A human offense

a stalwart column defending the Humanities

On the contrary, Camille, other humanists and Princetonians in general should realize that it is those who do the least work for the most reward who are the true geniuses. One need not defend the humanities or social sciences from being labeled bastions for the feeble-minded. One should take the offensive and point out the ridiculousness inherent in making life and school harder for oneself.

The only thing required to prove Camille’s and her cohorts’ infinite wisdom in major selection is to assess whether the natural and engineering sciences — henceforth “NES” — are actually harder than other humanities and social sciences — henceforth “HSS.” To determine this, I have broken down academic rigor into its four primary components: workload, subject matter, grading and course enjoyment.

Workload: Advantage NES. NES courses, being sciences, tend to rely more on regular problem sets, lab reports and exams than their counterparts. Camille makes following comparison: three problems sets vs. 400 pages of reading and one response paper. These are probably equivalent in terms of time required, assuming — erroneously — that everyone does all of their reading. If you’re crafty, you can get by with doing a fraction of the reading and polishing off that response paper with a few well-selected passages. Good luck turning in a 20 percent complete problem set. Team HSS just won themselves a whole lot of extra time to lay out in the sun.

It is important to note about the workload metric — before leaping to workload conclusions — that HSS workloads, particularly in the humanities, can be highly variable in a way that NES courses aren’t. Some members of Team HSS really push themselves hard, do all the reading, wrestle with deep issues and are genuinely allowed to freak out in an admirable manner.

Oh, and as far as independent work goes — in the words of two professors, not my own — “They’re just really frickin’ long, glorified papers.” Thesis: trivialized.

Subject matter: Tie. As someone who’s had the privilege — or curse — of having taken both “Introduction to German Philosophy” as well as “Multivariable Calculus,” I can assure you that both trying to wrap your mind around the partial volume of a rotated hyperboloid and trying to understand Ludwig Wittgenstein’s picture theory of meaning are equally mind-bending. Sorry, by matriculating at Princeton you’ve basically ensured that the content of your courses will be hard as balls.

Grading: Advantage NES. The March 6 th article on grading policies at Princeton states that the primary intent of grade deflation was to bring Team HSS’s grades down to the level of Team NES. In other words, West College felt like HSS courses were being graded too leniently compared to NES courses. This means that — generally speaking — one can expect HSS to be graded up to as severely as NES courses, but no harder. Once more, Team HSS has done it right. If part of your overall goal is to graduate with a swanky GPA to throw on the good old resume, Team HSS is your best bet.

Course enjoyment: Advantage HSS. According to the April 3rd article on course evaluations, HSS courses dominated NES in terms of overall student enjoyment. Humanities courses received far and away the most favorable reviews, while science courses struggled. Once again, Team HSS comes out ahead by having a whole lot more fun taking their courses than their scientific counterparts.

After an evaluation of majors on these four criteria, it’s pretty clear that NES fields tend to be — on average — more academically “rigorous” for undergraduates. Naturally, there are reasons why students would want to pursue the natural and engineering sciences. Many such subjects are fascinating and fulfilling, not to mention come with rosy employment prospects. But if you’re not scientifically inclined and/or don’t plan on going into a field requiring an NES background, selecting a scientific course of study is likely a dumb move. Even if you work your ass off doing it, you’re still foolish for having made your life harder.

So — assuming you, like most of us, only have a foggy idea of what you want to do after graduation — joining Team HSS makes you the smarter of the two groups. They get less work, better grading and more enjoyable classes. Talk about good decisions.

Don’t get caught up in the academic penis-measuring that is so rampant on our campus. The next time you — as a proud humanities or social science major — get that “I am much smarter than you, and I work much harder than you” vibe that bothered Camille, see it for what it really is: a poor attempt to derive some satisfaction from an academically stressful life.