To the Editor:
Cara Dorris '15 brought up some interesting thoughts in her column (Cara Dorris '15: "The double concentration paradox," March 6), but I couldn't agree less.
Well, okay, I'm with her on one thing: I agree that people shouldn't just do a bunch of stuff to have a full resume. The thing is, she's advocating against that not because she's against living your life to look good on paper, but because she knows that's not the best way to do so.
But — at the risk of sounding super lame — what ever happened to just doing what you enjoy? Her attitude reminds me of the whoring-yourself-out-for-college-apps culture (a la College Confidential): "Don't have a laundry list of extracurriculars — have a few that you excel in!" Like her column, this is great advice for people who are resume whores. But for those of us who participate in activities for the experience, not the resume-bolstering advantages, this advice is irrelevant and yields results counter to a fairly common result of doing what you love, namely superficial involvement in a bunch of things, which is fine. When did exploring your interests become a bad thing? Since when have we had some obligation to be the best in everything we do?
Dorris wrote, "The truth is we are all motivated and have many interests. We are all racing wildly toward some coveted internship or job at the end of the tunnel." But that's not true. Some of us are interested in exploring many interests without much of an underlying drive to be extremely successful — personally, I just want a job that'll get me enough money to build a home comfortably. To those of us who don't feel like we're "racing wildly," Dorris' assertion that "the winner won't be the one who has the fullest resume" is almost nonsensical. Winner?! What?! This is a contest?!?!
In light of the fact that we're not all living our lives for our resumes, I'd like to provide one constructive argument for double concentrating. Some of us, while interested in many things, lack the internal drive to explore our interests without the structure provided by concentration requirements. Declaring two concentrations allows us to build a Brown-approved solid foundation in two different areas, whether our goal is employability, straight up edification or some combination of the two.
Melanie Johnson '13
