"You're a Film Major, Aren't You?"

I apologize if this post is a bit whinier than usual, but I feel like it should be addressed, because it comes up a lot, and it would definitely be more interesting for me to talk about than my vision. More times than I care to count, people (fellow students, adults, friends at Wesleyan, even a government professor) have asked me the titular question. Maybe it's because I took a couple film classes early on and thought that's what I wanted to do. Maybe it's because I just have a more "film student" disposition. But for whatever reason, people usually don't believe I'm a government major. If it's not film, they think I'm studying history. So, once and for all, here it is:

I am a government major. Also getting a certificate in International Relations.

To preemptively answer the follow up, I do not want to go to law school or become a politician. Which then begs the question, why are you studying government? And it's a fair question, seeing as on the surface a government degree might not seem like the most useful asset for a guy who wants more than anything to work in a creative industry like video games or film. It's a fair question, but I'd also argue that simply isn't the case.

Fun Fact: I'm currently writing this because I'm procrastinating from my government reading. I can't help it. The book is so dry and abstract that I find myself involuntarily checking Facebook every other paragraph (doesn't help that it's an e-book I'm reading online). This is pretty much how almost every reading I've done for every government class has gone. I get four pages in, my brain melts, I flip through the section headings and read the conclusion, then call it a day. This works sometimes, too, but it always feels like cheating.

The good news is, the readings are only half the fun, and the other half makes it totally worth it. That would be the classes. They're all very small (around 20 people) and usually discussion based, and always about topics that are interesting. Because the things is, politics really is all about people. That's why I'm constantly baffled by the fact that this field is often referred to as "political science" because people rarely ever tend to act in a way academics would consider rational. So we're not really discussing how various policies might impact institutions or budgets, we're talking about why people might support those policies. At their core, my government classes are about examining the mechanics behind how people live with other people. And for creative works to really, well, work, they have to be able to draw from relatable experiences. They need characters people can look at and see a bit of themselves. They need to reflect our world, and I think the government classes I've taken have given me a very interesting lens with which to do that.