Blog #1: Two Cultures in Society is Actually Not Ethnicity

Hello!  I would first like to introduce myself as a third year psychobiology major/pre-med and Spanish minor.  The idea of “two cultures” is strongly relevant to my life, and I can relate to the dispute in more than one way.  Although I am a south campus major with a hopeful path towards the field of medicine, I have experience in the arts.  Ever since I was young, I have produced a variety of art works of many media types.  I have also had experience in reading many novels of famous writers, performing in theater, and playing musical instruments.

It was interesting to watch the ballerina in Professor Vesna’s lecture.  At first glance, the ballerina was spinning in a clockwise direction, though once I looked away and back at the image, the ballerina was spinning in the counter-clockwise direction.  This indicates my ability of both left and right brain thinking, since I have both an analytical mind and a creative mind.

Left brain/right brain test

Based on the readings and interviews regarding the two separate “cultures” and the insinuated “third culture”, I can understand the importance of being knowledgeable in both the sciences and the humanities.  I agree with the discussion in A Dangerous Divide and C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution that most people in the humanities simply accept the work of the scientists without question, and vice versa.  Snow blames some of this separation on the observation that the two cultures do not bother to communicate with each other because of their differences in knowledge and careers.  I believe to be a well-rounded person, one must understand the world around us, be able to partake in a variety of intellectual conversations, and have an education in all fields.  For example, technology is based on the art of creating, and then utilizing science and engineering to construct the art piece and make it functional.  Science can also be presented in many art media forms.


Professor Vesna's "Towards a Third Culture or Working in Between"

To create the characters in Disney,
the anatomy of the characters in real life had to be studied.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-m-eger/cp-snow-art-science-innovation_b_836922.html


http://www.ox.ac.uk/oxford_debates/past_debates/hilary_2009_poetry_and_science/

There is an obvious distinction on our UCLA campus of the separation of the sciences (south campus) and the humanities (north campus).  Not only are the buildings and environment completely different in style, but there also exists the stereotypes between the two halves’ workloads and difficulty.  Although I love that most of my classes are located in one area for walking convenience, I believe that all students should intertwine and interact with each other instead of a hidden segregation existing between the two groups.


http://laplaces.blogspot.com/2009/02/ucla-campus.html

South campus problems

North campus students may be unaware of the buildings on the opposite side of campus because of the segregation of classes.

Works Cited:

"A Dangerous Divide." Academy EBriefings. The New York Academy of Sciences, n.d. Web. 03 Oct. 2013. <http://www.nyas.org/Publications/Ebriefings/Detail.aspx?cid=74e271bd-4ba6-47cd-8f0a-add2ef8234cd>.

Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2013.

<http://northcampusproblems.tumblr.com/post/16452895922>.

Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Oct. 2013. <http://p.twimg.com/A3QZ0euCEAAFftp.jpg:large>.

Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2013.

<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Spinning_Dancer.gif>.

Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2013.

<http://www.thefunnyblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/funny-class-plus-exam-five-apples-calculate-mass-sun.jpg>.

Mae Jemison on Teaching Arts and Sciences Together. YouTube. TED, 5 May 2009. Web. 3 Oct. 2013. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vy0ncmUvUw&feature=player_embedded>.

TwoCultures Pt2. Victoria Vesna. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUr4xxZ_0gw>.

Snow, C. P. Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. Reading. 1959. New York: Cambridge UP, 1961. Print.