If I were to describe my everyday outfits, I would describe my style to be tomboy skater comfy look. As much as that sounds, I just find clothes that feel comfortable to me and the only time I would wear something different is when I feel like my style is getting repetitive. Like every person, I wear clothes designated for specific events. I recently decided to wear something that I wouldn’t wear for casual wear, a flower dress. I would naturally wear this during parties where the dress attire is semi-formal. Wearing this dress was definitely something out of my comfort zone, especially since I would have to wear this the whole day.
When wearing the dress around the school, no one really batted an eye except my friends that I see every time. When walking around school, strangers wouldn’t look at me in a different way. They would simply just move on with their everyday lives. When I met up with my friends, they were mildly shocked because this was something I would never wear casually. They were used to my boyish skater comfy look, but seeing me in an outfit that I would determine feminine took them aback.
I asked my friends what their first impression would be if I was a stranger. They gave me the answer that I most expected. They said that they wouldn’t bat an eye or really look that much. I then asked them what major they would see me as. Most of them said something along the lines of liberal arts. I got english, art, and music. There were a couple of friends that said biology or chemistry, but no one said my major, civil engineering.
When I asked a couple strangers what major they thought I was, they also responded with something along liberal arts or biology or chemistry. I was shocked that no one thought of my actual major.
With the reactions that I heard from my friends and stranger say, I started to wonder if looks go side-by-side with major. I recently talked to a close friend and she said that majors have their own style. For example, if it is a Kin major, they would wear sports attire because their content is circled around exercise. I noticed that looking nice isn’t normal in the engineering world unless you went to work. I’ve also noticed that art majors love to explore clothes outside their boundaries. When talking to artists, their outfits are clothes I would never work in public. I came to the conclusion that majors also have their own insecurities.
When it comes to engineering, I noticed that we are more on the conservative side. Our industry gives such a negative connotation in colorful clothes that we are stuck on wearing bland dark colors. If I were to wear clothes that an artist would wear to the workplace, I would be looked down upon. I learned that depending what major you are, you are held to these expectations about your clothes. Being able to express yourself through your clothes is limited because of the major and the workplace I am in. Wearing this dress throughout the day was uncomfortable to me because it is something I would never wear, but I also felt free because I wasn’t confined to a type of clothing.
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