There are a plethora of colleges and universities out there that place priority on certain fields and majors, whether it be medical, performing arts, visual arts, technology, etc., and many hopeful college students look to find a school that best matches their needs. But then there are the students that just want to go to a college; and if it’s the best one you applied to, then you can’t help but to be blinded by a fancy reputation. Like me.

I basically ignored the fact that UMBC, the highest ranked college I got into (and the college I go to now), was overwhelmingly a STEM school (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) because I was too distracted by the fact that I had ACTUALLY gotten in. I had declared myself as a Media and Communications major during the last few months of high school and have stayed that way ever since, and with no knowledge of what it would be like, I boldly took my first step onto campus. Little did I know what the implications of being a non-STEM major were going to be.

None of your friends are in your core classes.

Unless you’ve put the effort into creating a friend group of only the same field, this is sadly the case. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve overheard friends planning out their schedules so they can be in the same biology or chemistry or engineering class the next semester. You get used to the fact that no one will try to schedule with you because they’ve already counted you out.

You discover that a lot of people look down on you because of your major.

“Why did you come here to do (insert here) if you’re not a STEM major?” is also something I’ve heard several times in several forms. Whether it’s because you’re pursuing theater, or art, or humanities, or simply anything that isn’t the norm there, there are people who will turn their noses up. UMBC proudly embraces the fact that it’s a nerd school, which is fine by me. But there’s bound to be isolation because we have such an overwhelming majority here. Again, I came here because it is a good school with a great educational reputation, and if they have my major here, then I will go.

You realize that your school may very well prioritize the fields they deem more important.

This also includes any type of college sports team. Your field has poor lab equipment or a run-down performance studio, and your university instead decides to put their funding into bigger plasma screens for the basketball stadium. You can complain about it all you want, but either college financial boards will listen or they won’t.

Meeting a random student with the same major is a magical encounter.

And I mean outside the classroom, because, duh.

People don’t know what your major’s acronym/hyphenation is.

Mine is MCS, and I can’t ever remember a time where I got away with saying that without getting a confused look on someone’s face. It’s not as easy as Econ, or Bio, or IS, MechE (at least those are common terms at my school). You always have to say the whole damn thing!

I know I’m not speaking from a super small minority because there are sizeable chunks of Communications majors at every school. But every school is different, and surely you know whether your own major is popular or not. But at the end of the day, we’re all students trying to get a degree, and we should focus on our similarities instead of our differences.