I’m doing something rather revolutionary next semester.

I’m taking a class on physics (shock and horror). Not one of those miserable “physics for poets” classes, but a real, calculus-based, major oriented, fail-if-you-don’t-work-hard physics class.

A literature major worming her uneducated tentacles into the already overflowing realm of physicists and engineers? The idea sounds quite unnecessary, almost pathetic. A year ago, I would have scoffed at the possibility, quite like I did at the thought of ever taking another math class after the humiliating experience that was college level calculus. Armed with an understandable bitterness, I stocked up on literature classes, poring over Blake and Woolf and Joyce, determined never to put myself through anything that would jolt me out of what I felt so naturally inclined to, what I was so unquestionably good at.

This ideology of overspecialization doesn’t just come from me being an absolute narrow-minded prick (desperately trying to redeem myself). It is rooted in a not-so-illogical belief that people are born with inherent capacities for certain things that they must hone for the benefit of a society driven by the division of labor. This philosophy allows one to put metaphorical blinders on and doggedly pursue that one thing to the dismissal of all else. Engineers with no idea who Socrates was, economists with utter disdain for Shelley and anyone who reads him, literature students who are absolutely convinced they are bored by quantum mechanics without a clue what it is (me), are the unfortunate byproducts.

Then there’s the renaissance man -- that elusive figure, untainted by the functional demands of modern society. He speaks five languages, plays the violin and can recite Newtonian theory in his sleep. In 2016, he also knows the names of every Stars Wars film ever made, can explain the unintended consequences of the Panama papers and has subscriptions to the New Yorker, National Geographic, and US Weekly. Unsurprisingly, he is also utterly useless in the over-categorized, overspecialized world we are so proud to have created.

Perhaps not. In the murky swamp of law schools and STEM purists, there is still one saving grace, a remnant from a time when being a polymath still maintained a distinct cultural value -- a liberal arts education. With its insistence on engaging every aspect of the mind through fulfilling art, science, math requirements, this school of education idealizes the very figure of cultural elitism that modern society has taken great pains to systematically abolish. Illuminated by the fact that Galileo and Goethe had tremendous interest in each other’s fields of work, that Aristotle was as much a scientist as a philosopher (albeit a discredited one now), the liberal arts model serves as a reminder that the best ideas come from seemingly unrelated connections between far separated realms of study.

In theory, the existence of liberal arts institutions is a breath of relief for believers in the renaissance model. The problem is that, as with any system, these institutions feel an understandable pressure to cater to the functional demands of a student body that cannot go into a specialized world without having specialized in something. As a result, these diverse requirements become nothing more than indignant complaints about liberal arts students, which are then pacified by the introduction of courses such as “physics for poets.”

A horrendous idea. Counter-productive, illogical, demeaning, all these classes do is reinforce the notion that to know one thing is to be absolutely incapable the other. Fulfill an antiquated requirement with some garbage designed to train your mind into further ignorance, and somehow you are allowed to graduate with a “real liberal arts education.” Without knowing anything other than the names and lifespans of a few people outside your own field, you are pushed into believing this is all you are capable of learning, that your capacity for understanding does not extend beyond the confines of your one sole interest.

Every class I’ve taken at Trinity has built into this notion. With no intention to do so, professors continue to perpetuate the idea that “students of literature can’t do math," that “chemistry majors don’t care about Keats.” The requirements are treated as some sort of cruel joke, obstacles along the path to pursue a real education. But whatever happened to learning? Are we really so conditioned to specialization that we cannot even acknowledge the appeal of broadening our horizons with one unfamiliar class in one uncharted field that might spark an interest our hardened minds would never let in otherwise?

I’ve seen myself grow from a seven-year-old drawing rather warped pictures of mitochondria to a 20-year-old who claims she neither knows nor cares what mitochondria are because “it doesn’t matter to me." I’m not going to let this overzealous need to prove my ability in one field snuff out my inherent curiosity anymore. I want to be the modern version of a renaissance man (incorporate some feminism to begin with) -- to know every little thing about every field that I can possibly dip my toe in. And if a class on physics -- tough, intimidating, excruciatingly mathematical, is the beginning of that -- I’m all in.