Tuesday, February 14, 2012

I'm Not A (BLANK) Major!

Since I've been in college one of the most common phrases I hear is, "Whatever, I'm not a (blank) major".
The most common majors that people use are Math and English.

When someone adds 44 and 32 incorrectly, they just say, "Whatever, I'm not a math major".
When someone misspells a word, they just say, "Whatever, I'm not an English major".

Really, I've heard just about every major used in that blank space...and I'm tired of it. It's one of the most annoying phrases.

At the college level, you should be able to add 44 and 32, you should know how to spell most words, you should know the basics of grammar, you should know that 8x7 is the same as 7x8. Good grief. I hate excuses. And I really hate stupid excuses.

There is no excuse for a college student to not be able to do elementary math or spelling. Besides that, there is a reason why nearly every college requires a certain amount of liberal studies courses for undergraduate studies--because it's important to know some basics of things outside of your main area of study. Am I great at math? No. Do I know how to do Differential Equations? No. Do I know how to do Quantitative Reasoning? Yes. And every NAU student (and really, every college student) should be able to answer "yes" to that last question.

Gah!

I just hate excuses and I hate when people say, "I'm not a (blank) major!"

So if you want to tick me off, just say that phrase and you have achieved your goal. Because I firmly believe that it's important to know at least a little about other subjects. And at the very least, be able to perform at a high school level in all subjects if you're in college. Otherwise, you look like an idiot and make other college students look like buffoons too. 

1 comment:

  1. On the other side of the same coin, another annoying question is any variation of "What's 6541*73189?" Geez, I don't know! There's no course called "Advanced Multiplication" anywhere.

    Also, a friend said to me today, I kid you not, "You're a math major, so you should help me do my taxes." Uhhh. I was stupefied, to say the least.

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