Northeastern has eight colleges and more than 175 majors. Students are encouraged to pioneer their own academic path, to find the subject they are passionate about, and to support their peers in this process. Northeastern fosters an environment of collaboration and mutual understanding in education.

On paper, printed in prospective student packets and posted on Northeastern webpages, these things are true. Northeastern is set up to be a school where every interest is embraced and where every pursuit is respected.

But when it comes to majors and colleges, students face a very different reality than the one they were sold as incoming freshmen. An undeniable divide exists: the split between STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and liberal arts majors.

The archetypes are well-known. Engineers, doctors, coders, and the like have their nose buried in research and their eyes on a stable and lucrative career. Those pursuing more creative paths, meanwhile, are so stuck in the romanticism and idealism of their fields they fail to notice they’re spiraling toward a jobless future.

These descriptions are generic and dated. They are egregious stereotypes that discredit aspects of both types of students. Yet they still pervade Northeastern, as well as many universities, workplaces, and other institutions across the country.

I saw the divide firsthand when I arrived on campus this fall. My roommate and I navigated our way through the circuit of first-year mixers and interactions with our new classmates. Inevitably, their first questions would tend to be, “What’s your name?” and “What are you studying?”

For my roommate, the interaction was seamless. She’d answer with “chemical engineering,” receive an amiable nod, and just like that, she was accepted. She was in.

But my answer garnered a different reaction. When I said “communication studies,” I got a strange look that I couldn’t place. Was it confusion? Was it pity? Was it mild disinterest?

Enrollment in the College of Arts, Media, and Design (CAMD) is dwarfed by the enrollment numbers of the College of Engineering or the College of Computer and Information Science. Statistically speaking, one is more likely to encounter an engineer on this campus than a Game Design major or Journalism major. So unfamiliarity with my field of study — or any of the liberal arts — isn’t unwarranted.

There is, however, a difference between unfamiliarity and hostility.  In the days following those first on-campus interactions, I experienced a lot of the latter.

It is now a normal part of my day to have peers tease, patronize, or downright harass me about my chosen major. They tell me the time and money I’m putting toward a degree is going to waste. They tell me my curriculum is simplistic, that my contribution to society will be insignificant. The stereotypes I thought were obsolete in 2018 follow me to the majority of exchanges I have, especially being in the Honors Program, where CAMD students are few and far between.

My art-oriented contemporaries and I aren’t guiltless when it comes to perpetuation of this cultural barrier. I know I still harbor a few generalizations about STEM majors. I have to admit, I was surprised to find that one of my hallmates enjoyed baking just as much as he enjoyed Discrete Structures. I have to double-check myself before assuming that dedicated math majors can’t also be musicians and artists.

So why is no one talking about this divide? In a university with open dialogues about gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and all the forces that shape our perception of one another, why is no one pointing out the rift that exists in the space between Snell Engineering and Ryder Hall? It’s a problem that can be fixed much more easily than those like racial or gender stereotyping. Awareness about the inherent value of every major, whether it be STEM, liberal arts or somewhere in the middle, is very close to being common sense.

In a society where careers anchored in math and science reap higher salaries and more respect than ones anchored in the humanities, in a landscape that devalues creative pursuit, our school could be the one to stand up and stand out. It could be as simple as programming events that encourage interaction between majors. It could be as impactful as tackling the income gap between engineering or computer science co-ops and co-ops in media production or journalism.

Northeastern markets itself as a university that values diversity of interest and diversity of talent. It’s supposed to be a community of students that use their differences as strengths, that aspire to innovate, and that revolutionize as a united front.

Let’s make that a reality. Let’s not be a house divided.