Sunday, April 5, 2015

Week 1 - Two Cultures




The idea of two cultures has been clear to me for almost my whole life.  Growing up in a household that was heavily routed in the sciences, given my father’s career in Aerospace, gave the child me a number of things. I learned scientific terms and concepts early, and was imbued with a talent and interest for the scientific world
Space Shuttle Liftoff, from Ethan at Science Blogs.com
But this knowledge made it clear to me that there was a cultural division between those with the love of the sciences and those that loved more literary or artistic persuits. It did make me any more or less intelligent than my peers, but I did have a more technical viewpoint than most of my peers. Instead of drawing houses and windows and unicorns, I penned rather poor pseudo-schematics of impossible aeroplanes.
Da Vinci glider, from davinciintentions.com
 On one hand, the cultural divisions, like the North South Campus division here, felt great, because I was now able to surround myself with likeminded people, and that has really improved my UCLA experience.

'Interdisiplinary' from XKCD.com showing North / South Campus Rivalries
 As RSA explained in a recent video “Changing Educational Paradigms”, education has enforced this division between people, and encourages them to box themselves.
On the other, as CP Snow admits, the two cultural model is insufficient in and of itself.  In south campus, there is almost as large a disparity in culture between engineers and scientist. Although, at least both side of that argument have an appreciation for math.
Photo
'Purity' from XKCD.com showing cultural differences inside South Campus
Many of the other authors were quick to identify themselves or their third disciplines as the ‘Third Culture’. There is the handyman culture, that Snow suggested, the Contemporary Scientist culture suggested by Vesna, and countless others over the years. Reading other students blogs also shows a more fractionated idea of what is the third culture. It says something interesting about the human condition that, upon reading this, most people would consider themselves part of the ‘Third Culture’.

Diagram of a Third Culture Kid, from deninenmag.com















Works Cited - Prepared with Easy Bib

"The Glider." Leonardo Da Vincis Inventions. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2015.
Munroe, Randall. "Xkcd: Interdisciplinary." Xkcd: Interdisciplinary. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2015.
Munroe, Randall. "Xkcd: Purity." Xkcd: Purity. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2015.
Natario, Elaina. "Diagram of a Third Culture Kid." Denizen. N.p., 08 Mar. 2011. Web. 05 Apr. 2015.
Siegel, Ethan. "How to Launch a Space Shuttle in 4 Minutes!" Starts With A Bang. Science Blogs, n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2015.




Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. UnknownApril 5, 2015 at 10:58 PM

    I would agree that the being in the presence of like minded people does in some ways improve my education here. However, on the other hand, I believe having the presence of others does bring out contrasting and valuable perspectives. As an engineer at UCLA, the exposure to people with humanities majors is very limited because I practically live in Boelter. But whenever I do get the change to talk to someone studying humanities, it is usually interesting and invigorating to get a different opinion and background. With those experiences, I think it is important to be cross culturally educated with both arts and sciences integrated in our education.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownApril 6, 2015 at 8:45 PM

    I see how the culture of science was cultivated within your family and this might be another factor in why we see the distinguishable difference between the two cultures of science and art. Children are 'installed' with the ideas of the world they grow up in, like in your case a scientist father will show you the culture of science more than art naturally. The world may be split into cultures due to family, religion, or social class, but with education the culture is meeting in the middle. While colleges like UCLA are split, they offer electives so the two cultures can mix and create this third culture.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)