It's funny. There are many stereotypes at Notre Dame about the different majors available in each of the university's colleges.
Engineering and Architecture are probably the most intense. Science is pretty hard, too. Business students have it good. Arts and Letters is a breeze.
In the business school, there is this air of superiority with regards to Arts and Letters. It seems students think, "We are practical, we learn things that we will use in the real world, we are all going to get respectable paying jobs. What on earth are you going to do with a history or classics major?"
I remember sitting in an upper level philosophy class when my professor made a remark about how he was embarrassed that his alma mater had a business school. He jokingly said, "There aren't any business students in this class, right?" It then hit me that many departments within Arts and Letters must reciprocate the feeling of superiority toward business majors.
They probably thought they were the intellectuals, searching for the answers to the deeper questions in life. Each side judged the other, thinking themselves better.
How many times a day do we see this? We find a similar situation between people who drink and people who do not. Freshman year, we learned that in college, people are supposedly judged for not drinking; there would be plenty of peer pressure to party.
Although this may be somewhat true, somehow, I've found the opposite. In my personal experiences, it seems that students who drink don't really care if others choose to not. However, some students who do not drink judge those who do. I'm proud of being able to drink as much as some guys when I'm out on the weekends. But when I go to church or work with community service organizations, I'm ashamed and would rather not admit to it.
While I may feel a bit squeamish when my less religious friends roll their eyes when I turn on KLove (my favorite Christian radio station), I also feel squeamish when my pastor asks to be friends on Facebook for fear of what he might see
Why do we compartmentalize our lives? Why do we judge those who behave contrary to ourselves?
Now, I'm wary of relativism. While not everything is absolutely black and white, I believe that there are single right answers to many issues; there are correct and incorrect value systems.
However, in the more minor things of life, what right do we have to judge each other?
Jesus condemned hypocrisy and warned us that one day we would be held accountable for our actions and thoughts. Imagine your dad finding out about your darkest and deepest secrets — the times you broke the rules, the times you lied, your sexual life. Our Heavenly Father already knows all of this. Sometimes, I cringe at the thought.
So, regardless of if you think management or sociology is a joke of a major, regardless of whether you choose to drink or not, just remember that we do not answer to each other.
We answer to God.
Dee Tian is a senior marketing major pursuing minors in philosophy and
anthropology. She can be reached at
ytian1@nd.edu
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
