It Needs to Stop

This is going to be off-topic for purposes of this assignment, but I can't think of anything else because I'm so frustrated.

Major-shaming needs to stop. I am sick and tired of it. Everywhere I go on this damn campus I hear engineering and pre-med students going on and on about how they take the "real classes" and the "actually hard classes". They discuss how they're going to make the most money, and how they deserve it because "not everyone can handle the difficulty" of such an elite major. It's bullshit.

I could major in engineering if I wanted to. I could be pre-med too, just as easily. I don't want to choose those, however, and not because they are "too hard". I just can't see myself getting a career in those fields and being happy. (Also I hate math. I'm not bad at math, I just hate it, so I put in minimal effort to pass the AP Exams and place out of it.)

Money isn't everything. Having a lot of money is nice, sure, but if money is all success is based on, this world is more twisted than even I believe it to be. I'm in a "statistically low-paying major", sure. But so what? Why do people care? How does that make me worth less than others? I still have something to offer this world.

I literally had a girl in one of my classes say that "There's competition in the pre-med and engineering fields because that's where all the smart people go."  I'm not exaggerating. She said it three times during her argument, as if it were fact. There is no such thing as an elite major. People have different interests, people make different choices! What ever happened to wanting to be happy, to doing what you love and loving what you do?

I am an English major (please don't judge my writing skills from this rant). I experience some sort of major-shaming at least every other day. I hear if from my peers, my parents, and even strangers. It's tiring! I feel like the world is against me, as if everyone is trying to get me to regret my choice before it even has any actual impact on my life. I doubt myself now all the time. I'm slowly beginning to feel as if I will be a useless failure, and that's a horrible feeling. I haven't had a chance to do anything yet, and already it's as if it's too late for a success story to blossom.

What's worse is that major-shaming scares people out of even trying to do what they love. I have a friend who wants nothing more than to be in theater (and she'd be good, she already is). Yet she refuses to major in theater, because she's worried of how it would look and how she would be perceived. She will only choose it if she is able to double major in theater and something "legitimate" (legitimate was not her exact wording, but was the gist of the speech). Another friend of mine says rather frequently that he "wishes he would just major in english" and that "[I'm] so brave for actually choosing english". It frustrates me to no end! Am I sacrificing myself? Am I really doing something so inconceivably dangerous that others marvel at my apparent stupidity? Every damn compliment I'm given seems to be a backhanded insult.

The point I'm trying to make is this: every major is worth something, and none are inherently better than any others. Engineering and pre-med people, keep on trucking, you can do it. Everyone else, don't get dragged down by ignorance, you can be successful too. Please, stop major-shaming.