It is not that I do not understand why we are treated as inferiors when talking to the likes of LS&A and Engineering majors. Believe me, the study of movement and sports is not a high-priority position within society. Yet that does not give the majority of the University's student body the right to criticize Kinesiology students. We have all chosen our specific majors because we feel that this is what we would like to do with our futures.
I have put up with all the grief and arrogance for the last four years of my life. I have had to take the blows as they came. After a while I began to believe that my area of study was not quite equal to that of a chemical engineer, for example. Yet through the years that I have been a student at the University, I now know that I was wrong. I shouldn't have given in to the arrogance of the other schools.
I went through four hard years of high school to achieve my ultimate goal of attending the esteemed University. The classes that I have taken were chosen due to their focus on helping me achieve my ultimate goals for the future. Is that different than an English literature major? I have studied in the UGLi, the Union and Cava Java. Does that make me inferior to any other student? Hell no!
I am the same as, if not better than, any other student at this university. So, for anyone to look at my major and insult me is ridiculous. I have never looked down upon anyone due to their field of study, let alone any of their interests.
I have chosen to work in the field of athletics. I will agree that some curriculums are much tougher than that of Kinesiology, yet that is not a viable reason for someone to look down upon a certain field of study.
So, after four glorious years here at the University, majoring in sports management and communications, I now believe that I am one of the leaders and best. I have conquered the University just like any other student within any other major. We are all one giant family who have one thing in common, the University.
It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine!
Rick Krause
Kinesiology senior
To respond to the editorial - is diversity of academic background and opinion important? Yes! Is diversity of social and cultural background important? Often yes, though minimally so in the hard sciences and engineering (The equations still looked the same, no matter what professor wrote them). Can this important diversity be achieved without skin color as a special discriminant? I say yes. It is simple to proclaim that skin color is not important. It is apparently far more difficult for some to hold this conviction consistently.
Doug Bruder
Engineering alumnus
05-11-98
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