They want true or false, black or white. A2+B2=C2. Period.
But for all the grey ambiguity involved in political and social sciences, to declare all “softies” to be smoke-blowing thumb-twiddlers is pompously misguided. A common accusation is that the work they perform is not real or practical, and it's all just guesswork to create quasi solutions to irrelevant problems.
I beg to differ. In fact, it is the absence of clear formulaic answers that make such areas of study even more challenging and yet even more essential for society. When a soldier returns from war, the psychologist cannot write up an algebraic equation to alleviate his post-traumatic stress. When a classroom of underprivileged 5th graders need to improve their standardized test scores, the teacher cannot mix up a chemical solution to stimulate their learning (as much as the advocates of Ritalin may want us to believe).
And that is exactly the flaw in modern scientific thought--as especially seen in the medical field. You got a problem? Here is the empirical answer in the form of a $400 prescription.
Soft sciences are not exact sciences (in the sense that Input 1 yields Result 2), but they are very real and relevant to society. Psychologists, social workers, educators, and yes--even politicians face problems every day that demand action, even when (and especially when) there is no clear-cut answer. It strikes me as ironic that a person hovering all day under a vacuum hood pipetting microscopic cells would accuse work outside of the hard sciences as “nonreal.”
The point is that we need each other (as the emerging branch of holistic medicine is suggests with the integrating of physical health and emotional/spiritual well being). The world is not all cold hard facts. But it is not all warm fuzzy emotions either. For better understanding of human beings and this world we live in, the catalyst for progress is a little dose of mutual respect.
(So therefore the most important study of all is obviously Peace Studies. Bam.)
Friday, July 8, 2011
Cereal Wisdom
(My rant in "The Culmination of My Education" was exceeding appropriate blog length, but don’t be fooled, this is just a sequel).
It’s Saturday morning 1997, you’re watching Recess and Doug on ABC. There’s a commercial break.
Trivia question: who are the baddest asses of the advertisements run during the cartoons?
If you guessed the Hot Wheels kids or the Transformers... [BUZZ!] Wrong.
If you guessed the Apple Jacks crew... Ding Ding!
(Allow me to refresh your memory)
Mother: “Kids, why do you like that cereal so much? It doesn’t even tastes like apples!”
Kids: “WE EAT WHAT WE LIKE!”
Hell yeah.
In these post-collegiate times of uncertainty, I think it’s time my generation makes an effort to appeal back to the Apple Jack spirit of our youth.
We students are so easily conditioned into the mechanistic rhythm of productivity. We cultivate a persistent shadow that attaches itself to our heels and haunts us with a perpetual sense of urgency; a desire to do, to go. This addiction to motion may not always be strictly scholastic (i.e.: “I need to watch three more episodes to finish the season” or “I have to work out because I didn’t yesterday”), but it is tinged with the flavor of academia for it’s arbitrary deadlines and fabricated sense of pressure. Philosopher Jean Paul Sartre referred to this as “Bad Faith,” or the self-imposed mentality of duty. It is the “I have to”s and “I need to”s, or Freud’s “Superego.”
The formula is elementary: If you spend your entire academic life shoving what you want to do under the rug in order to do what you “have” to do, you will graduate a box-shaped robot spitting out copies of a square resume that will land you a 9 to 5 in a cubicle (into which you will fit like a 3D puzzle piece).
Tragically, this is the curse of our generation (and the worst part is this economy is running out of cubicle space faster than a game of Tetras). The robot monster (operating on the binary code: [Requirement][Achieve][Requirement][Achieve]) consumes our souls to the point that when we reach the point where nothing is statedly required of us, we hardly know what to do with ourselves. Many of us resort to inventing new external gags for ourselves (under the guise of “goal setting”) so that our daily lives can revolve around a different robot god.
We don’t know how to do what we want. We fill the chasm of indecision with the only solid object our non-actualized selves can cling to: “What’s best for us”, a.k.a. Momma’s advice + pop culture norms.
Let's give ourselves (and our free will) some credit, shall we? Let's volunteer, travel, read for pleasure, make art, and get interesting and random jobs-- not because we should or we have to, but because we want to. Let's eat some damn Apple Jacks.
It’s Saturday morning 1997, you’re watching Recess and Doug on ABC. There’s a commercial break.
Trivia question: who are the baddest asses of the advertisements run during the cartoons?
If you guessed the Hot Wheels kids or the Transformers... [BUZZ!] Wrong.
If you guessed the Apple Jacks crew... Ding Ding!
(Allow me to refresh your memory)
Mother: “Kids, why do you like that cereal so much? It doesn’t even tastes like apples!”
Kids: “WE EAT WHAT WE LIKE!”
Hell yeah.
In these post-collegiate times of uncertainty, I think it’s time my generation makes an effort to appeal back to the Apple Jack spirit of our youth.
