Das Week 1: Two Cultures

Hi! 

My name is Paravi Das, and I am a third year theater major with an emphasis in musical theater hailing from Virginia. 

In regards to introducing myself in relation to the two culture idea, my examples can stem from my love for social media marketing and analytics to onstage performance, to graphic and artistic design and my interest in the music business, to computer science versus my love for singing. I have hobbies and loves that span all lifeforms, and the main juxtaposition could truly be considered at the heart of the two cultures concept, the separation of art and science, specifically in my love for performance and interest in more technological concepts, from social media strategy to computer science, as stated above. I aspire to connect all of my passions in my career, finding a way to hone my graphic design skills and create my own album covers for my original music, using my social media skills to create my own brand campaigns, and more. I wholeheartedly believe there is a world in which these can all intertwine and exist in harmony. 

This ties into the question of two cultures in my immediate world at UCLA - which I believe the best example to be my B.A. degree. I chose a Bachelor of Arts degree rather than a Bachelor of Fine Arts because the conservatory lifestyle would have prevented me from exploring my curiosities in non-artistic endeavors. On campus, I can run from my acting intensive class to my DESMA9 videos, from my music and law course to my private singing lessons - the world is my oyster and both of my cultures can thrive in it. I think the wealth gap, as discussed in this week’s videos about Charles Percy Snow, is an interesting topic to bring up in this context, especially with the life of a starving artist versus a successful “stable” career on the table. I’m truly balancing two ends of this financial situation, a high risk and high reward, soul-fulfilling prospect, and a more reliable form of income that may leave me creatively disparaged - I’m essentially walking the edge of these two cultures.

SOURCES/LINKS:

https://youtu.be/GUr4xxZ_0gw

https://youtu.be/GrGtGKE4oog

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/snow_1959.pdf

https://www.britannica.com/biography/C-P-Snow#ref33998

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1577014?seq=1


https://web.colby.edu/st112a2018/2018/03/16/c-p-snow-literary-engineer-or-scientific-novelist/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/an-update-on-cp-snows-two-cultures/

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-two-cultures-fallacy/

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