Pipe down humanities, you don’t know suffering

Every single NatSci/Engineer/Mathmo/Medic knows the feeling. That brief 30 minutes of free time you get per waking day, sat in the gyp, consuming the obscenely strong coffee that is an obligatory part of your functioning, as some anonymous humanities student starts complaining about their workload.

The way you bite your lip, clench your fists and attempt to keep a straight face. You’d love nothing more than to unleash fury on them, to drag out your timetable, remind them of your obscene number of contact hours, of the lack of sleep, and of the toll it’s beginning to take on every aspect of your health.

But you don’t. You’re a reasonable nerd, and after a few anguish filled minutes it goes away (although the throbbing vein on your forehead sticks around for some time after).

This has to stop. I don’t think I can take another near aneurysm. Humanities students have to learn to shut the fuck up when we’re venting about workload. It’s about sensitivity. A paper boy would never complain about the “relentless” physicality of his job in a pub full of coal miners. You need to know how to act likewise.

HSPSers legitimately have time for this

Sure, you guys have grievances. You have to read more than we do, some of it is a bit dry (because of course, multi-variable calculus makes for lush study) and you even have to go to that big building in West Cambridge that we don’t really understand the function of (is it books or something?).

Fine, that must be hard, but it does not compare with 4 supervisions a week, endless labs and constant 9ams. Don’t ever try to pretend that it does.

Week 5 getting you down? Just switch to English

But wait, you say. I see NatSci’s having fun all the time. You can’t get out of Life on a Sunday without running into at least one engineer; and don’t medics have incredible lash? All true, we do make time to have fun. But where does the time come from?

Somewhere between the 5 hours of sleep we’re grateful for, the once in a lifetime event one of our several supervisors doesn’t set us work, we do manage to leave our rooms. There is, however, no room for the five-nights-a-week clubbing schedule, the regular dinner dates and the WHOLE DAY OFF you guys enjoy on a regular basis.

Warning: studying science may result in edgy cover photos

There is some condolence I suppose, knowing that you’ll probably get a nice job in a nice environment within a few years, a security humanities students can’t share (admit it, being able to translate Piers Plowman is hardly transferable to the world of work).

Of course, we’ll support them, as we have done for centuries. You can have our vaccines, bridges and nuclear power. Just remember to keep your “self-discipline” when you’re bringing me my espresso, barista.