We students are so easily conditioned into the mechanistic rhythm of productivity. We cultivate a persistent shadow that attaches itself to our heels and haunts us with a perpetual sense of urgency; a desire to do, to go. This addiction to motion may not always be strictly scholastic (i.e.: “I need to watch three more episodes to finish the season” or “I have to work out because I didn’t yesterday”), but it is tinged with the flavor of academia for it’s arbitrary deadlines and fabricated sense of pressure. Philosopher Jean Paul Sartre referred to this as “Bad Faith,” or the self-imposed mentality of duty. It is the “I have to”s and “I need to”s, or Freud’s “Superego.”
The formula is elementary: If you spend your entire academic life shoving what you want to do under the rug in order to do what you “have” to do, you will graduate a box-shaped robot spitting out copies of a square resume that will land you a 9 to 5 in a cubicle (into which you will fit like a 3D puzzle piece).
Tragically, this is the curse of our generation (and the worst part is this economy is running out of cubicle space faster than a game of Tetras). The robot monster (operating on the binary code: [Requirement][Achieve][Requirement][Achieve]) consumes our souls to the point that when we reach the point where nothing is statedly required of us, we hardly know what to do with ourselves. Many of us resort to inventing new external gags for ourselves (under the guise of “goal setting”) so that our daily lives can revolve around a different robot god.
We don’t know how to do what we want. We fill the chasm of indecision with the only solid object our non-actualized selves can cling to: “What’s best for us”, a.k.a. Momma’s advice + pop culture norms.
Let's give ourselves (and our free will) some credit, shall we? Let's volunteer, travel, read for pleasure, make art, and get interesting and random jobs-- not because we should or we have to, but because we want to. Let's eat some damn Apple Jacks.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
The Culmination of my Education
After four years and $28,000 of a private university education, the single most important thing I learned is (drumroll, please....): do not procrastinate.
Even if that means putting all of your homework off for days.
The freshman makes lists of things she would like to do someday. As soon as she finishes her Spanish homework she’ll look up the chords for Hey Jude on guitar. As soon as midterms are over she’ll drive out to the lake for a picnic. In the summer she’ll read The Brothers Karamazov. But not now. There is no time. Because right now she has to check her email 12 times between dinner and bed. She has to finish her reading response and critical review essay. She has to schedule dinner with her roommate. She has to go to practice. She has to go to bed. Eat. Work. Sleep. Shower (ok let’s be honest, that was the first thing to go). Repeat. And blink-- an entire year, over.
Ten months worth of planner pages lay tattered and tired from the triumphant crossing out of bulleted To Do lists. Now she can write an email to a high school friend about all the “things she did” that year. And actually, the written “story” looks impressively productive (as do the myriad of Facebook albums).
And yet, why does she still feel vaguely stagnant? Why does her breathlessness seem to stem from a sprint inside a hamster wheel?
To the freshman of the America, I entreat:
DO NOT PROCRASTINATE. Do not put life on hold for the sake of what you’re “supposed” to be doing. You are not a student. You are a human being that goes to school. So go to school. But live your life. (I hate American Eagle for making me hate that cliche.)
*POST SCIPT*
I am not suggesting that all freshman boys spend an entire semester playing World of Warcraft until 4:00 in the morning. The difference between doing what you truly WANT to do and being a slacker is not always clear. Does marijuana make you hyper-aware of reality or sedated and stupid? I guess what I’m trying to say is...be high on life, not on drugs. (I am such a peace studies major.)
(The wisest comic of all time. This particular strip got me through senior year of college)
Even if that means putting all of your homework off for days.
The freshman makes lists of things she would like to do someday. As soon as she finishes her Spanish homework she’ll look up the chords for Hey Jude on guitar. As soon as midterms are over she’ll drive out to the lake for a picnic. In the summer she’ll read The Brothers Karamazov. But not now. There is no time. Because right now she has to check her email 12 times between dinner and bed. She has to finish her reading response and critical review essay. She has to schedule dinner with her roommate. She has to go to practice. She has to go to bed. Eat. Work. Sleep. Shower (ok let’s be honest, that was the first thing to go). Repeat. And blink-- an entire year, over.
Ten months worth of planner pages lay tattered and tired from the triumphant crossing out of bulleted To Do lists. Now she can write an email to a high school friend about all the “things she did” that year. And actually, the written “story” looks impressively productive (as do the myriad of Facebook albums).
And yet, why does she still feel vaguely stagnant? Why does her breathlessness seem to stem from a sprint inside a hamster wheel?
To the freshman of the America, I entreat:
DO NOT PROCRASTINATE. Do not put life on hold for the sake of what you’re “supposed” to be doing. You are not a student. You are a human being that goes to school. So go to school. But live your life. (I hate American Eagle for making me hate that cliche.)
