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Reading The Signs

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Robinson Crusoe: Defoe, Daniel: 9781774262047: Amazon.com: Books

In my spring junior semester at the College of Charleston, I worked on a paper that helped a great deal with broadening my skills as an English major for my future. The class that this work was for was focused on how literature relates to nature, more so how man interacts with nature in specific texts, like Robinson Crusoe and The Tempest. Like most of my English finals up to this point, there were various topics that I could write on, but I chose one that centers around a reimagined Robinson Crusoe, where Robinson is actually a woman instead. With this topic, I had to write numerous scenes of the woman Robinson interacting with nature and how it differs from how the male Robinson treats nature. I then had to write a paper on the background of my woman Robinson, and how the story differs from the original, nature- and character-wise. While at first it seemed easy, it was the semester I had decided I wanted to become a writer, so I was desperate to write anything in any form. But as I delved into the character development of my woman, Robinson, I found myself hitting a pretty big wall. I had no experience in this type of world before.

This was the first time I had ever encountered Robinson Crusoe; I had never read it before. So while the material was fresh in my mind, I felt intimidated because I had never written any fiction that took place in a different period before. I decided that I would reread Robinson Crusoe, and in the middle of my rereading, I realized I really did not have to connect to the setting at all for this paper to work; I had to connect to Robinson. Through Robinson, I could see how he interacted with the world around him and how that would change to see a woman in that setting. I wouldn’t call the project easy after that, but I had a solution and now knew what I was looking for. From there, I created a whole new character by the name of Jane, who was shipwrecked on an isolated island in the middle of traveling from England to America after being forced into an arranged marriage. 

From this paper, I utilized the skill of encountering worlds and interacting within that setting with this work, as I created an original character within this world. While the shipwreck on an island is the same, the circumstances surrounding it are completely different. I took an already-created world and got introduced to a new one within the aforementioned world in the process of this project. The second skill that I built up and maintained through this paper was how to have a good perception of our world, as that is essential to understanding how other worlds work too. Because this course had a lot to do with nature and how man treats it, that allowed me to be more grounded in the nature of this planet. Helping me better understand how to treat it in a healthy way and open broader horizons. Like if, in the future, I would try to write a story relating closely to this world’s nature that I could portray sensibly. 

But how did I acknowledge that I even had these skills in the first place? Because humanities-trained people harness this method of thinking called “sensemaking,” coined by Christian Madsbjerg in his book titled Sensemaking: The Power of Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm, The term revolves around “practical wisdom grounded in the humanities” and focuses on the deeper meaning rather than the wider. I feel like I did not know how to put the true benefit of an English major into the correct words until I read about this term. Each one of the five principles that make up sensemaking I consider to be an essential skill that I will carry with me as I set out on my career journey. The main issue that I have been grappling with, though, is which one will be the most viable for me when I go forth on said journey. As you will soon see, my answer has changed from my previous blog posts, but it is the fifth principle called “The North Star—Not the GPS.” This prioritizes interpreting the facts and signs given to us in life instead of relying on our advanced technology to do the work for us. As Madsbjerg states, “The tools of navigation have always been available to all of us. But we must take responsibility for interpreting them.”

I believe this skill is the most viable for me at the moment because I would not say I have this certain principle in me. I hate to admit it, but I do rely on technology to interpret the signs of my life for me instead of making my own brain do it. I focus on what the internet would think, not what I would. I feel that to excel in my career, whatever it might end up to be, I will have to read opportunities in many different fonts, be able to recognize them for what they might be, and then take them. 

I have found that in this short amount of time that we have been in this class, I feel my opinions changing from my previous blog posts. I have found that I like that my perception of English as a major will always progress and shift as I dive into my career path. For me, my opinion on the skill of empathy and how my opinion has grown in the way that I feel it is because of being an English major is that I have grown immensely in that specific skill. In the article, ‘Does reading fiction make us better people?’ by Claudia Hammond, she talks about how people who read more fiction have better empathy. Before, when I covered this article in Blog Post 1, I criticized the fact that empathy should not be the only emotion taken into consideration when judging the morals of a person, but I see now that the article’s purpose was not just to point out how empathy is more common among fiction readers.

