Hey, It's Social!

“Three years of studying Social Sciences, I have heard enough of stereotypes and jokes that Social is lower than science. I don't believe in this, I have positive thoughts that they are all merely stereotypes because I see my classmates as brilliant and bright young generation studying what we are passionate about. But now that some universities ban us from taking social fields (e.g management and geography), and allowing Science major students to take ours instead: I start to feel a little disappointed. Knowledge is knowledge, regardless of what you study. It's about how we learn to create innovative solutions to better our community. Well, I understand that social major and science major are different in some ways but that doesn't make us lower than science. That doesn't mean we are what the stereotypes say.” –Dhia Fairus Fani

Yes, that’s what my senior said about our country’s education system nowadays. I’ve heard

enough of jokes, mocks, and stereotypes about social is actually lower than science. I’ve heard enough of them all. Does taking social major make you any lower than science students? Does taking social major is such a disgrace?

If so, why do people keep taking our territories? A lot of people are taking Social-related majorities once they’re going in to college (ex: accounting, business management, international relationship, economy, etc.). Where do we have to go? Should we get a revenge and take their territories instead? Should we be a doctor? Should we be a chemical engineer? Do we, social students, don’t deserve anything in the first place? Then why is the government still going with these social and science major separation? Why won’t they just eliminate that system alone? Isn’t that a better choice?

The thing is, people’s stereotypes are way too old-fashioned. It’s true that social students are somewhat naughty back in the past. but it’s different now. Social students ARE NOT lower than Science students. We choose our own destination. We know what’s better for ourselves.

We choose social. It’s not because we weren’t accepted in science major, it’s because we weren’t choose it in the first place. I see my classmates as the smart and brilliant ones. Never once I see them as failures. They are all smart, innovative, and easy-going. Each one of them are having their own excellences. And they are good debaters.

It’s quite pathetic that a lot of people despise us. We took social major because we have reasons. Either it’s because we feel that we are somewhat liking social subjects more than science, or it’s because we want to take social-related majorities once we are in college. We have reasons for sure. Never once I ever think that social is any lower than science, or vice versa. Just like what my senior said, “Knowledge is knowledge, regardless of what you study.”

We study what we are passionate about. The real purpose behind these science, social, and also language majors dividing is actually not based on how smart the students are. It’s because the government want to simplify and lighten the burden of us, high school students. Imagine how difficult it will be if there’s no such thing as majority? Can you really imagine that?

The students themselves also make the situation worse. Their stereotypes are also kind of old-fashioned. Their one-sided conclusion due to false perceptions about social major, their parents’ coercion, their friends’ suggestion. Thus making them afraid of taking social major, even though they know that their actual talents are actually within social subjects.

My accounting teacher, Mrs. Sugi, recently told us about how disappointed she was after hearing a student who mocked social students directly. “I hate it when my social children are being mocked and being taken too lightly by others. They don’t know anything about my students. It hurts me so much. That’s why, show them that you all will be the successful ones in the future.” That’s what Mrs. Sugi told us. Lucky us to have a teacher like her.

We are students, we have the same rights to study. We are exactly not what the stereotypes say.

“A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.” –Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man.

 “Human behavior reveals uniformities which constitute natural laws. If these uniformities didn’t exist, then there would be neither social science nor political economy, and even the study of history would largely be useless. In effect, if the future actions of men having nothing in common with their past actions, our knowledge of them, although possibly satisfying our curiosity by way of an interesting story, would be entirely useless to us as a guide in life.”

“Man, the molecule of society, is the subject of social science.”

“Many ‘hard’ scientists regard the term ‘social science’ as an oxymoron. Science means hypotheses you can test, and prove or disprove. Social science is little more than observation putting on airs.”

“One of the differences between the natural and the social sciences is that in the natural sciences, each succeeding generation stands on the shoulders of those that have gone before, while in the social sciences, each generation steps in the faces of its predecessors.”