*POST SCIPT*
I am not suggesting that all freshman boys spend an entire semester playing World of Warcraft until 4:00 in the morning. The difference between doing what you truly WANT to do and being a slacker is not always clear. Does marijuana make you hyper-aware of reality or sedated and stupid? I guess what I’m trying to say is...be high on life, not on drugs. (I am such a peace studies major.)
(The wisest comic of all time. This particular strip got me through senior year of college)
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Get Outta (or into) Dodge
Shhh, what's that sound? Ah, it's silence. Or the lack of kicking and screaming.
If anything were to mark my adulthood, it would be the striking calm in the air during an event that, for many years, passed as a minor war: the trip to Grandma's house. As a child, this bi-annual "vacation" was dreaded more than the dentist. At least a trip to Dr. Johnson's office ended quickly and there was a good chance I'd get a chocolate milkshake on the way home. Going to Dodge to visit my mom's family obliterated at least six entire days from my summer break with only the promise of--if I was lucky--watching Cartoon Network on cable in the hotel (but even that could be eclipsed by Dad's ESPN).
I didn't get it. Most kids seemed to love visiting Granny... But what was so great about driving through miles of manured flatlands to be force-fed mashed potatoes and KFC? My cheek was never literally pinched, but the agonizing table conversations about my ballet recitals and the inevitable "You're looking so tall!"s were enough to incite the same recoiling reaction.
Getting me in the minivan the morning of departure was like prying a feisty kitten from her hiding spot under the couch. I would claw to every last second of home--pretending to oversleep my alarm, intentionally forgetting to pack things in my suitcase, pouring an extra large bowl of cereal for breakfast… My poor mother. I nearly reduced her to tears on more than one of those early mornings.
But not today. Today mom and dad are busy gardening in the front yard and I am packing up my own car, alone. No one is exasperatingly screaming my name from the bottom of the stairs. No one is threateningly counting down from ten. I toss my duffle into the back seat and Dad hugs me and says, "Now you know that you don't need to break the land speed record to get there, right?" And I'm off.
How can this be? How can that same little girl who would have swallowed a thumb tack to avoid this trip now be driving to there on her own accord? Can she finally smell the roses in the gale force winds of cow pies? Can she finally see the beauty in the uninterrupted horizon of colorless plains? Is she finally old enough to understand the crude (and usually racist) humor of the pre-Boomer generation?
In 15 years Dodge hasn't exactly become more scenic and Grandma certainly hasn't converted to some sort of hipster senior citizen. In fact everything here is pretty much as uncool as ever (with the exception of my little cousins who are now teenagers and probably the epitome of "coolness"). But I'm thrilled. (Ok, that word might be a little strong--we're not quite at roller coaster status. I'm pleased.) There is nowhere I would rather be.
If anything were to mark my adulthood, it would be the striking calm in the air during an event that, for many years, passed as a minor war: the trip to Grandma's house. As a child, this bi-annual "vacation" was dreaded more than the dentist. At least a trip to Dr. Johnson's office ended quickly and there was a good chance I'd get a chocolate milkshake on the way home. Going to Dodge to visit my mom's family obliterated at least six entire days from my summer break with only the promise of--if I was lucky--watching Cartoon Network on cable in the hotel (but even that could be eclipsed by Dad's ESPN).
I didn't get it. Most kids seemed to love visiting Granny... But what was so great about driving through miles of manured flatlands to be force-fed mashed potatoes and KFC? My cheek was never literally pinched, but the agonizing table conversations about my ballet recitals and the inevitable "You're looking so tall!"s were enough to incite the same recoiling reaction.
Getting me in the minivan the morning of departure was like prying a feisty kitten from her hiding spot under the couch. I would claw to every last second of home--pretending to oversleep my alarm, intentionally forgetting to pack things in my suitcase, pouring an extra large bowl of cereal for breakfast… My poor mother. I nearly reduced her to tears on more than one of those early mornings.
But not today. Today mom and dad are busy gardening in the front yard and I am packing up my own car, alone. No one is exasperatingly screaming my name from the bottom of the stairs. No one is threateningly counting down from ten. I toss my duffle into the back seat and Dad hugs me and says, "Now you know that you don't need to break the land speed record to get there, right?" And I'm off.
How can this be? How can that same little girl who would have swallowed a thumb tack to avoid this trip now be driving to there on her own accord? Can she finally smell the roses in the gale force winds of cow pies? Can she finally see the beauty in the uninterrupted horizon of colorless plains? Is she finally old enough to understand the crude (and usually racist) humor of the pre-Boomer generation?
In 15 years Dodge hasn't exactly become more scenic and Grandma certainly hasn't converted to some sort of hipster senior citizen. In fact everything here is pretty much as uncool as ever (with the exception of my little cousins who are now teenagers and probably the epitome of "coolness"). But I'm thrilled. (Ok, that word might be a little strong--we're not quite at roller coaster status. I'm pleased.) There is nowhere I would rather be.
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