Students in unconventional fields discuss their majors
“Choose a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”
This quote, commonly attributed to Confucius, was given by junior Julie Wardell when asked why she chose to major in folklore.
Wardell said she has always had an interest in folklore. She was inspired by her Native American heritage when her mother told her about storytellers in their tribe.
“They basically have the stories and they tell them,” Wardell said, “and I was like, ‘That would be fun! What if I went and collected them?'”
Taking advantage of Utah State University’s folklore archives — USU boasts one of the largest in the nation — Wardell has a lot of fun with her field, she said.
Since a common goal for college students is to obtain employment, some may be curious about how students find these unconventional majors and how they plan on finding employment in their fields.
For Ben Davis, a graduate student in range science, the interest in agriculture has been there since childhood. His family owned dairy cows growing up, and he was drawn to books about agriculture, soil, plants and livestock during library visits.
As for how Davis discovered range science — the study of non-cultivated and non-urbanized land — he talked to a professor at BYU, who gave him a push.
“He walked me down the hall to the advising center and said, ‘Change your degree to range sciences.’ I haven’t looked back since,” Davis said.
Davis is currently undergoing a livestock grazing project at USU for his graduate work.
Logan Christian, a junior in environmental studies, has also had an interest in his field since he was young. Christian grew up with a family of environmental advocates, and his dad is an environmental psychologist. Christian’s mother, a teacher, raised him to value education as well.
“My parents have definitely had a big influence on me, both in terms of giving me some of the environmental values that I now have in caring about the earth and, in addition to that, just inspiring me to constantly be learning,” Christian said.
Christian adds that lifelong learning is valuable, especially with those pursuing unconventional or niche degrees.
“To get yourself ahead — whereas with engineering you have a pretty good skill set — you have to do a lot on your own,” Christian said.
The work Christian does on his own includes advocating for solar energy on campus. Christian recently submitted a grant to install solar panels to the water pump house south of the Industrial Science building. However, the extra work gets grueling if the passion isn’t there, Christian said.
“I think the only reason why I’m choosing to do a major where I’m pretty much shooting myself in the foot in terms of job opportunities is because I’m going to be happy with what I’m doing, and that’s pretty critical,” Christian said.
For Wardell, this happiness helps her deal with people who react to her major with judgment.
“I’d tell them what I was going into and they’d be like, ‘Well, you can’t expect to get a lot of money out of that,'” Wardell said. “I’m not expecting money. It kind of just brushes off me because I already expect that I’m not going to be rich.”
Christian reminds himself that society values money, and that’s what produces the criticism. Judgement happens, he said.
However, the world functions like an ecosystem. While value is placed on science, technology, engineering and math fields — or STEM fields — people of all studies depend on each other and need to work together, Christian said.
People pursue STEM degrees due to the job opportunities found there, Christian said. This means that the unconventional degrees need to work harder to bridge the gap and make their ideas heard.
“If we can get more people in these smaller degrees to really speak loudly for their smaller bunch and be like, ‘Hey guys, these are very important issues too,’ I hope we all can start paying attention to them more. That’s really what I’m trying to do on campus,” Christian said.
— whitney.howard@aggiemail.usu.edu
@omgwhitshutup