Hello! My name is Dominique Cetale and I just finished my first year at UCLA. I am on the women’s tennis team, and am from San Diego, California. I came to UCLA as an undeclared major, but have just recently decided to major in history. I plan to go to law school after I finish up my undergraduate degree here at UCLA.
Ever since elementary school, I would constantly label people into two different categories depending on their academic strengths. I thought a person was either more math/science or arts/humanities. I always believed that I fit under the label of the arts and humanities. Even when I was younger, I always struggled with math and science. At UCLA, this belief of two cultures is reinstated with the separation of north and south campus majors. At our school, you are either labelled a north campus major or south campus major which people have their own preconceived notions. After going over the lecture on stereotypes, I realized that this categorizing people is not right because people can not be distinguished and put under a specific group. People use both sides of their brain constantly, so these generalizations that a person is either right-brained, or left-brained are untrue. Not only are these “two cultures” seen in academic situations, but it is also seen in my personal life by my ethnic heritage.
I have constantly felt two differing cultures in my life because my father is from Colombia, whereas my mother is American. My father and my grandmother have many contrasting Colombian traditions compared to my mother and her family. I have always felt that I do not belong under one category; rather I fit into a third culture, or a mix of the two. This third culture can be related to the intersection of the arts and sciences. Rather than just fitting into one category, I get unique traditions from both of my ethnic backgrounds. This can be seen in contemporary students where people are pushed to take classes not associated with their major, so they can work on the side that is not as favorable to them. By improving their “weaker” sides, this makes them see the world differently. This third culture can be compared to the integration of the arts and sciences, which Professor Vesna describes in her article, "Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between."
Citations
"OSU-OKC Arts & Sciences Division." OSU-OKC Arts & Sciences Division. Web. 27 June 2014.
"Raslan Pla & Company -Attorneys & Counselors at Law." Raslan Pla and Company. Web. 27 June 2014.
Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Cambridge UP, 1959. Print.
"The Career Three: Math, Science & Medicine." Avnet Intelligent System Community. Web. 27 June 2014.
"TwoCultures Part 2." YouTube. Web. 27 June 2014
Dominique-
ReplyDeleteDo you ever feel like you are pushed towards one culture more than the other? Since you have grown up in America, has that culture instilled more of it's qualities than the Colombian culture?
Do you think that your dad is the opposite, being more affected by Columbian culture?
I agree that our campus is very separated between the sciences and humanities. I do not go to north campus very often being a life science major, but I do love to go to the cafe at the business school to study. I don't know if it will ever be possible to integrate the two cultures more within Ucla as there is an obvious spacial separation, but maybe with more majors like Human Biology in Society (that major is a life science major with influences from the humanities) the school can move towards being more combined.
:)
Hello Dominique! It's interesting how you compared your two different culture background with art and science. They are definitely comparable but I do think that it's easier to fit into a mix of two cultures than to be experts at both arts and sciences. I think that which culture one belongs to is more subjective since it's easy to favor one culture over the other and a decision can be made, but that's not the case when it comes to arts/humanities or math/sciences.
ReplyDeleteI just finished my first year also and I feel that as a engineering student the GE requirements can really expose me to the arts/humanities/history. How you feel as a history major?