I went to Lanzarote in my reading week, but I still work harder than Medics

Every term, sciences students can’t help but moan about how they don’t get a reading week. But the fact of the matter is, humanities students get a reading week every semester simply because we have more work to do.

We don’t need a lecturer spoon-feeding us information, or labs or practicals to try and help us understand. We already have the tools and personal skills to research the information given to us and further our learning. Isn’t that the point of university? To create graduates who are individuals, and who are able to take a small amount of specialist knowledge and expand what they know?

It’s not just Medics who like to brag about how much work they do, and how much better they think they are. All science students are guilty. You can’t go a day without your science friends telling you how long their day has been. Yes I might have got up at 10 and had one hour in uni, but that doesn’t make me lazy. You try reading two books in a week, on top of practically unintelligible additional reading, and writing a weekly 3,000 word essay.

I needed this holiday

My reading week in Lanzarote was completely deserved. I work at 100 per cent all day, every day, so why shouldn’t I use my reading week to read in the sun, with a cocktail in the other hand, and a masseuse rubbing my feet? We all need some down time, but even then I worked: all that reading won’t get itself done.

Medicine, the sciences and Engineering are key for discovery and furthering our technology. But that doesn’t mean humanities subjects don’t have value in the “real” world either. You can make the choice to know everything about physics or computing, but you can’t overlook the importance of social interaction and the cultural society you live in. We influence what people talk about and have the ability to challenge and question, we encourage public debating to accommodate change. It’s obvious society as a whole is harder to understand and to accomplish than understanding a scientific process or an equation. It’s not just a straight answer.

Bliss

Science subjects shouldn’t be so smug. We might be your local MP or that “guy in marketing” working on selling your new product, but you need us and we need you. It’s time to stop saying we’re lazy and admit we work hard as well.