<p>First Generation American. STEM fields understand the concept because nowadays biology and chemistry degrees mean decent wages for middle class people. Liberal arts is a luxury. Whereas in the past people might have looked at college differently, or saw English as a valuable course for a person’s well being, etc…
The fact remains that the formal education system triumphs in the “real world” in STEM subjects, attracting the minds of people born in immigrant families.
My mom and dad made it out the ghetto of Sri Lanka. They were poor but crime was not a big factor. School meant a way out, and Engineering and like-minded disciplines related to some kind of math and science were seen as the only viable options. And so my parents became civil engineers, earning ranks in the top 0.01% of high school students in Sri Lanka to make it to college period. In those days and still in many ways today making it to college meant gaining access to one of the few powerful public colleges in Sri Lanka; free tuition. They made it here, and instilled a desperation to perform in academics their parents instilled in them so they could eat plenty and dress comfortably some day. We had money here, though. So the desperation instilled in me had no place here. I was raised in sunny suburbs both here and New Jersey in multicultural neighborhoods still reflective of the Caucasian American heritage.
How could the white people of my classroom understand academics as a sole means to economic security? They were raised in a world with writers and artists and poets. My parents had dreams in schoolrooms and sharpened and tightened themselves so they could excel in hard sciences because that was the only way they saw themselves as living decent lives later on.
I started out in the hardest course in my day. Biomedical Engineering meant stable decent wages and huge upside. But what did that mean to a guy raised in America where school was anything but the serious opportunity my parents saw it as? People obsess about getting into Duke and Harvard but Sri Lankans have to get into college period. The best and brightest over there will learn calculus to survive. Outlets like music and literature meant nothing to them. At least here people can dream of art to make it out. Over there they had to memorize textbooks.
I switched to Liberal Arts because I did not feel the same desperation, understandably, as my parents. If I didn’t make it in BME I would have a home to go to and all the food I could eat. My parents did not have that luxury so they evolved a relentless drive to whatever it took to make it. Here people can sing. There singing was a laughing matter, studying meant the world. So how could white people understand the desperation that still lingered within me, passed down? Even though I had a visceral understanding of a sense of security in the world my parents didn’t have at my age, raised by those same parents meant some bad and good things were done around me. They brought the same mentality about school in a world where school was not the only option. And so I repeated some of the same mistakes and virtues my parents practiced.
I could write, even though that wasn’t encouraged during formal schooling. The math and sciences to the very very end. Our parent-child conflict erupted when I realized the desperation they wanted me to feel was not only unhelpful but also unnecessary. They associated desperation with enterprise, which is wrong. I never really noticed it because I realized my settings brought a lot of that same energy. My friends in high school were the same as me. They had immigrant parents and they were driven, almost as an inherited truth. Liberal Arts classes at UT put me for the first time in classrooms with people who had nothing in common with me ethnically and culturally but everything in common with me subject-wise.
I read a lot all my life. I blessed myself with skills in reading and writing, beyond the STEM subjects my parents helped me along with during formal schooling. I won’t complain because I made my own choices. The reason for writing this here is to perhaps urge the people who don’t need education for its financial opportunities to open doors to people that do. I say this because desperation isn’t the only thing these kids bring. They bring drive and entrepreneurship that meshes well with the Liberal Arts kid who’s fairly calm and not that motivated.
Imagine the surprise when my whole class is white and female. I’m brown and male. That means a lot to some people but that shouldn’t mean that much. There’s as much diversity there as everything. But yes, one brown male and twenty-something white females.
Classes on the regular were skewed in similar ways. I was usually the only brown person in English and writing classes. I realized recently the reasons I may have been uncomfortable. First, that’s all my fault. If you’re not accepted somewhere people can only make you angry or scared with your permission. We are the ultimate masters of our fate. Anyway, being in classes with mostly white people made me uncomfortable. Now, by white I mean privileged, chilled-out, easygoing. They were in fact white-skinned, but that’s what primarily gets the wealth here anyway.
I was out of place. I came to these classes out of desperation. A different sort. And by desperation I mean both the good and bad kinds this time. Good in that I did really need to get out of BME. Bad in that I was scared of BME. Anyway, I was certainly an oddity in this relaxed, white privileged atmosphere.
The aftermath of college helped me realize the reason this classroom discomfort only materialized after I switched majors in college my sophomore year. I mean K-12 was nothing like this. I changed. But I’m talking broad strokes here. Genetically, ethnically, parentally I was hard-wired to treat the classroom as survival-grounds. My leading a different life from my parents tempered this fairly wrong instinct, but nevertheless that instinct was there. I excelled grade-wise. I got a 2350 on the SAT. My high school mates likewise valued these things. I didn’t think my classmates in “Peacemaking Rhetoric” and “Fiction Writing” really cared, nor did I have the brute in me to tell them about it.
Me being the minority and containing some of the same negative characteristics my parents brought with them from the ghetto, I was an outcast. Shoutout to Roberts-Miller, Dr. Diab, and Peg Syverson. I learned a whole bunch in Parlin from you guys. But ya’ll understand your classes were difficult for reasons you might not have seen. Voicing opinions in front of sorority girls you want to get with instead of sitting back in math class was a very different experience. It didn’t help that we approached things so differently. Writing itself mattered to me. Doing well here meant all the lies my parents told me about math and science being the only way would be proved the lies they were. I had to do well. I had to get better at writing. </p>
<p>I’m not entirely sure what it is I’m responding to necessarily… but yes, many first generation Americans have particular values instilled in them, particularly the value of education. Yes, many first generation Americans had parents who left slums by means of a STEM education (myself included.) </p>
<p>My situation was somewhat different. My father left an underdeveloped/developing African country to establish himself in the United States and provide his children with educational opportunities he would have been denied in his home country. However - my father, despite his STEM background, values and appreciates the humanities and liberal arts. He has always dreamed of me and my sister becoming judges - and he has always supported and encouraged our strengths in History and English. The fact of the matter is that my father would support me in any (realistic) endeavor I had - he values American education as an entire institution; not only sections or fields within it. </p>
<p>There are usually more slackers in humanities/lib arts courses than in STEM courses because in introductory (and sometimes intermediary) levels, humanities courses are less demanding conceptually. However, as you move up, you aren’t going to see the same chill/laid back atmosphere that you saw in introductory Anthropology or Sociology. Once you reach a certain level - say a 400 level course analyzing Cicero translations or a seminar on the economic implications of modern African governments, the reading, writing, and critical analysis become far more intense. </p>
<p>STEM majors tend to do better post-bac than non-STEM majors. However, there are a lot of factors and variables at play - and the role of graduate education changes the whole playing field, so to speak. I don’t know what you’re asking, exactly, but I think that you need to reconcile your own desires and passions with that of your parents. If your parents are funding your education and they expect you to major in BioMed Engineering, then you’re probably not gonna be allowed to switch to Philosophy or Gender Studies. You’re gonna have to speak to your parents about the trajectory and future of your education. </p>
<p>graduated</p>