Everybody hates the Land Economy student

Oh god, here she goes: another bitter Land Economist who can’t take a few light-hearted Memebridge posts, ready to whine about how their subject should be respected instead of ridiculed. Just go home and milk your cow you inferior Economist.

Exam term makes us all a bit sensitive – a few of us a bit obnoxious and competitive. Some of us become absolute assholes. When you’re stressed out about your degree and questioning every second you spend revising to the point where you begin to wonder why you didn’t just pick up gymnastics at the age of 4 and become an Olympian, it’s easy to start pointing fingers at what you perceive to be the ‘easier’ subjects. And Land Economists often fall into this category.

45 points in the IB but not intelligent

I could tell you about how employable Land Economists are, how we cover elements of Geography, Law and Economics, and are a genuinely lovely, close-knitted group of people. But you’re not an idiot, you know that already. Just like you know that Mathmos can be social butterflies, Lawyers do have morals, and History and English students don’t spend all day in bed.

I’m not going to moan to you about how difficult a subject Land Economy actually is. I’m not going to tell you to stop making farming jokes. That would be boring (and far too easy to attack, and being in quite a fragile pre-exam state, I would prefer not to be slandered on the internet). I have a sense of humour  (photographic evidence below) and I also don’t really care about your opinion – sorry, I’m sure you’re very nice and your mum is proud of all of your accomplishments.

Udderly ridiculous

What I do care about is what this fascination with shaming other subjects/hobbies/preferences that we all seem to share stems from. Despite being at one of the world’s most prestigious institutions and us all being, in our own modest opinions, bloody geniuses, we’re a pretty ignorant bunch. How do intelligent people still fall victim to this desire to shame and label others based on redundant, inaccurate stereotypes?

Milking this pun for all it’s worth

What it boils down to is hierarchy. No matter what setting we’re in we’ll always want to label and rank people – even if it’s something as mundane as someone who goes to Life vs Fez. Why do we do it? Maybe to maintain our own self-worth. Maybe we’ve come from being a big fish in a little pond and now, finding ourselves drowning in intellect and predated by second year sharks, need to make comparisons to boost our self-confidence. Maybe we’re jealous: we hear about subjects that genuinely sound interesting (mainly because we aren’t doing them ourselves) and try to reassure ourselves of our degree choice by labeling that seemingly fun subject as being ‘a bit of a doss.’

Smilier than the lawyers

I don’t do PBS so I can’t give you an accurate analysis of this behaviour (but if you want to know the effect that community gardens have on social sustainability in urban settings, hit me up and I’ll drop you some Paper 4 land knowledge).

The hierarchy doesn’t end at subjects. Try telling your supervisor that you need to reschedule your next supervision because you have Cheer nationals and Varsity in two days and you NEED to go to practice or you’ll let down your stunt group. Then try telling them that you play Uni-level Rugby and see how different the response is. I don’t want to whine about how cheerleading should be respected either (but oh boy, I could – and I could do it in counts of 8 with perfect execution), but it is another example of the unnecessary categorizing and stereotyping that we cherish so much.

Winners of Varsity 5 years in a row and the only Blue we have is our bruises

The most ridiculous of all these forms of unwarranted hatred is the attitude towards Girton and Homerton students, who are roasted for nothing more than being at a colleges further away from central Cambridge. Even a PBS student wouldn’t be able to figure that one out.

At the end of the day, a bit of stereotyping is all fun and games. Just don’t be an asshole and overdo it or I’ll send my herd of goats after you.