I go to Brown's Focal Point page a lot. It's handy because, despite frequent navel-gazing, my thoughts — and those of fellow students — about life goals usually don't go further than "I am he as you are he as you are me ... what?" The page description suggests that I should use it to "explore the many intellectual paths" I could embark on at Brown, and there really are many — 78 concentrations at present, to be exact. The side column comes with a helpful sorting mechanism with five options that essentially boil down to "humanities" or "sciences."
Why use this distinction? Stupid question, right? In order to make sense of the world, we look for patterns amid the mess, and we make categories out of those patterns (often, but not always, in pairs); concrete or abstract; ketchup or mustard; small or large; sciences or humanities.
Non-science-concentrating folks look at the organic chemistry textbook so often in my hands and scrunch up their noses. "How could you do that to yourself?" Cue the usual script: I complain about invisible molecules, and Person A sympathizes. When I come back to my cozy Graduate Center cell block later, one of my suitemates has to write a paper. "Again?" I say, shocked. "I can't even remember how to string words together. What does that mean?" Give me a problem set: It's a much more familiar exercise at this point. You'd think the sciences and the humanities existed in different dimensions.
It's weird because it's likely that before coming here, many of us displayed at least a decent aptitude on both portions of the standardized test of choice or had the grade point average to prove it. Yet we leap at the chance to draw lines, forgetting that categories should only be useful sorting mechanisms, not impenetrable divides. We do this as students, and as people, countless times a day in non-academic situations, too. I've seen many a newly-minted sophomore eye the eager-faced crowds of first-years shuffling into the Sharpe Refectory and scoff at the young'uns for their eagerness — even though that was them a year before.
Constructing these walls between fields of study seems ridiculously artificial. Aren't they all to some extent an attempt to understand the world? Often, the underlying ratios of symmetry, or their violation, make something beautiful or interesting, as in M.C. Escher's ubiquitous mind-bending prints. And one of the greatest scientific discoveries was fueled by a very human, subjective desire to uncover the structure of some key protein before someone else did.
Numbers, for all their comforting neutrality, need to be perceived by beings that would rarely be described as neutral — like stressed-out undergraduates.
We collectively give these constructed divisions their power. To rely so heavily on the categories we impose limits us. We should try to see the ways in which the humanities and sciences are related and use the narratives of one to enrich our understanding of the other, rather than limiting ourselves to one narrow view.
The picture is more complicated than I've made it sound, of course. Plenty of students take Brown's open curriculum as an opportunity to study across many disciplines at once, even if only as visitors. (Poetry and neuroscience? Don't mind if I do.) But too many of us get caught up in ticking off a checklist of requirements despite the constant advice to "explore what Brown has to offer," identifying as a certain type of student and focusing on getting that summer research position.
The reality is much more complicated and interdisciplinary, so close your eyes and pick a Satisfactory / No Credit course if taking a calculated leap to "the other side," whatever that may be for you, seems to be too much. And keep in mind that a field by any other name would still probably require that you know how to string a few words together.
Camille Spencer-Salmon '14 is a neuroscience concentrator from Miami, Fla. She can be reached at camille_spencer-salmon@brown.edu.
