You’ve seen the slogans. Iowa State University of Science and Technology. Science with Practice. It works.

With all due respect, I have to say science, schmience. What about the arts? What about education, or business, or one of the other programs of study? It seems that engineering, especially, gets a disproportionally high amount of credit for excellence at this university.

Would you believe that engineering students who make the dean’s list are invited to dine with President Jischke? Don’t, because it’s not true. The truth of the matter, I discovered, is that the college of engineering holds a dinner honoring its exemplary students and invites Jischke to attend. That’s completely acceptable. When I heard the first scenario, however, I almost believed it, because it seemed to fit in with the high status of engineering students today.

Now, I understand that without engineers the world would not be a very nice place. I respect engineers and their accomplishments. I like bridges, cars, dishwashers and tons of other stuff engineers make possible. However, I don’t think engineering is more important than, say, sociology.

Why do people think engineering is so important? Well, one common belief is that engineering courses are far more difficult than most other courses offered at ISU. You have to be really smart and work really hard to get through the engineering program. As Brett Favre, the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, says on a Nike commercial, “I can be anything, except an engineer.”

I think that while engineering is a tough program, engineering students are not gods and goddesses. They work hard, but so do English majors. There are people in every program of study who scrape by without putting forth much effort, engineers included. People who get away with that definitely have something that I lack. As for intelligence, I know several people I never thought would get through engineering who have indeed earned a degree. I think even I could have done it.

Yes, I said, “I can do it.” (Sounds like a commercial to me, Nike.) I could be an engineer. I guarantee that I spent just as much time and effort in front of my computer writing last semester as most engineers spent on their coursework. Sure, right now I have trouble dividing the cost of a pizza three ways, but I did take calculus and chemistry at one point. Even though I dropped calc II, I think that if I had taken the class over, I could have passed. It’s possible. I’m not trying to be egotistical (I WAS flunking, after all), I’m just saying that I’ve been on both sides of the coin. Let me tell ya, this side is better.

The reason engineering wouldn’t work for me is that I have no passion for the subject matter. The toothpick bridge I built for high school physics, while a fun project, was the only one I want to attempt. I suppose a real genius could do anything, whether she cared about it or not. However, most of us have at least one academic area that we couldn’t care less about, and we’re probably not going to do very well in that area.

It’s true that not everyone could be an engineer. Not everyone could be a professional athlete, an artist, a teacher, an archaeologist or a writer, either. It takes all kinds.

Remember how annoying not being able to decorate your dorm room door was? Well, without artists of all types, we wouldn’t have much expression of emotions and dreams in our lives. Without psychologists and sociologists, we would have trouble understanding the human condition. Without historians, we wouldn’t know much about our past, and we wouldn’t learn much from our mistakes.

Almost everyone has some talent, ability, or knowledge that makes them unique. No specialty should be valued above another.

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Catherine Conover is a senior in liberal studies from Mapleton.