Hello plumbers, engineers and others who just love reading The Iron Warrior. Today, we will continue our trek towards understanding the faculties around us. In this issue, we are exploring a faculty which, despite the close physical proximity of their buildings, often seems worlds away. Have you already guessed who I’m talking about? Yes, I refer to the mysterious faculty of Arts.
We often complain about Artsies and their ability to complain about their own faculty. Someone has to get up for an eleven o’clock class? Oh, the horror! But in my research I have discovered that Artsies have been seriously misrepresented. Often we think of Arts as people who are painting or doing dance or theatre. In fact, that is not a huge part of this faculty (cool fact, apparently Arts is the largest faculty at the University of Waterloo). Arts is also about the social sciences, languages, culture and history as it can be applied to the world around us. Oh, they also have accounting, who would have thought?
Bio/ native habitat/ lifestyle: As Artsies have plenty of free time, many of them actually hold down part time jobs! Perhaps that is why we have so little contact with this mysterious faculty. Buildings used by Artsies include the Arts lecture hall, Hagey Hall, DP and other buildings in that area-there are also several affiliated institutions and satellite campuses like the one in Stratford. The corner occupied by Arts buildings rivals MC in its complexity and difficulty to exit, so if you have some time, go check it out! Arts students strive to protect Porcellino, the bronze Boar statue outside of the Modern Languages building. Legend has it that rubbing his nose will give you good luck. Arts students will spend long hours debating the perfect wording on essays and reading endless chapters in their textbooks. At some point they have to make the ever so important decision, what will their major be? But hey, it’s free flowing, so you may catch Arts students in the Bomber every once in awhile while they think hard thoughts over a pint or so.
How we interact: Arts, it exists, as a faculty at the UW? Who would have known? As we infiltrate many of their first-year classes as our electives it becomes hard to believe that pure arts students exist. However, in upper years they definitely do, and they even have co-op! Often, one might wonder why they didn’t take arts at Laurier. However, having this faculty dramatically increases the number of females on campus which is good for our social lives. It’s a good thing Laurier’s greatest strength in the Arts is music, as this leaves some space for the study of the humanities and other cool subjects here at UW!
Common areas of interest: Thinking creatively and getting exercise are both places where our faculties overlap. Thinking of the larger picture and communicating it is something both faculties try to do, but in the communication area Arts usually do it better.
Verdict: Arts will surprise us. That person studying languages and cultures might become your child’s speech pathologist…We should only tease them so far. Embrace the chaos, you know you want to!
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