As I’ve mentioned a couple of times by now throughout my blog posts, I’m taking seemingly very different programs at the same time: PCJ, English, and Art History. While I’m not the first or the last PCJ student to be mixing dramatically different subject POSTs, I think it’s a topic that warrants discussion.
Overall, the reactions and support I’ve received from faculty and staff have led me to believe that the PCJ program strongly supports students who mix up their areas of study. However, choosing an interdisciplinary education comes with both hardships as well as benefits. For those of you who are wondering if it is worth it to concentrate on different topics, it’s important to consider the day-to-day positives and negatives. Below are my observations on how the experience has both positively and negatively affected my education.
I’ll start with the bad news. The harsh reality is, while many people will tell you how great of an idea it is to mix things up with your majors, they often ignore the truth: that doing so is a difficult endeavor:
- You can’t double up on courses. For instance, nearly none of my English Courses and PCJ courses line up (let alone Art History!). While many of my friends can often kill two birds with one stone when selecting classes for their majors, I’m left with a larger than recommended course load trying to fit everything in.
- You have to be constantly switching your state of mind. Different classes can use different meanings for the same word, and it’s up to you to remember the difference. Switching over from discussing literary devices to ethnic cleansing, sometimes in the span of 10 minutes, is a lot more easily said than done.
- You can find yourself trying to navigate more than one social group. Just like your mode of thought can be different depending on the subject, so can your personality and friends—my friends in English are very different from my friends in PCJ. Trying to seek a balance between these alter egos can often become stressful, especially during occasions when you mix the two groups together (like your birthday). FOMO about the classes all of your other friends are in is definitely real.
- You run the risk of becoming a jack-of-all-trades, and a master of none. As important as being well rounded can be, there’s something to be said about specializing in something. Mixing things that don’t often go together can be fun and offer you valuable insight, but it can also lead to you knowing a little about a lot of unrelated topics.
That being said, the fact that I continue to take varied programs must offer some justification for my choice, and for making that choice in general. In fact, I’ve been surprised at how many benefits my interdisciplinary education has!
- Class is more interesting because people have different backgrounds and opinions. Okay, this isn’t just about you and your choices. But, the grand effect of many people taking varied programs sure makes for some interesting discussions. My experience this year in PCJ has been a lit richer because my classmates are all coming from different disciplines and perspectives.
- You become more organized and flexible. Having a million things to do and places to be can either overwhelm you or make you more organized. In my experience, having to constantly switch over from one discipline to another, as well as having to complete different types of work has pushed me—nay, forced me—to get a grip and get organized. I’ve become much more adaptable to different situations, and I’ve found lots of new strategies to help me stay on the ball.
- It makes you well rounded. I mentioned before that one of my qualms about taking such different majors is that I’ll become a jack-of-all-trades, and a master or none. Truthfully, I’d be far more afraid at overspecializing than exposing myself to different facets of knowledge and academia. I’ve talked to so many employers, recruiters, registrars and mentors, and the overwhelming consensus is that a well-rounded candidate will almost always be preferred. Exposing yourself to different points of view and ways of addressing situations can realistically only benefit you. Even if your extra major may not help you find work directly (my younger brother is always exited to point out that there are no English factories opening up near our house any time soon), it still contributes to the kind of person you become. Learning to consider multiple views and perspectives at the same time is a skill that will ultimately benefit you, both personally as well as professionally.
- Eventually, you’ll start to see similarities and overlaps in most of the subjects you take. Case in point: Last semester, I took a course on Greco-Roman Art and Architecture (FAH207, an awesome class!). While in the course, I attended an extra-credit lecture for this course on ISIS and art’s black market. Suddenly, I realized that my two most unrelated programs—Art History and PCJ—were irrevocably tied together in this context. And while it may sound a little crazy to claim that everything is ~aLl ReLaTeD~, odds are that you’ll find it to be true.
- You get to do what you love! After spending what seemed like a century not being able to choose what I wanted to learn, university was the first time I got to tailor my education to exactly what I wanted to do. And you know what? It feels fantastic. When you’re spending precious money, time and resources on your education, you owe it to yourself to make the most out of the opportunities you have. And a very large part of making the most of your education comes down to genuinely enjoying and being interested in what you study. If that means you end up majoring in Drama and Astrophysics, that’s cool. If that means you end up studying PCJ, English and Art History, that’s cool, too.
Despite the small inconveniences that come with mixing dramatically different (or as we have learned above, not as different as I thought!) majors, I’ve found the experience to be overall awesome. I’m not only making the most out of my time here at UofT, but I’m learning different contexts and disciplines that will ultimately contribute to my unique understanding of the world. And if that’s not worth it, I don’t know what is.