I have come to dread the small talk that comes with meeting new people, simply because I know that conversation will play out something like this:
Stranger: “What is your major?”
Me: “I’m actually a double major, English and biochemistry.”
Cue contorted facial expression, sometimes a “whoa” and a prying, “How do you plan on connecting those? You know, they’re pretty different.”
(Yes, I do know that.)
I have come to almost be ashamed of my majors, knowing that everyone I meet will immediately think, What is she doing? Is she crazy? She obviously has no plan for her life.
And I guess that’s partly true. I’m not really sure what I want to do for a career. I came in my freshman year with a plan to major solely in biochemistry, heading down the road of medical research, particularly in the area of studying drugs and treatments for pediatric brain tumors and the cause of such tumors. However, a first semester filled with purely science and math classes began to drive me crazy. I needed the balance that English gave—something that had been a passion for my whole life, something that allowed me to express myself, something that brought some fluidity among all the rigidity associated with my science classes. I had always written creative pieces, from the time I was a kid, and also enjoyed journalism, taking the position of copy editor in my high school’s nationally-ranking yearbook.
Chapter five of Moran’s Interdisciplinarity, entitled “Science, Space, and Nature,” sparked my attention, as it showed the interdisciplinary side of science, something I have been told doesn’t really exist. I agree with Snow, who pointed out that the British education system “[forced] pupils to specialize too early” (Moran, 135). To me, there is no problem with having two very different interests and pursuing them both at this point in my life. Although creative writing and biochemistry may not lend themselves to one specific career that combines them both, English is certainly present in biology in the form of more technical writing of reports, etc. If a scientist cannot adequately present his or her ideas and findings, it is as if the findings don’t exist–science is based on interactions between scientists, who build off of and modify each others’ ideas. Therefore, scientists cannot isolate themselves from each other, nor from other disciplines like English. There is also biology in English. Biology allows me to understand how the world works and why certain phenomenons exist, and that pushes me to be a better writer. It opens me up to things I had never considered before and helps me to formulate opinions, ideas, and questions about the world–something that translates into more inquisitive and creative writing.
I, and other scholars, need and can benefit from the balance, the interdisciplinarity, between science and English. As Snow describes, “The clashing point of two subjects, two disciplines, two cultures–of two galaxies, so far as that goes–ought to produce creative changes” (Moran, 135).