Stereotyping by Major is Wrong

Stereotyping is a form of oppression and there’s no excuse to let a stereotype affect your judgment of another person. If there were no more stereotypes there is no arguing that the world would be a better place. However, just for the sake of fun, let’s go over a few hypothetical, totally-untrue, not in any way realistic, stereotypes of college students based on their major.

Starting with the art majors, these are always the kids you end up hating because you’re jealous that their homework consists of watching classic movies, drawing and taking pictures. You’ll know if a student is an art major from far away, because they’ll be wearing winter hats and scarves in 90 degree weather. They also seem to love tight hoodies with horizontal stripes and graphic tees with the name of an obscure band. Basically anything sold at Urban Outfitters.

The dorm of an art major looks like a no-budget art museum as their entire room is packed with paintings, canvas’, photographs and countless clay pottery which all seem to look like ash trays. If you ask them why they took a black and white picture of a fire hydrant they’ll give you an answer like, “because the fire hydrant looks sad”. Art majors are usually very liberal and accepting people and have no problem “going green” if you know what I mean. (and judging by the ideas they come up with for art, I’m sure you do.)

Then we have education majors. As these students are studying to become teachers some day, they can’t help but naturally become the most caring and patient people on campus because most likely they’ll be dealing with a large group of children some day. And that’s why they’re the perfect person to have around when you’re extremely drunk.

They’ll have to deal with screaming, crying, fighting and throwing up on a daily basis, so why not give them some practice now right? The only problem is, the education majors have no problem getting just as drunk as you are. As far as the work an education major is doing, they’re living in a totally ironic world where they’re paying to go to school so they can one day get paid to go to school, and their homework is making up homework.

Moving on to another boring major (just kidding… kind of), there’s math. These are the kids who you don’t see that much on campus because they’re always stuck in their dorm doing homework. But not normal homework, this is the kind of work that when you see it, you literally don’t know what you’re looking at. Math majors are always the most logical people because they’ve gotten so used to dealing with equations with proven answers to everything, which is why they’re the best person to consult when making a decision. Like, “Hey man, should I try to jump from the roof of this nine-story building into a pool 45 feet away?” “The odds you land in the pool from here are around 23 percent… so yea go for it!”

Coming to a fun/annoying major, we have the philosophy students. You’ll notice these students on campus because they simply, “don’t care” about most things. These are the kids who end up never sleeping because they just can’t help but wonder “why the grass is green”. Anytime you ask a philosophy major a question, instead of answering it, they’ll just ask you one right back. You might ask them something as simple as “Want to go out drinking tonight?” And they’ll respond with, “Have you ever thought about why we drink though?” Well the real answer to that question is so we can put up with philosophy majors. However if you want an interesting way to kill two hours, just go up to a philosophy major and say, “Does God exist?”

What’s even worse/better than a philosophy major though, is a psychology major. Because while a philosophy major focuses on issues regarding the world, a psychology major focuses on issues regarding you. Making it extremely awkward when they diagnose you on a daily basis. “Hey want to go see that new Transformers movie?” “I think you have issues with your parents.” “What?” “Now you’re exhibiting symptoms of paranoia.” “No I’m not!” “Denial.” “You’re crazy!” “Schizophrenia.” “I hate you.” “Misplaced aggression.” But while psychology majors have no problem figuring out who you are, ironically they tend to not know much about who they are until it’s too late and they realize, “holy s***! I’m going to be stuck hearing other people’s problems for the rest of my life!”

You’ll have no problem noticing theatre majors, as they have no problem grabbing your attention with an excessive use of make-up at all times and the unmistakable projection of their voice they can’t seem to turn off. In fact, sometimes you won’t be sure if they’re dressed up for a role they’re playing or just wearing a normal outfit because their sense of reality has become so out of touch after changing their entire state of being every day. Basically, they imagine their life as a never ending episode of Glee, and it actually is. It sucks. But hey, if you’re ever looking for an impromptu song then look no further than a theatre major.

As for the stereotypes for nursing majors, that’s hard to make, seeing as you’ll never see one on campus for more than a few seconds. And that’s because they’re working way harder than everyone else, and there’s no point in comparing stories because you’ll always lose. “I studied three hours last night for this economics exam and I’m pretty sure I bombed it, my day was terrible! How was your day?” “I woke up at 5:30 to head over to my 12 hour shift at the hospital and after helping two mothers through birthing a child I had to watch a man die after suffering gun-shot wounds.” (My roommate is a nursing major and that’s an average Saturday for him. That’s right I said “Saturday”! And I said “him”!)

Finally coming to one last major to stereotype, we have communications. Being a communications major is a small step above “undecided” as everyone in communications classes seem to have no idea what they want to do in life. You won’t see communications majors that often because they’re either still asleep at 3 p.m. or just skipping class because missing a few weeks of “TV Analysis” won’t affect their grade too much.

Communications majors are very good at talking on cell phones though, and technically that’s a form of “communication” so you can’t say they’re not learning anything. And it may sound harsh down-playing the significance of a communications major, but its OK, because I’m a communications major so I’m allowed to make fun of other communications majors.

With all that being said stereotypes are just bias views created by ignorant people with no truth behind them so there’s no reason to take these stereotypes I just created seriously. No reason at all. In fact if you’re mad at me right now for making these stereotypes you’re probably assuming I’m a mean person. But that would be stereotyping. And stereotyping is wrong.

John Jacobs can be reached at jjacobs@spartans.ut.edu