Science Majors Who Just Want to Dance!

I’ve hit a point in my life where I really like and really hate being a science person.

I really like it because I understand it and it forces me to think about the world a little. In a certain way, pretty much everything makes you think about the world, but science forces you to think about the very basic building blocks of the world and why they’re there and how they have changed. Also I like understanding this tough stuff and feeling smart, since most scientists are so specialized you can feel like this just talking to colleagues and stuff like that. Not that I’m obnoxious about it, but it’s a good feeling when you feel smart (which I never got to with French class…).

But I’m also having this issue where I love the arts. I do so many more arts activities than science-y activities, it’s a little ridiculous. And then there’s the sheer fact that you can’t affect other people with science the way you can with art. Art gives existential crises, it gives meaning to the world around you. You can’t do that with science, unless you find something really huge and important to everyone. But since everything’s so specialized and everything, you’re more likely to find something small that only affects people in your field.

And also whenever I go to see a show, I just really want to be part of it, be up there doing it as well. I think it’d be wonderful to do that, to affect so many people and make a difference to them. You just don’t touch as many individuals in the sciences as you do in the arts.

Of course, I’m not actually good at the arts enough, and probably don’t love it enough to make a living out of it. So I’m staying with science. But if there a term for this sort of crisis? Science majors who just want to dance/act/draw/play music? I like to think that I’m not the only one, but maybe this doesn’t bother other people to the extent that it bothers me!