Less appreciated majors defend themselves; artists, athletes reveal God, enable influence Art majors and kinesiology majors alike struggle with the fact that many on campus view their majors as "easy" areas of study that take little work. "When I tell people what my major is , they usually say something about me being a slacker who wants to slide through college getting easy A's - but that is not the case,"Mandy Cox, a junior kinesiology major from Paragould, Ark., said. For Cox, studying kinesiology is giving her the skills she will need to coach, which is a longtime goal of hers. "I had a coach in high school who really influenced my life a lot. I went to a public school, but he still taught our team that God is the most important person in our life and that we needed to keep sports in perspective," she said. Because of this coach, Cox said she sees the value of her chosen profession. "I want to teach kids about dedication and good attitudes, and that they can have fun with sports without making it the number one priority in their lives." Cox also said that, although the classes she takes may not be the most difficult curriculum at school, she feels that they are 154 Art/ Kinesiology preparing her for the difficult task ofactually coaching a team. "I think that dealing with parents and effectively communicating to the kids I work with will be the biggest challenge. My classes , coaches and other teachers are helping me prepare for that." "When people think about ~rt majors, I think they imagine a group of students sitting around doodling all day," said Rachel Hall, a senior art education major from Amory, Miss. "Our biggest struggle as art majors is that people aren't able to see that the creative processes that go into painting, drawing and other forms of art are equal to the analytical processes that most people employ in their fields of study. Society, in general, is left-brained and so it is very difficult for those people to see right-brained thought processes as important." Hall is studying to be an art teacher because she wants to help children develop their creativity. "Creativity is almost suppressed in classrooms now, to an extent, because many creative children are viewed as different and difficult to handle. As a teacher, I want to help Coach Jeff Morgan shows senior Andrea Stark proper bowling form . The class spent halfof the course in the classroom and halfin the lanes. Photo by Aaron Gillihan. draw out the creativity that lies inside each child in my classroom." Another reason why Hall views art as an area of importance is because she believes that the creative instinct is something that God instilled in each person. "In our classes, we study art as a reflection ofGod's design , and it really brings meaning to art that has already been expressed, as well as the things I see every day around me," she said. Kelly Curtis, a sophomore kinesiology major from Little Rock, Ark. , had a similar perspective on her area ofstudy. "Kinesiology is the study of movement , and the more I understand it the more in awe ofGod I am," she said. "To study about how he created our bodies to function to take care of themselves is truly amazing." In the world of academia, there will always be areas of study viewed as superior to others. But Curtis summed it up best when she said, "I don't really think that it matters what I study as long as I am using the knowledge as a tool to learn about life." - Allison Rector
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