For this course, this article was to show how empathy can be a great skill I can harness as an English major when I go forth on my career path because empathy is truly diverse in where it is needed in jobs. As seen when Hammond brings up an example focusing on how empathy can be essential to the medical field, she writes that multiple doctors firmly believe “that reading fiction results in better doctors and has led to the establishment of a humanities programme to train medical students.” (Hammond). I feel this quote emphasizes how much of a necessity the skill of empathy is in the general career field instead of just one section of it. 

It is because of this course that I have allowed myself to think about all the genuine skills that being an English major can bring to the career field. I am able to connect with other periods and times, to understand the characters in them, and to care about them. I saw from my paper that I genuinely cared about Jane and her character arc, even though I only wrote a few pages of her story. It is definitely a project I want to return to some day, as it taught me so much about myself as a writer and student. Being an English major has taught me how to prepare for my future, from allowing me to connect with people I have never met to allowing me to recognize any sign that is in my way. While I am still learning to utilize these skills, I can see how helpful and essential they will be. 

Pirates Don’t Cry

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I remember the first time I was embarrassed by my emotions. It was second grade, and I was crying, because I couldn’t play the recorder correctly in music class. I sobbed and sobbed, getting snot all in the reed, while everyone else played “Hot Cross Buns” with semi-proficiency and I failed, even after the third attempt. It wasn’t that devastating–it’s just a plastic recorder–but I wanted to be good. 

I never seemed to grow out of my emotions. Or grow into them, as they always seem too big, too much for me and the people around me. My emotions affected everything I did and surrounded myself with. All I felt was loud and would be felt by everyone around me which became embarrassing and made me more upset. I found solace in books like most introverted, emotional people do. I loved feeling the emotions of a character; stepping into their life and nesting in their brain. As I grew those emotions turned into stubbornness, something I could use.

George Anders’s book “You Can Do Anything” asks you to not limit yourself when thinking about a career path. He has many statistics to prove that you can get a very ‘unconventional’ job with a humanities degree or the plethora of new jobs being created. Anders uses the Hamilton Project to show that in a lifetime, English majors are in the top ten highest earners.

But because there’s so much to choose from as an English major, I don’t exactly know what I want. Sometimes I think to myself, Am I too stubborn to pick a career? Am I afraid of missing out in another field? Everything seems important and impactful and seems like something I could see myself doing. So how do I choose? “Employers start with an unusually elastic sense of what skills and past experience they might want…employers become much more willing to hire on the basis of passion and potential” (Anders, 83).  There are times when being emotional is not a good thing to be, but more often than not, it’s one of my greatest strengths.

In my junior year at the College of Charleston, I took a class on significant American film genres-the Western, screwball comedy, and the musical. During this period, I started to wonder about the pirate film (I wanted to know if this subgenre would be considered a type of Western).

I later learned was actually called the Swashbuckler genre and it puzzled me that the only popular pirate films were the Pirates of the Caribbean (2003-2017). I quickly learned that there was a long history to this genre, yet there was very little research done on the subject. My professor even gave me the option of switching topics, but there was enough information out there to inspire and drive me.

The Ice Pirates (1984), one of the most 80s movies I’ve ever seen.

It would be a lie if I said that the idea of an under-researched genre being my paper topic didn’t excite me, but I was simultaneously terrified; what if I just set myself up for failure? Had my ambition gotten the best of me? This is when I felt as if my emotions worked against me.

As I worked on the project, I had to establish priorities of what questions I could answer with the research available to me. Writing this paper was more about strategy compared to previous essays I had encountered. Any embarrassment or insecurity about my unfamiliarity with the subject had to disappear. My confidence in what I could do was far greater than my uncertainty, and yes, I feared I was in over my head, but I could still use my tenacity as a positive force. 

Though a lot of the time it isn’t an asset, my stubbornness and grit will aid me in the future with more difficult projects, people, and situations. Some would say I’m too passionate about what I like and am interested in, but it makes my passion bleed through the page (or at least I hope it does.) When I’m approached with a challenging project, my passion drives me through it.

Richard Bolles said in his book “What Color is Your Parachute,” “The difference is enthusiasm and passion. Yours. You’re much more attractive to employers when you’re on fire” (73). If employers want passion I’ve got it; it’s just a matter of finding where to apply myself. Although the project I used as an example is English major-oriented it taught me that you can do a lot with a little. 

