By Anthony Biondi (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: April 11, 2012
Why do we care about science? That’s the real question here for most of us arts students. I’m an English major and have also had to look, puzzled, at some of the course requirements for my degree. Call me trusting, but I fully appreciate the strange torture that odd requirements bring into my life.
I’ve heard the complaints before. “Why do I have to take a lab science?” they whine, “I’m in the arts program for a reason!”
I see this as laziness. Sure, it doesn’t seem that important to you and your fantastic literature degree, where you can read tons of books and comment on them. But let me tell you a little thing about the world outside of those books.
The scientific process is an important skill that is applicable to almost any aspect of life. It is the knowledge of how to deduce a solution through a breakdown of what works and what doesn’t. The concept sounds simple, and I’m sure that it’s possible to figure it out alone, but the practice and knowledge behind each required-lab-science-experiment are valuable lessons in both problem-solving and data acquisition.
How does this apply to you, Jimmy-Arts-Degree-Pants? It’s simple. It doesn’t matter where we choose to go in our careers; problem-solving is an ever prevalent aspect of life and knowing how to solve these problems is an invaluable skill.
This isn’t even to mention all the cool things you can learn over the course of these requirements. Remember: all knowledge is good knowledge.
When I first saw that I had to take a philosophy course, I was not a happy camper. But I did the course. And you know what? I was pleasantly surprised. It was useful in many aspects of my daily life, and at the very least taught me how to do proper research, including how to separate things that are credible and not credible. Very important to know, and I might have missed out on that experience if it weren’t for the reasoning requirement that forced me to take the class.
As an alternative to the lab science requirement, people have been mentioning to me that language classes should count, since they also contain a lab. Well, I look at this option and scratch my head. Sure, it’s fun and practical. A second language is forever useful in this growing and diverse world. But you will still learn nothing outside of your current knowledge base of literature or art. Secondly, you will learn nothing in regards to the scientific process and its benefits to problem solving. This isn’t to say that the knowledge you’ll gain from a language course isn’t also vast and exciting, and I still highly recommend everyone take a language course, but in the end, you need a lab. You need the knowledge that comes with the sciences.
So I have a simple message for those Arts students that don’t want to do science: suck it up. Get it over with. Don’t go whimsically through life, blissfully unaware of the fruits of the scientific process. It is a rewarding venture. You may find that you enjoy it. You may never again need to know what a Golgi body is, but you will need to know how to properly break down a problem and secure a reasonable conclusion.
You don’t really have a choice about it, but I encourage you all to not only take a science course, but to go into it with a happy heart and an open mind. Learn something new for once. Maybe you’ll even thank me.
