African-American studies: an unnecessary, fabricated, pseudo-academic escape from the real sciences. It is simply a “recreational” subject of research, ideally left to one’s leisure on the weekend, or designated downtime during the 28 days of Black History Month.

Icome from a large extended family with a lot of engineers, and when I go home for holidays—aside from the usual queries about boyfriends and jobs—I’m generally asked a lot of questions about why I chose the majors I ended up with.