In the end, I was extremely proud of what I did for my film class. I synthesized so many ambiguous pieces of information and still made a clear and substantial argument. At times, my emotions feel like a waste of energy, but when I can channel them into a project I can actually create something. Even though I consider myself a creature of habit, I completely changed my strategy and approach to this project, using my stubbornness to enable flexibility and I still met the deadline with these challenges. I was very uncertain about working with so little and so much unknown, but Anders points out, “Your liberal arts education has taught you to move forward as a researcher in the face of ambiguity…you can adapt to a changing environment” (109). 

My ability to chameleon to what is needed was something I had in myself since I was young, but I think it’s been honed by majoring in English. A lot of this is due to my effortless empathy. So many of my skills are not specific to what we do in English classes, but malleable to multiple careers and it’s taken all four years of college for me to realize that. My passion and want to pursue life is my greatest strength; it’s fed by all the literature I read, the ideas I absorb, and my need for creation and connections between people. I still can’t play an instrument to save my life, but if I ever do I’ll probably cry yet this time I won’t be embarrassed about it.

Learning in the of face ambiguity

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Blog Post 3 – Academic Work Inventory

Part I

English has been valuable to me in forcing me to pursue attempts at success in the face of ambiguity. I think English will be viable for me professionally for this reason, by fostering “sensemaking” skills for decision-making in complex environments and in the face of uncertainty. English studies offer a humanistic approach to understanding complexities that data alone cannot address. In Christian Madsbjerg’s Sensemaking (2017), his principles emphasize the importance of cultural insight. Liberal arts skills enable me to adapt messages for a global audience effectively. In an interconnected world, these skills are essential for thriving professionally. Liberal arts skills, with their cultural depth, are invaluable for success. Sensemaking is more than knowledge; it’s about synthesis and connection. All of the skills that I have gained through my studies in English have have come about through my application of knowledge and experience. English gives me the humanistic approach to answer question, which would be helpful to me professionally as many professions lean increasingly toward reliance on data. Liberal arts-based skills are an almost strategic imperative for professionals seeking to thrive in an increasingly globalized and interconnected professional landscape that requires both data and the ability to make connections between information. My ability to synthesize both knowledge and experience increase my adaptability, flexibility and resiliency that will help me navigate how changes, such as those from globalization of business, will bring to industries, requiring professionals to be able to draw connections and synthesize information to make sense of the changing world around them.

Part II

At College of Charleston, my English major has allowed me the ability to create written and creative projects for my English elective courses that have enhanced the skills and given me practice in developing qualities that I believe will contribute to my success at a job after college and in my career long-term. Immediateluy, I think of two written projects (7-14 page essays) and one more creative project (social media project) that support how my English major will benefit me both long- and short-term in my career path and career development.

1. At the beginning of my senior year, I took a course in British Gothic Literature, for which I read Diane Long Hoeveler’s book Gothic Feminism: The Professionalization of Gender from Charlotte Smith to the Brontës. For this course, I wrote a paper exploring how gothic feminism evolved under the creative achievements of the female gothic writers and consider how much of their literary work contributed to the modern definition of feminism. Female gothic articulated women’s dissatisfactions with patriarchal society and addressed the problematic position of the maternal within that society. Through the experience of reading and writing this paper, I learned how modern roles, ideas and expectations have developed from, changed or advanced from past molds and traditions. By learning to reach into the past for answers on current debates or future issues, we better prepare ourselves on how to avoid past pitfalls.

2. I wrote a research paper for a course on the Eighteenth Century about how The Spectator (1711-1712) set a new standard for manners in 18th century England. This essay and my research gave me the opportunity to learn The Spectator was influential in shaping its’ readers views on manners and infused politeness into the culture. Public discourse was shaped by this print media. It developed and dispersed ideas on many topics, including politeness, behavior and manners, that were discussed in social clubs. Thus, this print media was a source of news and clubs were locations were society would discuss these ideas and public thought was cultivated. With a sense of observation of others, we can develop a fuller view of humanity, but also draw on historic trends in the consumption of ideas. The knowledge of public thought and the formation of society shows how consumers are easy to create and eager to consumer. This kind of “sensemaking” of the past could help to reach conclusions on what methods are most effective for advertising, reaching or publicizing products, fashions or consumer goods.

