Katie Cox

Scott Erdiakoff

English 134

16 November 2017

Dont Forget About The Arts

It is common knowledge to Cal Poly students that the hardest major to get into at Cal

Poly is Engineering. Because it takes a 4.17 average high school GPA to be accepted into the

Engineering major at Cal Poly (Viewbook, Cal Poly Admissions), it is a distant dream for many

high school students to get in. This reality makes it so that students on campus have a conception

that the Engineers are the most academically successful and the most respected students on

campus. For the rest of non-Engineering majors, our work and studies can seem less

groundbreaking and meaningful. As a Sociology major I have been able to experience this

bias first-hand. During the first weeks of school, the everyday icebreaker to strike up

conversation starts with, Whats your major?. Initially as I answered this questions with

Sociology, I would get a belittling, Oh. Getting a small judgement, as they think of me

as a less studious student. This is a common conception on the Cal Poly campus. Even on

the US News and World Reports review of universities, Cal Poly is described as a facility where:

Undergraduate students can choose from almost 70 majors, with Cal Polys highly ranked

engineering programs as the most popular choice. There are more than 80 state-of-the-art

laboratories and 50 clubs dedicated specifically to the Cal Poly College of Engineering (US

News). The immediate national judgement of Cal Poly is based on the Engineering major and

nobody thinks twice about how the other majors and programs measure up. Students choose their
major because it is something that they are good at, something they enjoy and are interested in,

and something they can see themselves pursuing for the rest of their lives. However, there is an

underlying bias and stigma about which majors students choose for themselves and this affects

how students carry themselves through campus and through life. This bias that is expressed is

known as majorism. Majorism is an exclusionary problem where majors such as Engineering

are valued and put on a pedestal while those pursuing a Liberal Arts education are put down and

are less valued. Majorism is experienced and observed at most universities however; the term

was first officially defined by the Cal Poly Advancing Cultural Change (ACC) team. According

to the ACC Emergent Findings they define majorism as, an epistemic bias that grants prestige to

technical fields and demeans socially applied education (ACC Emerging Findings). There is a

belief that anyone who is not in the Engineering field will not have the same career or financial

success as someone who is an Engineering student.

The College of Engineering has a highly funded program to advance the technology in

the field and this level of funding contributes to the inequalities and differences between the

College of Engineering versus College of Liberal Arts. In the 2015 Time Magazine article,

Colleges Drop Majors as States Cut Education Budgets the idea of cutting Liberal Arts majors

was brought up, To save $6 million, the University of Southern Maine is cutting French,

geosciences and applied medical sciences, and consolidating six other majors: English,

philosophy, and history will be combined into one department, and music, art and theater will be

grouped into another(Times). Rather than cutting the Engineering department they choose to

make cuts and changes to Liberal Arts classes. This proves that for financial purposes alone,

Engineering is savored and preserved, while Liberal Arts are being tossed to the side. This brings
up the question of what is more valued, humanities versus science. Keeping these science classes

and eliminating humanities courses creates a campus climate where students see and experience

this obvious favoritism of certain majors. With large and modern Engineering department

buildings people can easily see the appeal and glorification of this major. This leads to the idea

that Engineers are better and more worthy of better facilities than the rest of students on campus.

At Cal Poly, one of the latest and largest donations was given solely to the Engineering

department in a donation of $1.3 million dollars worth of electrical software. This was donated

by Keysight, an electrical company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, saying the purpose

of the donation was so: All 650 electrical engineering students will use the Keysight vector

signal analyzers and generators as part of their curriculum, a unique opportunity for

undergraduates worldwide(Ricard 3). This large donation once again highlights the advantages

of Engineering students as they obtain more privileges than other majors. While the department

of Liberal Arts still acquires donations, and has recently received a less lucrative donation of

$100,000 to the universitys student-run television studio (Student Success). This donation

exemplifies difference between money coming into the Engineering department and Liberal Arts

at a significant amount. This smaller amount of money allows administration to buy more

resources and make the most out of the donation; however, the budget will not allow Liberal Arts

to to create new facilities or buy new equipment as often as Engineering may.

