If you take a look at the cover photo for this article, the majority of people would see just some tiny green plants in a few flasks. However, when you step back and view it from another perspective, the thing you can see is the world of art and science being combined. Flasks, a tool that is typically used in a lab for experiments, along with plants (herbology, anyone?) is being used to create art in the form of photography. It creates a beautiful photo and showcases a concept: when science and art are combined, it's beautiful.
It's even more beautiful when people from the science world and art world appreciate each other and their work. It seems as if every three months or so, arguments break out on social media about the level of difficulty between art and science majors. Unfortunately, it allows results in ugliness about the worth of each other and its "importance" to the world. It also results in a lot of misconceptions being thrown around, instead of everyone listening and being appreciative of each other.
This is what it feels like everytime the "fighting" breaks out. Giphy
The large portion of the arguing is stemmed and often based upon these misconceptions. It's often believed that art majors have it easier than science majors just because the major isn't heavily involved with mathematics and analytical study. Art majors often believe the stereotype that science work is rooted in "memorization", which isn't a hard thing to do. It's these misconceptions and more that couldn't be farther from the truth.
Here's the thing: we all have our own difficulties in each major and career. Even if you think yours is "harder", it doesn't negate others and/or you being understanding about it. We all choose our majors for a reason. A large part of those reasons come from our enjoyment of our studies (I would hope) and the things we are passionate about achieving in life. It's the only thing that makes us different from each other. Whether you realize it or not, we're more similar than we think and you know why: we're all college students. We all have the struggle of 8 am classes, lack of sleep, no money, too many things to do and too little time. We all finals, grades, and exams to worry about they just look different because of our majors.
The majority of the people are known to be split into the categories of left and right-brained people/personalities. It's typically said that if you're a left-brained person, you tend to have an analytical side. If you're a right-brained person, you tend to be more on the creative side. Even though this is true, we all use both sides of our brains in all parts of our life. It's why you're able to do math as a theater major and being able to draw as a biology major.
However, there are those who tend to not exactly be left or right-brain dominant, and rather show a constant interest in both. We're the people who are the music/biology majors or the history/engineering majors.
Yes, the left brain and right brain depicted visually. La Gorda
I've had the fortunate experience of being able to not only be the science student but the art student as well. It's an experience that gives me a perspective on the subject in which people who are science-only or art-only don't get to see.
I spent my time in school as a biology major, while also working towards my theatre minor. Yes, this meant I spent the majority of my time in science, but I also spent a fair amount of my time over in theatre. There were days that I spent as much time in the lab, as I did in the theatre. The beauty of my university was that they were right across from each other, and it was perfect in a lot of ways. It combined my two favorite things and allowed for easy travel.
Each required their own set of discipline to learn and do well in our classes. In upper-level science classes, studying was a large part of the work, but you also have to learn how to apply. No memorization of any equation or definitions was going to help you there. Yes, we also have essays, some which are considered lab reports. If you've never written a lab report, it often can be long as an essay and take hours or days to prepare. Trust me, when I say, not all our professors loved multiple choice, either.
In the meanwhile, theatre was a beast of its own. I had to spend nights writing essays and preparing portfolios. Portfolios aren't easy as they sound, especially when you still need to complete or revise projects to complete it. Theatre also means a lot of time spent at shows (usually a full month) when you also have other work to do. Unlike with science where there is pretty much a definite answer, there are often no definite answers in theatre. The critique and perception are often left up alone to the instructor. If you want to debate, go ahead, but it might not be fun.
Since we spend so much time together, we often talk A LOT. We would often spend time talking about work, which for me included science and theatre classes. It allowed us to bond as we realized that we all work hard to achieve our goals. At the end of the day, that's the part that makes the arguing incredibly stupid. We all work hard in our majors, so why are we trying to prove who has it more difficult.
Science and art always benefit from each other, sometimes more than we realize.
The things that are benefited from science are often obvious, such as medicine and technology. Although, there are other things people tend to not think about when it comes to science contribution to the arts.
Many of the dyes that are used for painting are created by chemists. The programs that are needed by digital media and digital art are created by computer programmers. Last, but not least, the technique and logic behind technical production in theaters comes from engineers.
When it comes to art contributions to science, there are the obvious ones as well that include music, movies, etc.
In the actual field science, many fail to realize that we learn from artists. In our textbooks, science books contained illustrations that taught us about cellular processes, the actions of physics, and more. The videos that we learned from were created by video editors to aid our learning process.
And that's just to name a few ways we help each other in our fields and in life.
Remember these? Yes, we all learned from science illustrations. Thank you, artists. Deposit Photos
If anything, science and art should support each other more than anyone, especially in regards to education. The truth that we all know is that sports program receive larger amounts of support and money than science, and especially the arts. Yes, this is supposed to be a positive article about everyone supporting each other, but it's not about appreciation. It's not that sports programs shouldn't have money, its that the support should be equal for all programs. It shouldn't have to end with conversations like, "We don't have money for new instruments." or "We don't have money for new fume hoods." when we all know the perks the football just received (don't tell me about profit, because like I said, we're all important.)
This is one of the main reasons that we in the science world and art world should stick together: because we're often fighting the same battles.
You may be someone who doesn't enjoy studying science. You may be someone who doesn't enjoy studying art. However, the thing you can't deny is that we all learn and benefit from each other.If you appreciate music, movies, books, theater, etc. , thank an artist.
If you appreciate your phone, your computer, your television, your body's health, etc. , thank a scientist.
Stop fighting. Hug it out. Giphy
There is no need to argue about who is more important than the other because we're all important. We don't need to argue about difficulties, because we all have them. We should all appreciate each other's contributions and learn to love each and every major and career.