When I accepted my offer of admission to Stanford, I accepted it as a fuzzy. I knew that my part of the unspoken bargain in attending this university was that I would exist in a clearly defined subgroup of the population at large: fuzzies. Unlike so many aspects of life at Stanford that are identical at most comparable institutions, the techie-fuzzy divide is completely unique to us.
Others have written eloquently and poignantly on this paradigm and its divisive consequences. It seems a truth universally acknowledged that every Stanford student knows the progression of the first computer science courses and whether or when they will take them, while classes in the humanities are seen as, at best, interesting, and at worst, useless.
What I find fascinating is how quickly we categorize ourselves into techies and fuzzies. I came to Stanford as an English major, but quickly realized just how undeclared I am, knowing only that I am not particularly interested in STEM. In the permutations of the “what’s your major?” conversation that I have experienced, there are several constants: the feeling of dread that creeps up on me when a group of people are all STEM majors, the panic of justifying my unclear path and actual worry that my major will prevent me from employment.
No one has ever told me that it is inferior to major in the humanities; no one has ever told me that I need to know what I’m doing; no one has ever even told me that I won’t get a job. Rather, the culture favors technological pursuits in subtler ways. In my freshman dorm, my housemates bonded over Math 51 problem sets while I read about 19th-century reform movements. No one prevented me from joining them, but the nature of our paths separated us in ways I could only circumvent with conscious effort. During my freshman year, I often wondered what it would be like to attend a college where it was not unusual to study the humanities. I worried that I was somehow taking an easier path than my peers, or that I was missing out on a feeling of belonging that was possibly waiting elsewhere. Sometimes I still do. But what I have realized is that there exist parts of Stanford where the humanities are appreciated, lack of foreseeable employment and all; these places just aren’t as clearly indicated as Hewlett.
In my search for where I fit within the massive organism of Stanford, I have found that the divide I developed such a real fear of is purely mental. The shame I feel about being a fuzzy is an extrapolation of my own insecurity about pursuing an uncommon path, an assumption that my peers are judging me. Perhaps by shedding light on our subconscious inheritance of the techie/fuzzy divide, we can refuse it.
Contact Ariel Kaufman at akaykauf ‘at’ stanford.edu.