Cat Cobb
“If you’re at NC State for anything other than engineering, you’re wasting your time.”
I recall these words from one of my Intro to Engineering classmates during my early days as a first-year engineer. Even now, two years later, I hear variations of this statement consistently from my engineering colleagues and professors, and all of them center around the supposed uselessness of every non-STEM major on campus.
I understand that NC State is primarily known as a technical university, and this is by no means an attack on the College of Engineering. As of spring 2018, approximately 26.5% of the undergraduate student body is enrolled in some form of engineering discipline. The engineering program at NC State is wonderful, and yes, the work engineers do is important.
However, trying to claim that engineering is the most important major is incredibly arrogant, perpetuating an attitude that creates rifts within the student population and damages the mindsets of incoming non-STEM students.
I’m sure these comments escape students without much thought, and I’m sure they don’t think about the implications of these statements and don’t truly mean harm. However, the level of comfort that students have reached with these claims is disturbing. Many seem to have incorporated these arguments to a point where it’s almost a college-wide belief.
Claiming that non-STEM majors serve little purpose degrades our sense of NC State community. Statements like these can cause young engineers to internalize these statements and form a sense of superiority. This lack of respect makes them unable to effectively collaborate with students from different disciplines, in turn diminishing their efficacy as engineers. Through participating in this elitism, these students negatively affect their own performance.
However, non-STEM majors suffer from this culture far more than engineers. While these claims inflate the egos of our engineers, they diminish our non-STEM students’ sense of self-worth and importance. They may internalize these statements and even start to believe them, degrading their confidence and love for their studies. Ridiculing a student for pursuing their passion in a non-STEM area of study should be completely unacceptable.
Ostracizing the 73.5% of NC State students who don’t study engineering creates a divisive environment and implies that there’s a hierarchy of usefulness among majors — and therefore a hierarchy of usefulness among students. Yes, engineering is an important area of study — but so is everything else. Who are engineers to claim that studying STEM makes them more valuable than a writer, a performer, an educator or a farmer? These studies all contribute in crucial and meaningful ways to our lives, and where would we be without them?
The notion that some students are more valuable than others based on their majors is deeply troubling, and the fact that some engineers think nothing of throwing around these statements is upsetting. Creating an environment such as this on NC State’s campus is not the NC State way.
Writers, performers, educators, farmers and everyone else: Your place at NC State matters. Your presence greatly enriches the community, and you deserve a spot on campus. Without you, NC State wouldn’t be the wonderful place it is today, and you deserve to feel proud of your studies, regardless of what some engineers may say.
I believe that everyone at NC State is here because they want to change the world. Non-STEM students are just as valuable as engineers, and they deserve far more respect than they’re given. We’re here to make the world a little better; shouldn’t that be important enough for us all?