3. For a course on the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I created a social media campaign on instagram that shared information and research about the event, the news coverage afterwards, long lasting effects of the events (such as ruining opportunities for generational wealth for victims’ descendents), and how Tulsa’s residents were actively rebuilding the community through centennial projects and art that commemorated their history. This project was an opportunity for me to challenge myself by creating content that would be attractive to viewers, drawing in an audience to learn about historic events and understand those events within the context of their effects on our contemporary social issues and discourse. My intention was to spread awareness, to have something buried become something important to the present-day conversation, and for today’s youth to see that our world is still a work in progress. Our social issues began a long time ago and change is incremental and spans multiple generations. Furthermore, the project gave me the opportunity to practice making a project on social media that would translate several messages via content both written and visual. The challenge of making history relevant, attractive, cohesive, truthful, and compelling within the framework of an internet platform revealed both beneficial and challenging. It was an experience to gain practice creating content that would appeal to an audience on a platform that is invaluable to the success and reach of today’s companies by acting a global marketplace. As digital platforms facilitate remote work, collaboration, and e-commerce on a global scale, proficiency in using these tools becomes increasingly indispensable for professionals navigating the digital landscape. One of my sources of inspiration was the New York TImes’ interactive model of “What the Massacre Destroyed” that showed both a timeline and moving visual of the city to effectively convey the scale of the massacre that occurred in Tulsa on 1921. This example showed me that the ability to make information accessible, compelling and interactive using digital technology is becoming increasingly relevant to news sources online.

English studies continues to prove itself essential for my professional viability in today’s interconnected world. Largely, it all starts with my ability to relate to, communicate with and understand others. Through writing, reading and research, I have learned about different people and cultures, learned about different perspectives and others points of view, developed a sense of self and how to manage my identity in relation to others and my environment, as well as learned that some of our most inherent ideas (such as traditional gender roles) come from and can be traced back to literary examples from different generations, eras or time periods. In summary, being able to study things before encountering them through my own first-hand experience has helped me to practice how I would approach, solve, consider, change, resolve current and future problems, questions and challenges. It’s about experience, really. While every book I read, idea I learn and word I write might not necessarily be meeting a specific end-goal, they are all pieces to the puzzle of experience that I will be working on for the majority of my professional life.My English studies have proved to help me discover and strengthen my ability to adapt messages, ideas and information to new technology and digital communication tools in an effective way that considers the needs of a globalized works and international, multicultural audience and consumer-base. Liberal arts-based skills are an almost strategic imperative for professionals seeking to thrive in an increasingly globalized and interconnected professional landscape.

Why English Was The Only Major For Me

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Part I: Why English Will Me Viable For Me Professionally

English is a very broad major, so much so that there are various specifications on which type of English a person wants to study. I chose English mainly because I liked to read and write, and none of the other majors seemed to jump out as much as English did. My previous perception of the English major included a lot of writing and analyzing over the simplest of sentences, which I was fine with. But little did I know how viable the choice of English as a major would be for my career path. English is rooted in sensemaking, an idea introduced by Christian Madsjerg, described as “a method of practical wisdom grounded in the humanities.” (6, Madsjerg). Sensemaking has five principles that make up the idea, and I find myself needing all five for my career path, but there are two that I feel will be the most viable for me as I transition into my career as a writer.

The first one being called “Thick Data—Not Just Thin Data,” with Madsjerg defining thin data as the facts we use to “understand us based on what we do” (15, Madsbjerg). He prioritizes thick data, explained as our knowledge of the world and “the very way we deal with the world.” (14, Madsbjerg). This will be practical for me professionally because fiction authors write about characters and how they interact with the world around them based on the author’s knowledge of how people interact with each other. Authors use thick data every time they create a whole new world or write a scene of dialogue between characters.

Another principle that shows why English will be viable for me in my profession is titled “The Savannah, Not the Zoo.” This principle relates to the previous one in a way as it pertains to human behavior. To show the natural human experience, we have to study it out in the wild and not just be interested “in what is extraordinary, but what is ordinary and common for all” (Madsbjerg, 17). Allowing authors to relate to the readers as they see themselves in the mannerisms of specific characters and how they experience the world around them. 

Part II: Three Projects

The first project that I remember giving me a sense of what kind of skills I could have outside of the English major was a paper that I had written my sophomore year. The class was British Lit since 1800 and our final project was a paper with various prompts. I chose the one that focused on relating two works of fiction, one of them being a text that we had discussed in class that dealt with the theme of science vs. nature. I chose to focus on the similarities and differences between Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. My paper argued how similar both creators were, as Frankenstien and John Hammond were both inventors of their own demise, both demonstrating unethical uses of the natural world for scientific reasons.

