Two Cultures
Hi, my name is Sydney and I'm a third year physiological sciences major. Ever since transferring to UCLA, most of my friends would constantly ask me if I have classes on North or South campus. In turn, I would respond with, "What's the difference?" My old school was relatively small so there was never any distinction between North and South as all the students were blended together. The difference here is jarring as North Campus can be seen as more 'vibrant and chill' compared to the 'hard-working and serious' South Campus. One for humanities and the other for the sciences, that's it. I often asked my humanities friends if they ever visit South Campus before and they told me that they avoid this place like the plague as there's no need for them to be over here. I was baffled by the fact since every quarter I would always have classes on both sides of campus which I recently found out wasn't normal.
This divide of groups was heavily talked about by CP Snow as he talked about the cultural and social divide of the humanities and sciences. He believed that we need to "[be] rethinking our education ... [as] our school education is too specialized" (Snow, 1959, 19). His concerns were somewhat met as our school education system has rebranded itself to include classes of all humanities and sciences. However, pandemic might have reverted us back to being a oriented country as it "made education a priority... [but] most of this renewed effort... has been focused on STEM" (Fetahagic, 2005). This article highlights that educating the younger generation means that we need to focus on the topics that matter and that means looking at the subjects that will advance technology, the sciences. This can be seen in higher education as well as many of the students that study with them only have to focus on the subject they applied to and nothing else.
Luckily, UC system doesn't fall into this trap as they make sure that all their students have to take a few classes of their opposite group to become more well-rounded. Some find it tedious but I'm grateful that the school emphasizes them both as now I can experience humanities classes while still pursuing the sciences.
Fetahagic, S., & Piqosity. (2023, March 3). Why a humanities education matters for K-12 students. Piqosity. https://www.piqosity.com/why-humanities-education-matters-k12/
Jung, J., & Tak, N. (2021). A campus divided. PRIME. https://prime.dailybruin.com/justinnorth&southcampus
Lisitsa. (2017). Kids On Laptops Stock Illstrations. Google image result . https://images.app.goo.gl/K7aHcWGjtDsaVc4L8
Popova, M. (2018, October 25). Anthony Burgess on what gives art and science their immeasurable value. The Marginalian. https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/03/21/anthony-burgess-art-science-english-literature/
Snow, C. P. (1960). The two cultures and the Scientific Revolution. At the Univ. Press.
Hi Sydney! I transferred from a UC school that had the humanities and sciences merged together and there was no distinction between students. Everyone had access to the 'relaxed' part of campus. I do not have any classes on the south side of campus so there has not been any reason for me to go. I agree with CP Snow that school is too specialized, most majors have only certain fields of work that you can enter which I believe is very limiting to abilities. I'm glad K-12 schools have opened up the options of what students should learn about the humanities, it would be interesting to have the first introduction to these classes be in college.
ReplyDeleteHi Sydney! I'm also a science major, so I spend a lot of my time on South campus too. I also hear a lot of people say south campus is ugly/they don't like spending time there because of how it looks. I guess never having an experience on a different campus, I never considered how odd it is that our campus is split based on humanities/STEM. It's a geographical divide that only serves to widen stereotypes and pre-existing notions about peoples' studies. I like that you included the fact that we should be merging science and humanities from an early age. I agree that stressing education as a whole is important, not just learning STEM.
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