Week 1: Welcome back to campus

 I remember as a kid liking to draw and color. I also liked math and science and reading stories, especially with my parents, who always emphasized us reading as a group in bed. However, I didn't color "well."In front of my parents, I was told that I wasn't much of an artist, but that's ok because I was good at math. I never enjoyed an art class after that in my life. I should have been about 5. Like CP Snow illustrates in two cultures, I didn't fit the view of my kindergarten teacher as an artist. My mind was too logical, and I had a hard time coloring. I have been branded a "scientist" ever since. 


                                               This is an actual picture I drew. I wasn't that bad.

Obviously, I didn't realize that this concept was that pervasive at age five. However, it has followed me up to pick a major for college where I was told, "public policy isn't a real job that will set you up with the money." As CP Snow said, "young English and History majors would be lucky to make 60 cents on the dollar of a young scientist". Any parent wants their children to do well for themselves, so I joined UCLA as a major in Materials Engineering, and I'm about to graduate. Even walking through campus, you see the divide, for as much as UCLA insists on scheduling classes for all majors on opposite sides of campus. I mean, Bunche Hall has a palm courtyard, and Boelter Hall has the invention of the internet. How much more different can you get? But my innate understanding and that of professor Vesna have a point. Separating the two cultures renders makes solving problems in both areas more difficult. Who is to say that the issue of climate change, or rather the difficulty of acting on climate change, doesn't need a rhetoric specialist to make people connect to the problem on an emotional level? And there's art and beauty in many a metallic and ionic crystal structure and fractal enough to make a painter swoon. (I spent five years learning about it). There's an entire field of material science dedicated to characterizing paint from ancient works. The connection is there and is helpful. All you need to do is look for it.

            https://la.curbed.com/2011/10/31/10429196/internet-invented-ucla-first-message-museum

                                            https://campusguide.wordpress.com/img_0426/

Sources :

Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. At the Univ. Press, 1960.

Vesna, V. Lecture 1 Part I and II, Spring Quarter UCLA



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