Through this paper, I focused on the skill of analyzing the human experience, immersing myself in both worlds, looking at the interactions between the characters, and delving into a character’s psyche by analyzing the minutiae details of said character. This project really made me think about the human experience by looking at two characters closely in their natural habits and being able to point out the differences and similarities. To see how the human psyche and experience can be portrayed in two different ways but end up having similarities. Showing how the knowledge of the human experience differs based on whatever universe or society is written up, but the creator’s human experience seemingly gets woven in with the character’s, creating these interchangeable traits. 

The second project that I worked on that possessed a sense of viability was a short story assignment that I had to do for my Fiction Writing course last semester. Our main project for that semester was that each student would write two short stories that we would then have to workshop. It was nerve-wracking for me, but I loved it. Everyone’s feedback was super essential, and it made me want to continue to write more short stories, as I found them to be fun to write in general. It was definitely a lot less daunting than writing a whole novel. The professor gave us total creative freedom as well, allowing us to write whatever our minds could conjure up. This truly allowed me to dive into my creative writing abilities, allowing me to connect with my characters as I was writing them.

I was surprised at how the nerves went away when I was writing, almost as if I was nervous that I could be writing a two-dimensional character. What I learned through this project was how to not do that. So when I work on this piece and there are heavy dialogue scenes or scenes with multiple characters, I try to do so in a public space. If I felt myself hitting a wall, I would look up and take in the people around me and how they interact with the space that they’re in. Soon, I would find myself making up backstories for these coffee shop people, and suddenly, I was back with my head glued in front of my laptop screen. I found that knowing how people interact in the real world, with other people and in specific spaces in general, helps me find realistic inspiration for my work.

The third key humanities project that I have worked on was a final paper that I had to write last semester for my Studies in American Film: Hollywood Genres course. For the final, our professor wanted us to write a paper on genres dealing with American films; we could narrow that broad topic down to our own one. I decided to focus on the horror director, Mike Flanagan, and how his filmmaking differs depending on the subgenre he works with. I spent my time closely examining Flanagan’s choices and exactly why he made them. I analyzed how his characters interacted with the world he created and why Flanagan decided to portray characters differently in a stylistic light. I was able to recognize patterns and find similarities in the works that differ in subgenres of horror.

From these stylistic patterns, I can see what they symbolize for the film as a whole. This project has allowed me to dive into other worlds and be able to understand them from only the stylistic elements, making me see the human experience through the eyes of another. While similar to my first project, to me it is different. For this project, I knew I wanted to work in the film industry after I completed it. Because it did not feel like a project, it just felt like I was doing something that I genuinely enjoyed.

A Little Delight and A Poem

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Part I: The Horror/Purity of Accidentally Calling Your Teacher ‘Mom’

[ Photo of James Island County Dog Park on their official website]

I went to James Island County Park on Saturday. My destination was the dog park, which is located inside the whole facility. It really was gorgeous that day, with the sky being a clear blue and the weather being cool but hot enough for me to roll the windows down without catching a chill. It was a day made for being outside. The only downside of the park is that it costs two dollars per person. While not the end of the world, two dollars to a broke college student is equivalent to one hundred dollars. Nevertheless, I was there for my dog, so I reluctantly handed over my two crumpled dollars to the older employee working the booth. I was then rewarded with a bright smile and a dog treat for my pup in the back.

The exchange was so happy and pure that my mind went blank for a moment. The person turned to me with the same smile and said, “Enjoy your time!” I replied with the same amount of enthusiasm, “You too!” It was not until a few seconds after I drove away that I caught my slip-up and felt my cheeks flush. That was not the first time I said something like that to an employee when I was the customer; most likely it would not be the last as well. But instead of letting the little incident go, I let it fester some more and thought about why that is a common occurrence in society. It’s almost on the same level as accidentally calling your teacher ‘mom’, not on an embarrassing scale (in my opinion, the latter takes the cake by a mile), but in how often it occurs in society.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that when I have that slip-up, it is usually when I am interacting with a person that I genuinely feel comfortable around. This conclusion came from me realizing that when I would call a teacher ‘mom’, it would be because I felt safe around them. The interaction with the park worker was so pure that I felt genuine about wanting them to have a great time, whatever that might look like.

Part II: Little Exercise by Elizabeth Bishop

My name is Mallery McKay, and I was completely clueless as to which piece of prose or poetry truly spoke to me to analyze. I decided to choose a piece of work that dealt with the struggles of mental health, mainly anxiety, as I struggle with a great deal of it. I thought it was so interesting develing into a writer’s mindset of anxiety and how the struggles from it play out in the work itself, format-wise and symbolic.

