Gen-eds Generate Generous Life Opportunities, But Stem Majors

Are Hesitant to Branch Out

BY AMELIA HARE ON MARCH 29, 2015 AT 4:55PM

Imagine yourself in the following situation:

Five years from now, after you have graduated and your days as a college student are numbered,
you find yourself in an exotic bar/club in some exciting region of the world (Miami, Colombia,
Spain, Puerto Rico, etc.) As you lounge against the bar sipping something tropical, you tap your
foot to the rhythm of an upbeat salsa tune exuding from the instruments of the in-house band
and watch the locals twirl and twist around the dance floor. In the midst of a spirited trumpet
solo, your eyes lock with with the gaze of a tall, dark, and handsome figure. He saunters towards
you, his fiery brown eyes still locked with yours, extends his hand and says Hola guapa,
quieres bailar?

Now there are two possible ways that this story could play out:

1. You set your drink down on the bar, flip your hair seductively, grab his hand, and say S,
vamanos. (exuding confidence as you put those salsa skills that you learned in a class to work.)

or

2. Hate yourself for not taking Spanish since high school, trip over your words when you try to
tell him you have no idea how to dance, and awkwardly blurt out the quadratic formula (which

you havent actually used for years but it is somehow still ingrained into your mind from the
countless math courses that crowded your schedule.)

Believe it or not, the difference between salsa-ing in the arms of a latino hottie (or latina
hottie; guys, dont think that youre exempt from this scenario) or sitting at the bar alone eating
chips and salsa comes down to something as simple as the very classes you schedule during
these four critical years. So, what can you do to not only avoid the horrible fate of having to
reject your exotic admirer, but also to avoid missing out on many other opportunities life throws
your way? The answer lies in a short, hyphenated word that inspires rage in the hearts of many:
gen-eds.

As college students, Im sure many of you have already resolved yourself to a side of the
great gen-ed debate, and a big factor that determines which side you stand behind is the reason
why you choose to go to college in the first place. If you are a part of the overwhelming 87.9% of
students who come to college specifically for the purpose of getting a job, you probably see geneds as an annoying waste of your time, and are most likely thinking Great.The last thing I want
to hear is another person telling me to take more gen-eds to make myself well rounded. And
even if you are a part of the 12.1% who come to college for different reasons, you probably still
dont want to hear anymore of that well rounded BS (Wyer n.p.). But dont worry. While I
dont necessarily disagree with this statement, I do know that there is so much more to gen-eds
than just being well-rounded. Even as a STEM major myself who undoubtedly needs a degree to
go anywhere in my field, I have come to embrace the gen-eds that are a part of my graduation
requirement, and encourage you to do the same. Instead of hating on gen-eds or viewing them
as a waste of time and money, open your mind and pursue gen-eds with passion in order to take
advantage of all of the ways they can impact your life.

A little less than a year ago, I full-heartedly considered myself a part of the 87.9%,
groaning as I reluctantly typed into my schedule the course numbers for a required English class
and a Spanish literature class that I felt had nothing to do with my Immunology and Infectious
Disease and Spanish B.S. majors. I was here to study science and to get a degree that would
propel me into med school, not to waste my time analyzing twentieth century Cuban poetry or
giving speeches about civic artifacts. But when I actually got to school and grudgingly engaged in
these classes, my perspective began to change. After a long day packed with biology, chemistry,
and math courses, I found it almost relaxing to sit down in my Spanish literature course and

discuss why an author chose to use asyndeton in one stanza but polysyndeton in the next. For
me, it almost compared to the feeling of shifting your weight to your other leg after the one you
had been leaning on for a while got tired. After spending hours every day thinking about things
in a scientific, systematic, and formulaic way, it was genuinely relieving to switch off my left
brain for a little while and let my more creative side, that I never really knew existed, take over.
As the semester went on, that Spanish literature class that I had resolved to hate at the
beginning of the year actually became my favorite part of the day. It helped me to see that
thinking scientifically wasnt always the best approach, it acquainted me with my right brain,
and it converted me to a part of the 12.1% that I could have sworn I would never become.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how valuable this new-found creativity
actually was. If you dont agree, take a moment and try to think of an after-college career that
doesnt require a single ounce of creative thinking. Even if you find yourself working in a lab or
becoming an accountant, having that creative spark and being able to think in a not-so-standard
way will automatically make you better at what you do. If youre still not convinced, maybe this
guy can persuade you otherwise:

In his famous commencement address delivered to the Stanford class of 2005, Steve Jobs, CEO
of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios, narrates his experience with a calligraphy class
he once took proclaiming It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science
can't capture, and I found it fascinating (n.p.). Jobs later goes on to accredit the visually
appealing typography that we know today to that single class that he happened to take on a
whim. Jobss experience shows that even courses that seem to have no relation to your main
area of interest can sometimes impact your career and your life in a way that you never

