Kitty Corner: STEM is not the be-all and end-all
Like every college student, I struggled to settle on a major. Like every college student with immigrant parents, I struggled to settle on a major that would appease their desire for me to have a prosperous, stable career. Unfortunately, I’m not the type to get jazzed about any of the four letters that make up the ubiquitous acronym that has become synonymous with “financial success,” “job prospects” and “upward socioeconomic mobility.”
Not to say that I’m not capable of STEM-ming it up, if I so chose. I’m confident enough in my innate intellect that learning a programming language is not beyond my capacity. I’m also confident that if I spent my life speaking in for-loops that I would end it prematurely. My passions lie with English, not C++.
It was a conundrum with which I wrestled — was I singlehandedly setting the feminist movement back 50 years if I failed to live up to my (admittedly limited) potential of becoming a software engineer? If I chose the “easy way out” and elected to write stories instead of writing code? Do I “pursue my dreams” or do I settle for a tedious but trustworthy source of income?
At one point, I even considered becoming an accounting major, until I realized that anyone planning to be an accountant is already dead behind the eyes at the prospect of a future spent analyzing tax returns.
I initially matriculated at USC as an English major, riding on the promise that I would switch to engineering as soon as I stepped foot on campus. But the months wore on, and I had yet to inquire about the requirements for entry into Viterbi. I was too preoccupied with churning out essays for Thematic Option and articles for the Daily Trojan.
“Have you decided on a major yet?” my mom would ask.
“How are the hydrangeas doing this year?” I’d respond. “I notice the roses are looking a little peaky.”
But the moment arrived where I could no longer rely on general electives and foreign language requirements to avoid enrolling in major-specific classes. In the end, we settled on a compromise. I get to pursue journalism and linguistics, with a few computer science classes thrown in for good measure, just to make me more “marketable.”
And my parents, who are both engineers, are, I think, finally coming around. My mom, conceding to my fervent pleading, subscribed to The New Yorker and The New York Times. My dad, counter to my fervent pleading, purchased an Annenberg license plate frame for his car.
The blurb that runs at the end of my columns is a peace treaty brokered to resolve a long, long conflict that has finally come to a close.
Kitty Guo is a sophomore majoring in journalism and computational linguistics. She is also the lifestyle editor of the Daily Trojan. Her column, “Kitty Corner,” runs every other Wednesday.