Another issue that is brought up with majorism is the idea that Engineering fields are held

to higher standards and are highly respected by the general population. This is more of a

cultural issue rather than structural, meaning that it is deeply embedded in our society and

culture. Because within our culture and media we are constantly being told what social
rules we should value, and Engineering is one of them. For example, according to the US

News, the recommended top three majors to join are: Electrical Engineering, Chemical

Engineering, and Systems Engineering. This bias is provided by a national news source, making

students feel the need to be part of these more respected fields. This bias stems from the idea that

making money and prestige are the primary factors in making a career choice. The US News

emphasizes, The folks standing at the intersection of the life sciences, engineering and medicine

can enjoy exciting work- and a stable job. The media is pushing the idea that the only people

who will have a stable job and will be able to make money are Engineering majors. This

continues to reaffirm the culture that being an Engineer is respectable and prestigious career

choice, while the rest of the majors are not ranked or valued in the same way. For example, The

number of bachelors degrees conferred in what the academy considers core humanities

disciplines [Liberal Arts Majors] declined 8.7 percent from 2012 to 2014, falling to the smallest

number of degrees conferred since 2003. Long-term declines in humanities majors have been

well documented and are due in part to trends

that even humanities scholars applaud, such

as the opening up of science and technology

fields (Insider Higher Ed). Students are

choosing Engineering majors because they

see that they can find more financial success

and prestige in science fields rather than humanities. Even publically when looking at Cal Poly

as an institution on Google Maps, the first acknowledgement that is highlighted is the

Engineering department (Image: left).

 The sum of these problems of, emphasizing funding towards Engineering majors and the

notoriety that the Engineering department receives, creates a campus climate of hierarchy and

exclusion of those in the Liberal Arts fields. This exclusivity and majorism is continually felt on

the Cal Poly campus. According to the 2014 Campus Climate Results which was created as a

survey for staff and students to take to measure how they feel about the on-campus climate. One

of the more alarming issues that was brought up in the survey was the question about students

who have personally experienced hostile conduct due to their major. 32% of students who had

said they were harassed on campus said it was due to their choice of major. This statistic was the

highest percentage within the harassment category. While students said that they observed

exclusionary, intimidating, offensive or hostile conduct based on major 18% of the time. This

exclusionary behavior and harassment are set because people are put down for not being in

Engineering. The stigma that grows from putting so much money and value towards engineering

makes it so people are judged based on their studies. Another idea that represents the stigma

of Social Science studies being regarded as not being a real science was brought up when

students revealed their ideologies about each subject. For example, When she [Hoffer]

surveyed first-year college students about their beliefs regarding the nature of knowledge and the

process of knowing in two fields (psychology and science). She found that students viewed

knowledge as more certain in science than in psychology and relied on authorities for knowledge

more in science(106). There is a set bias that values the idea of having a malleable and tangible

material, which sciences can provide, and this is seen as more important than humanities, which

is more idealized and subjectively measured, therefore degrading the humanity fields. It is

important to learn Humanities because studying subjects with more of a sense of creativity
and self-expression can benefit no matter the field someone is pursuing.

With this structural issue at hand it can be hard to take a course of action to change

an ideology that students hold. I think that one of the best solutions to bring all students

together could be a crossover course for students in sciences and students in the arts. A way

to implement this idea could be that in certain General Education classes there could be a

unit on the problem of Majorism at Cal Poly and at other universities, students would learn

the term and start to understand their own underlying bias. This way it would be a

combination of students from different departments to discuss and address the problem.

Students would be able to hear each other out and discuss how they feel about this climate

and how they can work to create an environment of equality. Also, if students in Science

majors took more Liberal Arts classes they would understand the importance of the field

and they could even applied what they learned to their own studies. They will then

understand what it really means to be in the Liberal Arts department.

The hierarchy of majors at Cal Poly has created a climate where the majors at the top of

the hierarchy are highly valued and subsidized, while other majors are excluded and put down.

Majorism makes it hard for students to feel a sense of community and inclusion on campus. A

way that we can look to change this climate at Cal Poly and in general is to find a way to

properly respect and equally fund humanities and Liberal Arts fields to the same extent as the

Engineering department. Both are valuable fields of study, but when there is not a level playing

field, and one is seen as superior, its difficult to create a community that is based on fairness and

equality.