As a current undergraduate student, I’m constantly exposed to students from all over the country that aspire to work in every field there is. I see English majors reading books that weigh more than my cat back home, and Mechanical Engineering majors traversing through complex math equations on whiteboards that would take me months to even begin to understand. There’s a certain magic that’s in a library, seeing students from every academic world there is, working on their dedicated passion. A big part of this magic is the choice. The ability to choose the path they wish to walk, the pursuit they wish to chase.

            However, as a South Asian American, academic freedom looked a bit different to me while I was growing up. There was a stigma in my culture that I faced, something that is still alive and well today: the idea that if you’re not studying a field in STEM, if you’re not a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, you won’t amount to anything worthwhile.

            I’m an English and Journalism major. My life and my studies revolve around the humanities. I have a driven pursuit to chase stories and to understand people and the world around me. I’m a storyteller, a conversationalist, and an adventurer. And though I have an intense admiration for anyone in the STEM world, I could not see myself living a fulfilled life as an engineer. It’s just not me.

            Though my parents are 100% on board and supportive of my journalistic endeavors now, they took some time to come around. I was an avid member of my high school’s theatre department and for a couple years I dreamed of being an on-screen actor. Though the number of South Asian representation in entertainment has grown, it wasn’t very prevalent during my time in high school, and pursuing a career in this field was practically unheard of in my South Asian community. My parents were very hesitant to let me chase this dream. They were understandably afraid for my well-being and ability to secure a job that would pay the bills and keep me fed, but being a 16-year-old rebellious know-it-all, I was reluctant to listen to reason.

            My parents, who were incredibly hard-working, were unfamiliar with this new world I wanted to explore and were afraid to let me go into a jungle that was still mostly unmapped by the people in my culture. After many hard conversations, they were able to come around and be completely supportive of the path I wanted to take, and I discovered a newfound freedom that gave me the confidence to study whatever I wanted to. Though I am not studying the fine arts, I was able to use the confidence from my parents to throw myself into journalism, a field that I have absolutely fallen in love with. I was lucky to have parents that were open-minded, understanding, and trusting of me, but not all children of South Asian parents are as lucky as I am.  

            The battle between STEM and the liberal arts is one that I have always been aware of. I have many friends of South Asian descent who have taken the STEM path, and being one of the few who took the liberal arts route has forced me to really think about the relationship that South Asia has with the humanities, and why STEM seems to be so far ahead.

            That is why I have chosen to chase this story. I want to shed light on this duel, a fight that the humanities have never even really seemed to have a fighting chance in. Ideologies that are found all throughout the liberal arts are not as emphasized in my culture, and I believe it can cause a plethora of problems, especially when it comes to parenting. The study of humanity forces one to look within themself and to observe their relationship with the world around them. It comes with compassion, kindness, and the willingness to be open to the everchanging culture and society that humans reside in.

            That’s my responsibility for the next few months: to unearth and better comprehend what my field of studies means to the culture I grew up in. I plan to have conversations with literature and STEM professors, with South Asian students who are studying to be doctors and with those few South Asian students who are journeying into the fine arts. The world of academia is diverse and for that magic to be present in the university libraries, students need to be able to choose what they want to do, especially those of South Asian descent.

            Come join me as I, a journalist student, work on this metaphorical rocket, a complex story about the humanities and STEM. The title of this whole project, “A Rocket Scientist and a Journalist: A Battle within Culture,” is an allegory that is meant to show the colliding of two worlds and the battle that exists within the culture I was raised in, and in culture everywhere. Next week, I will be talking to an English Professor about the importance of the humanities and how we simply cannot be human without it.