[ Play Ballerina: Yehezkel Raz]

I love how metaphorical this poem truly gets; it really makes you work for the true meaning of these lines through symbols mainly relating to the natural world. Bishop uses our knowledge and usage of the natural world as a vessel to reflect on one’s personal mental struggles living in our society today.

 Bishop starts the first stanza off with immediate tension through the imagery of an approaching storm; this could be symbolizing worries that a person can deal with, looming in the person’s mind, making it all they think about. Then describing the storm as a dog seems to derive the storm from its power, almost domesticating it for the reader.

Bishop uses elements of the sea as the main symbols of her metaphors, like when she mentions the strengths of a mangrove. That refers to a type of tropical tree that is adapted to live on the shoreline and thrive on saltwater when the tide comes and floods its roots. I believe Bishop uses the roots to symbolize how a person can find strength in another, and the beauty of that statement is that it does not have to be just a human. I think the second stanza can be read as finding solace in the natural world or finding something that makes you stronger, whether it be a human or anything else.

I think the most interesting part of this poem for me is how Bishop shows this mental health battle through the storm and how the natural world around it reacts. How the different elements’ reactions showcase different people with their different struggles, like the mangroves and their tough support system or the heron, who flies away but the water still shines behind it, implies that it looks for the best in the worst circumstances. To me, Bishop’s work showcases how people of the same environment can deal with struggles differently because of their own mindset and their own advantages.

Emotions vs. Science

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Reading has been a part of my life ever since I could remember. As the daughter of a teacher and a writer, consuming literature was ingrained in my daily routine. As I progressed in school and grew up in general, literature became more of an escape, away from weird teenage emotions and mean kids in the lunchroom. It became a place where I could trade my own emotions for another’s for a minute or two. That’s why I found Claudia Hammond’s article titled “Does Reading Fiction Make Us Better People?” so interesting because it introduces an argument that backs up people’s emotional attachment to books in general. Hammond seems to link empathy as the main trait of being a better person, and while empathy is a good trait to possess, one could say it takes a whole lot more than empathy to be labeled as a good person in society.

Nevertheless, Hammond explains various experiments that research people and how empathetic they are based on either being an avid fictional reader or having just read a short piece of fiction. By the end of the article, Hammond seems to believe in her argument that reading fictional literature unlocks an empathetic trait in people. I do believe that consuming fictional literature has made me more in tune with my emotions and able to see them in other people. But I do not think that empathy is the only emotion that we should take into consideration when asking the question if literature makes a person better or not.

My thought is that all literature is intentional, always carefully planned, and edited until the last second. Society does not work that way; it is chaotic, messy, and unexpected. I do find that the experiments themselves are engaging, and the prose is compelling, asking a good question that links literature to how we as people function in a society. I just found that the research focuses mostly on the empathy in others rather than allowing other emotions to be categorized as well when people consume fictional literature.

At my high school, the English classrooms were clumped together in one old, dingy hallway, while the science classrooms spanned two gigantic hallways that had been recently renovated when I got there. From then on, those two subjects—science and the humanities—were always pitted against each other, and where I grew up, it seemed that science was the more favorable one.I believe that’s when I realized that reading books was more than a hobby for me, when there was time for a choice. The choice had never been easier.

That’s why I found Patrick Rosal’s argument titled “Poetry is Hospitable to Strangeness and Surprise,” which presents the dispute that poetry and science go hand in hand rather than being opposites of one another. From this article, I am able to understand why people pick science, why there is even a choice in the first place, and why there doesn’t have to be anymore. Rosal states, “poetry and science are kin.” These two subjects share much in common, even when neither party wants to acknowledge it. I believe the most prominent similarity that they share is “observation” (Rosal). Observation is how poetry gets written; the subject that is observed gets described by the poet on paper. Observation in science is the foundation for any solid hypothesis.

The simplicity of Rosal’s list of similarities struck me because there were only five reasons, but each brought multiple examples to mind. From there, I could actually believe the argument that science and poetry, or the humanities, are similar in various ways. The two do not have to go hand in hand, but we, as a society, should “give them enough space and support to work in solitude but talk together too.” (Rosal). As shown, these two subjects can work together, but neither has to be favorable to the other.