At the beginning of my time at Hopkins, it seemed all my bushy-tailed peers could neatly package their lives into prefixes that didn’t fit mine: “I’m Public Health on the pre-med track,” or, “I’m Writing Sems”—hey, just like me!—“on the pre-law track.”
Oh…
I was pre-nothing, so I had to get creative. For a while, I tried on self-deprecating jokes like hand-me-downs that didn’t fit. In circles of introductions where everyone was pre-something, I would say, “Hi, my name is Riley, and I’m majoring in Writing Sems and English on the pre-barista track.” That stereotype of a careerless arts major post-grad resonated with others, gauging by how many laughs it got. I learned the hard way that more obscure pulls like “pre-Ghostbuster” or “pre-Etsy witch” didn’t have the same charm.
However, I never felt that anyone at Hopkins judged me. In fact, I detected envy more than once when I laid out the many winding branches I could pluck fruit from after graduation. It was the nurse at my doctor’s office in my hometown who responded with—and I quote—“Well, more power to you.” At Thanksgiving dinner, my course titles soured the mashed potatoes with their apparent lack of utility. I told my uncle, who digs graves, that I was taking a class called “The Political Lives of Dead Bodies”; he said I should just come with him for a day.
I would be lying if I said I never worried about the ramifications of getting a degree in the arts and humanities. There’s the perception that we arts students arrive here because every other door was closed to us: we flunked math, and science won’t pick up our calls. By my senior year of high school, however, I had taken more AP science and math classes (not even including multivariable calculus) than I had taken arts classes, still maintaining a 4.0. I say this not to brag—it’s hard to feel warmth from flames so far away—but to prove that, for me and many others, the arts is a choice. Why do we make it?
Take the term “work/life balance.” In this familiar concept, we conflate free time and hobbies with life itself, which otherwise means things as essential as breathing and beating hearts. “Majoring in a hobby” means learning how to live a happy life. If you had to choose, would you rather have that or a job?
It’s important to clarify that I’m not demanding anyone drop their “useful” majors after reading this. I’m not declaring war on the pre-meds and pre-laws and other pre-professionals. But if you find yourself about to click “add major/minor” for the umpteenth time in a field you care nothing about but believe will make you irresistible to every top company, and if you’re doing this at the cost of starving your passions, then…Have you heard the phrase “don’t shoot yourself in the foot?”
Part of the privilege of finding yourself at a place like Hopkins, where your financial need can be met through generous institutional grants, is to capitalize on a time in your life where pursuing passions—arts or not—is actually the most financially feasible. As a limited-income student, I’m able to earn degrees in my true passions and graduate without debt, so I won’t be forced into a professional track that promises a high enough salary only down the road. At Hopkins, I feel liberated to study what I wish, knowing it will lead me toward the life I feel excited to live, not just the life I can afford to live.
How do you beat the “majoring in a hobby” allegations? Respond: “I’m learning how to live a happy life,” one where you need not deny yourself these pleasures. For me, that began at Hopkins.
