This week’s readings are focused
on Charles Percy Snow and his discussion about two cultures: art and science. C.P.Snow
states that society is divided into science and art and school and universities
are the sources of problem.
While writing university application, I was somewhat forced to choose one area to focus on and I decided to major in Applied Mathematics, because I was interested in math as well as science. At UCLA, the division between math and science seems to be clearer as the campus was divided into North and South. North campus represents humanities and arts while the South campus represents math and science. Before reading the Snow’s lecture, I never thought about this division, but now the separation seems so obvious and this separation of campus causes the arts and sciences to be separated further more. students sometimes argue that their campus is better and North campus students call south campus students to be nerds while south campus students complain that north campus students do nothing.
However, I believe UCLA tries to close the gap between sciences and arts because. students have to take general education courses and to fulfill the GE requirements, students have to take humanities, arts, and science courses. I hope UCLA provides more programs and opportunities for students to be connected to both science and arts. In The Third Culture, Kevin Kelly says that the technology reduces the gap between art and science faster and easier and I hope UCLA provides students with more courses that connects science, art and technology other than this course, DESMA9.
Sources/References:
Snow, C. P. "The Two Cultures
and The Scientific Revolution." The Rede Lecture. New York: Cambridge UP,
1961. 1-55. Print.
Vesna, Victoria. "Toward a Third Culture: Being in between." Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 121-25. JSTOR. Web.
Kelly, Kevin. "The Third
Culture." Science Magazine 13 Feb. 1998: 992-93. AAAS.org. Web.
Science/art image
http://muslimmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/science-art.jpg
Science experience image
https://mavericktraveler.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/best-adventure-travel-experiments-of-2014-1024x616.png
Drawing cartoon image
http://www.wikihow.com/images/c/c4/Draw-Charlie-Brown-Step-7.jpg
North vs. South campus challenge image
http://eamailer.support.ucla.edu/Images/Project/5160/email_header2.png
I agree with you claims that in your childhood, you did not realize there are clearly difference between science and art. I have the similar experience. When I was a child, I am interested in music, especially piano. Also, my grandfather is a doctor, so that I am interested in biology influenced by him. Therefore, I was influenced by these two cultures. Actually, until now, I am still playing the piano, and I picked biology as my major at university. Being influenced by two cultures gives me a difference perspective to view the world, and for me, there is no obvious gap between science and art.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is really interesting how changes occur in a person's interests at different stages of their life and how one may shift from one culture to the another, or in many cases fit under the third culture. I see that this was present during your childhood and also in mine. For instance, as a child I was very creative and was more interested in the art culture, however now that I am in college, I am interested in pursuing a career as a graphic artist, which combines art, science, and technology and fits within the third culture category.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is important to make sure that the future generation has the right education and tools to lessen the gap between art and science, much like the experience you had in high school. Also, I agree that UCLA has done some efforts to somewhat undo this separation of the two cultures that was initially caused by our university education systems, according to Snow, by having GE courses in different campus departments.