Junior English major

Yesterday I entered the Kim Engineering Building for the first time. As I stared in awe at the high glass ceiling, my friend told me to follow him up the spiral staircase to some secret laboratory-study-sanctum-lounge space to which he had exclusive swipe access. I was impressed and jealous.

No wonder engineers are geniuses. They have the greatest environment for focusing and studying. There were little kitchens on the third floor with coffeemakers, plush chairs and huge tables and perfect non-fluorescent lighting that created the ambiance that makes you want to sit down, listen to Alexandre Desplat and write the greatest masterpiece of all time.

But as I sat down in one of the plush chairs, all I could think about was a conversation several of my co-workers had earlier that day.

“Can you believe the university is raising our tuition, man? So unfair.”

“I know. What did we do to deserve this?”

These words echoed in my mind as a clan of future brain surgeons exited the bioengineering lab with their hands full of machinery, wires and textbooks.

From an outsider’s perspective, I can say engineering, computer science and business students did everything to deserve the tuition raise. They have learned how to integrate unusual resources into the classroom setting, how to use technology to their advantage, how to invent new equipment that will improve the work and lives of others and how to position this university as one of the most innovative schools in the nation.

Are any of these accomplishments possible without expensive resources provided by the university, such as lab space, equipment, computers and those weird chemicals science majors play with? These resources don’t just appear out of thin air.

Engineering, computer science and business students need to realize that you must invest in your work before you walk away from the university with your diploma and a job that pays six or seven figures.

All of those seminars, dinner parties, job fairs, networking events and field trips the business school provides students are such a treat. I’m not saying these students are spoiled — everyone deserves benefits for working hard — but sometimes you need to cough up a few bucks if you are given opportunities other students will never receive.

This semester, my film professor tried to get my class tickets to see Interstellar in IMAX for ENGL428X: Seminar in Language and Literature; Fantastic Voyages: Modern Media of Exploration and Discovery. The department didn’t have enough funding for the 15 of us to go, yet freshmen in the Business, Society and the Economy College Park Scholars program are treated to a giant cookout and kickball tournament every year — how educational. At the Writing Center, the place where those oh-so-useless English majors help STEM and business students improve their work, we have to host a potluck at the end of the year for which we all bring in some horribly crusty dessert we make in our dorm rooms because the English department can’t afford to fund a celebration for our hard work.

And the job fairs? Networking events? There is only one big arts and humanities college networking event each semester. No one cares about our research on Dorothy Wordsworth or Gothic architecture or Greek mythology or whatever we invest hundreds of hours into. There’s no coffee shop in Tawes Hall to keep our brains running strong or plush lounges to make us feel at home. I have to trot to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center if I want to feel cozy in an art space.

But this is why STEM and business studies now run the world. Research on the evolution of prose poetry doesn’t serve any purpose nowadays. STEM and business fields find solutions for problems. They physically change the world. And they make money. They make lots and lots of money.

So if all I had to do was pay an extra $700 to receive the lifelong perks that engineering, computer science and business students receive for their hard work, I would hand in my check in a heartbeat. So please, for the sake of all the students who get no recognition for what they do, stop complaining.