What am I doing here?

For a while during my first semester, I felt as though I didn’t fit here at Stevens. I had spent so much time dreaming about Stevens during my senior year of high school, knowing that it was the perfect school for me, only to be thrown into a pool filled with people I couldn’t relate to outside of my major, Music and Technology.

If you’re not an engineering major or majoring in something with a title that implies science, you’re probably used to the oh-so-familiar question: Why are you at Stevens? And it’s a valid question; the majority of Stevens students are not studying something to do with the fine arts.

It first started to irk me when people would talk to me about certain classes that a lot of other freshmen had to take first semester, assuming that I was also taking them (e.g. math, chem). A look of utter confusion crossed their faces when I explained that I wasn’t taking those classes. And when I explained the classes I was taking, most of them didn’t understand what the classes entailed.

I’ve also been clumped together with the majority and assumed to be studying engineering for the mere sake of convenience. It’s not something I take offense to, but it is frustrating and slightly disheartening. Everybody wants to be heard and acknowledged, and the worst thing is to assume is that everybody is the same.

Stevens is not just a school for people interested in engineering. CAL 103 and 105 might be annoying classes, but they exist within the College of Arts and Letters (CAL), where other majors are too. Music and Technology isn’t an easy major; we all have to learn an instrument of our choice as well as piano, and music theory isn’t exactly self-explanatory. It can get really frustrating because music is like a different language, and it’s no different from an engineering major getting frustrated over their classes.

If you love your major, you don’t easily quit on the difficult classes. That’s why you chose your major — to succeed within the field and satisfy your passions. So why am I at Stevens? The same reasons you are.