Well, here we are at the end of our first year of university… somehow. What a rollercoaster. This year has led me down beautiful avenues of discovery in both my arts and science majors, and despite its unconventional structure I have wholly enjoyed my re-absorption into the academic world. While the year has shed a light on the differences between my two chosen disciplines of study (and differences in funding… ahem!), I have been pleasantly surprised by the intersections I have found between the two. I often find myself referencing aspects of the scientific method or research in my arts courses, or finding terms explored and grappled with in the arts used as commonplace in my science courses.
I don’t think these intersections are anything new or particularly revolutionary, rather it is that I have only this year been forced to draw parallels between the two. I have come to realise that the two disciplines, one compelled by boundless imagination, the other a methodical fact-searching process, sit at a beautiful crossroads. Their different epistemologies force a kind of critical thinking I had not explored prior to this year – I am now grappling with moral, ethical, and historical issues alongside the pursuit of scientific discovery. With each passing week, I feel my mind and worldviews expanding, evolving, and developing further under both disciplines. I think Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci sums this up well:
“To develop a complete mind: study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses – learn how to see. Realise that everything connects to everything else.”
Consider the role of scientific endeavor in the history of politics and economics; the importance of the arts in communicating and integrating science in our everyday lives; the different questions the disciplines pose, but that in turn are both in the pursuit of discovery at their core. ‘The Arts’ (if I may use the term) draw inspiration from the natural world I spent nights with my head buried in textbooks reading about. People, plants, animals, ecosystems… we are all connected. Our evolutionary history and desires entwined with our global human history and present-day reality. I think I am starting to realise that life is not separate divisions of disciplines (and that this is a rather polarising and scary worldview to hold), but rather that everything is interwoven into the tapestry of life, each thread contributing its own colour and pattern to the whole picture.
I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of the blog post is – perhaps a final splat of the semester’s thoughts swirling around my head, or simply putting words to a train of thought that has followed me through the year. Either way, it’s where I am at right now and how I am choosing to treat my education going forward – with eyes, mind and heart open to discovery down each and every avenue.
I can’t help feel a little mischievous when I get to pull in skills from a different discipline. I picture some arts or science marker in a little arts or science bubble, and then suddenly whatever they are reading bridges the gap. (In my imagination, the marker then falls out of the chair in surprise.) It’s a small protest against the rigid categories you mention. Maybe that’s why I cited a treatise on alchemical history for a computer science essay, and wrote about computer science for my arts scholars essay.
I get the feeling there are innumerable ways to combine arts and science. You talk of the way the beauty of nature impacts arts and science, but my go-to is a bit less grounded in reality. Step 1 is to take any idea, and step 2 is to make it more abstract. The more general an idea is, the harder it is to tell the difference between an artistic idea and a scientific idea. Wow — even my description was vague and abstract.
Oh yes hello! I love to hear about the delight of blending disciplines and the satisfaction in exploring new ideas. This year has been full of intense learning experiences (both personal and academic) and definitely an unconventional one time period too.
I’d like to think that the Arts Scholars fosters this blend of fields of study which is one of the reasons that (at least for me) it’s offered a more holistic learning environment than some other papers. Often I feel like university institutions (not just UOA) allow students to lock themselves into only exploring their selected discipline and therefore creating academics that have limited connections to how their understanding of their field is inherently and widely connected to other ideas and issues in the world. Everyone prospers when there are more invested academics going out of their traditional field to see how their knowledge of their world can help others. I hope that you continue to do the awesome work you’re already doing. Rock on dude
Hello 🙂 I really enjoyed this read. I’m also an arts/science conjoint floating between getting lost in HSB trying to find a non-decrepit toilet and getting lost trying to find labs for my science courses. I’ve also felt v similar to you in that it kind of feels like we’re existing in a limbo between two worlds, but I think that understanding the importance of intersectionality is really really valuable.
I often talk w a friend of mine who does comp sci that “comp sci bros” (or anyone in silicon valley for that matter) just does all the cool science stuff without thinking about ethical implications. And before we know it, Facebook and the social media platform has been able to meddle with democracy. Arts brings the “should we do it” questions to science’s often unchecked aspirations.
I think it’s also really important for the lecturers we learn from to instil an attitude of intersectionality. One of my fave science lecturers this year was Shaun Lott and Julie Mcintosh. Lott had laid on THICK about gender disparities in STEM fields and why this was an issue – I’m talking a quick and dirty 15-minute segment (out of 1 hr) on the history of gender disparity AND STEM gender representation in the 21st century. He had also (briefly) chided Britain’s keeping of historical artefacts they stole (and kept) during their colonial period. Mcintosh less so, but she still relayed the importance of the history of science + science methodology through the ages.
I really appreciated these two lectures as our gen ed courses are likely the only exposure we have outside of our fields. Which I think is a shame. I’m not saying all STEM students have to do an ARTS paper, but I might strongly advocate for this
Frances, I loved reading this! Something about it seemed really familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until I realised that I wrote my scholars application on a similar concept 😊 I’m studying a conjoint with law and arts, but I had a friend in my last year of school taking his first year of a BSc and it got me thinking about the ways the different university disciplines are separated out, yet they still make up the fabric of our understanding of life and the universe in their unique ways, just from different vantage points. (“Where I see the world through words and the expression of different philosophies, and through art and music, other people see the ways that we are complex atomic miracles of life, reproducing our various understandings of reality”). I’ve talked to a few people about the ways in which Arts Scholars is really special because of that interdisciplinary approach – we can choose different topics and areas of interest that challenge and inspire us, but also incorporate multiple at once. As I mentioned in my post, perhaps my favourite thing about the course is the collision of so many disciplines – of music, art, history, classics, media, politics and English. It’s been such a crazy, hectic year but we made it through, and it was a lot of fun with our special Scholars crew! I also wanted to say that your memory project was awesome, I loved your photography and you spoke so eloquently as well. Thank you for your post, it’s beautifully written – and best of luck with your exams 😊