It’s Engineers’ Week again, ladies and gentlemen. But amid all the engineering propaganda that’s being shoved down our throats this week, let’s take some time to realize something: There are other majors at this university.

There are, in fact, more than 100 majors to choose from at Iowa State. Only a handful of these are engineering fields. And, according to the ISU office of admissions, the most popular course of study at Iowa State for incoming freshmen is not engineering. It’s pre-business.

But today I’m not interested in the fields that actually get the attention they deserve. Dozens of majors are underadvertised at Iowa State. Just a few are history, music, English, philosophy and art.

I already know what you’re thinking. Those aren’t real majors. People in those fields just sit around and paint their little pictures and read their little books and never accomplish anything. Yeah, we in those majors get a lot of undeserved flak for that.

“Usually when I tell people that I’m a history major, I get a look like they’re better than me because they know the math and science,” said sophomore Melanie Adam. “People seem to think that all history is, is memorizing and I don’t have to think. They seem to think that it’s not . challenging.”

I have had people tell me that they know as much as about English and writing as I do because they took English classes in high school. Should I tell chemistry majors that I know as much as they do about their field because I took a college-level chemistry course when I was 16? That’s just arrogant.

It’s true that arts majors tease each other all the time about living in boxes after college. Seriously, there’s even a Facebook group. And most of us are easygoing people who will listen to you laugh about our future home in a truck by the river. But when someone says those things and means it? That’s harsh.

Too many people say they could do what I do every day. The beauty of it is, I could do what you do every day, too. I would just have to put my mind to it. The difference is that I chose to be an English major and you chose to study physics. Our personal interests and ambitions made us choose those routes. One choice isn’t better than the other.

And who knows? I could go on to change the world, and you could be the one living in a box.

I think even some people who have arts-related majors feel our fields are less worthwhile than others.

It affects me, too. Some days I think of how I could be a doctor and save lives or an engineer and make life better.

I blame that in large part to the prejudice those in arts majors face from other students. I blame the look we get when we tell someone what we study, or the jerks who think they’re more important because they study science. After so many times of being told you’re worthless and inferior, you begin to accept it.

Our majors are not worthless. We are not worthless. And we shouldn’t accept being treated like we are.

Our fields are important to society in a very different way. We keep the earth human.

Without people who understand and enjoy art, religion, theatre, history and more, this planet would run like a clock. A clock of steel. In a world full of apathetic machinery and unfeeling science, we are the human element.

So enjoy E-Week, but keep in mind that engineers are not the only ones worth celebrating.

– Bailey Lewis is a sophomore in English from Indianola.