expected: A pre-med major takes a sculpture class that later helps him reconstruct facial
deformities as a plastic surgeon, a chemistry major takes an art history class and is inspired to
examine the chemical composition of different paints to identify forgeries, a physics major takes
a music class and studies how the physical structure of the instrument affects the sound waves it
produces and goes on to create a new line of sonorously-optimized violins. Without reaching
outside of their original areas of study, none of these scenarios would be possible. No matter
what your intended career path, pursuing a subject that forces you to think in a different and
more imaginative way will not only give you an advantage in your career, but will perhaps allow
you to stumble upon a talent or a passion that you would have never discovered otherwise.
Unfortunately, many students think that the money and time they will have to waste on
gen-eds to discover these passions and talents is not worth it. If there are two things that every
college student wants more of, its money and time, so it is understandable why we dont want to
jeapordize either of these things by taking classes that dont directly connect with our areas of
interest. But if you really invest yourself into these classes, you might find that your time and
money are much better spent on gen-eds than core classes like chemistry, higher level math, or
physics that all STEM majors have to take.
Think of it this way. After taking a semester of introductory chemistry, you really cant do
anything with the stuff you just spent 13 weeks cramming into your brain. You dont know
enough to work in a lab, you dont know how to invent any revolutionary polymer or chemical;
pretty much all you can do is spit out a few oxidation states and find the energy of a photon.
Congrats. Unfortunately, the only place you will probably ever use that is in the next chemistry
class you take. And then youll use the info you got from that chem class in the next chem class
and so on and so forth. By the time you actually learn enough chemistry to do anything major
with your knowledge, you will have spent 5 or 6 semesters (and around eleven thousand dollars)
building up information and storing formulas. And whats worse is that, by the time youre 40,
unless you work in research or become a chemistry professor, you probably wont
use/remember the majority of what you spent so much time learning over those 3 or 4 years.
Now, compare that to a gen-ed class where, in significantly less time and for significantly
less money, you can gain a comprehensive skill that can benefit you for the rest of your life, not
just in your career but in your personal life as well. Courses like photography, a foreign
language, or a salsa class will give you knowledge that you can actually use outside the office and
that isnt limited to the scope of your career. Unlike theoretical physics or nuclear chemistry,
gen-eds give you tools and abilities that you dont have to wait to make use of, and that can
enrich your life in more areas than just your career.

Some of these classes can even help you to make back your money that you were so
worried about wasting. While adding expert salsa dancer to your CV might not make a huge
difference in your salary, the fact that you can speak a foreign language will. Studies show that
people who are fluent in a second language can expect to earn 10 to 15 percent more compared
to a monolingual doing the same job (Chau n.p.). And even though a foreign language may take
a few extra semesters to pick up, thanks to that impressive bonus, you will quickly make back
whatever you paid for those language classes and then continue to profit for the rest of your
career.

But according to the stats, enriching our lives and expanding our abilities takes a back
seat to the main reason why 87.9% of us are in school in the first place: to get a job. The majority
of college students come in with the mentality that devoting all of their time to core classes and
job-specific knowledge will guarantee them a career in a corresponding field. But unfortunately
for students with this mentality, if you dont leave room in your course schedule for creativity,
employers dont leave room in their companies for you. According to the Association of
American Colleges and Universities, 80% of employers say that all students should acquire
broad knowledge in the liberal arts, regardless of their major, if they want to increase their
chances of getting hired (More Than a Major n.p.). Steve Sadove, former Chairman and CEO of
Saks Fifth Avenue, concurs with this view, affirming that A specialized education is secondary
and that courses that differ from your main area of study are what get you hired and help you
stand out (n.p.). What companies are really looking for is someone who can bring something
unique to the table. They want someone who can think critically, and who can draw knowledge
from subjects that arent necessarily standard in the field. They want to compose a team of
employees with diverse views and skills, so, when combined, they have a workforce who can
solve any problem and examine it from multiple angles. If you cant contribute anything special,
your rsume will be tossed aside in favor of someone who can.
So if you applied to a position at GE, complete with your shining transcript showcasing
of all those 400 level math and physics courses you toiled through to finally earn an engineering
degree, and are wondering why they never called you back for an interview, its because they got
hundreds of other applications from hundreds of other engineering majors whose transcripts
and rsumes look identical to yours. So yes, you got that job-specific education you came to
college to get and didnt have to waste any precious time or money on pointless gen-eds, but
whats the point of a job-specific education if it wont get you a job?

And if getting a job was your main purpose in coming to college, wouldnt you consider it even
more of a waste of both time and money to spend four whole years and hundreds of thousands
of dollars on a job-specific education that wont make you stand out to the very people who you
want to hire you?

When it comes to college, the ultimate waste of time and money comes from not taking
advantage of the opportunities that surround you. Whether we like it or not, gen-eds are an
undeniable part of our education. And when you go into these classes determined to hate every
second of your experience, or pick a class that you wont have to put any effort into just to get an
easy A, thats when you are really wasting your time, because youre not gaining anything.
Life isnt all about work, and college shouldnt be either. Dont limit yourself to classes
that only pertain to your career path and dont be so quick to protest classes that force you to
think a little differently than youre used to doing. By being more willing to branch out, you will
open up so many more doors in both your career, and also your personal life. So give gen-eds a
chance! You never know what passions you might discover, or whose arms you might salsa into.

Works Cited
Chau, Lisa. Why You Should Learn Another Language. U.S. News. 29 Jan. 2014.
Web. 27 Mar. 2015. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economicintelligence/2014/01/29/the-business-benefits-of-learning-a-foreignlanguage (increased language pay)
It Takes More than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student
Success. Association of American Colleges & Universities. 2013. Web. 27 Mar.
2015. http://www.aacu.org/leap/presidentstrust/compact/2013SurveySummary
(80% of employers)
Jobs, Steve. 2005 Stanford Commencement Address. Stanford University News. 14
June 2005. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html (steve Jobs)

Sadove, Steve. Employees Who Stand Out. Forbes. 5 Sept. 2014. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/09/05/employees-who-stand-out/
(sacks 5th avenue)
Wyer, Kathy. Survey: More freshmen than ever say they go to college to get better jobs,
make more money. UCLA Newsroom. 23 Jan. 2013. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/heri-freshman-survey-242619 (87.9%)