Mainstream Dilemma

by Cahyo Adi Nugroho

If you can't convince them, confuse them. -Harry S. Truman-

The quote from the former president of United States of America should be suitable for the theme of Research and Development Division (RND)’s Seminar on Mainstream back then. The fact is, based on the results obtained by RND’s research and interview conducted by me after the seminar was held, there are two groups of students formed: a group that is more certain with their mainstream and the more confused one.

Every student must ever feel in doubt or dilemmatic on something, moreover in a thing so-called mainstream. “Pre-mainstream” students always have plenty of choices in their minds, sometimes with pressure. They tend to believe in the information regarding particular mainstream based on what upper-semester students say, and it then finally becomes such a paradigm of which they don’t even have any idea whether it is right or wrong.


In the following semester, fourth semester students of English Department will face the reality that they have to choose their mainstreams earlier than their seniors since the Department has decided to accelerate the students learning process in campus. From the research done by RND in the last seminar, 86% from 57 respondents (49 students) said that it was okay to choose the mainstream in the beginning of the fifth semester. However, 54% of them said they had not got enough information about their future mainstreams, and then there are still about 1% of them that did not even get clear picture at all. Regarding these results, the Department should probably give a good solution by making sure that the students will receive enough information about mainstream.

Based on the same research conducted before the seminar started, American Studies (Amstud) was the most preferred mainstream by the student. From the questioner results, 40,5 % of the respondents chose Amstud as their future mainstream, 31,6 % chose Linguistics, 21,1 % chose Translation and only about 7% chose Literature.

The second questioner was released by RND after the seminar finished and different results appeared. With fewer respondents, Linguistics became the most favorite mainstream with 44,7% votes. It seems that the seminar surely influenced the students whether to keep their choice or change it. 62% of the respondents were certain with their choices. In contrasts, there are 27% of them becoming more confused, or shall we say ‘dilemma’, about their own choices.

When they were asked about their certainty upon the final choice after the seminar, there were no significant differences from before, the certainty levels were still around 50%-80%.

Talking about the seminar effect, there were varied opinions from different students. Zein, one of the fourth semester students, said that the seminar did not affect his choice, it only improved his knowledge about the mainstreams, and he still believed in what his heart said. Different from Zein, Haikal said that the seminar had successfully made him confused,

“Before this seminar, I have been convinced to choose Amstud, but now I am confused between Amstud and Linguistics” he explained.

Salman, another student, said that he had decided to choose translation as his mainstream. When he was asked about the reason, he answered it briefly,

“Translating is a noble job. I’ll help many people who don’t know English"

"I think from now on I have to make friends with many raters” he continued his answer.

Popular Paradigm

People tend to think that in Amstud they have to be critical, let’s blame those people who keep telling us that paradigm. What you have to remember is: critical thinking is needed in every mainstream. Even the string of word “critic” itself is used in several courses in our major. In Literature they have a course called Literature Criticism and Critical Discourse Analysis in Linguistics. In fact, we have to be critical in analyzing a discourse or literary works. In Translation, we have to be critical as well about the notion of culture and structure differences between source language and target language.

A friend of mine says that translating ability is very useful. We can get a knowledge that can be directly applied in the society. Another says that translating is a basic knowledge of our major, which means what societies see from our graduates is the translating ability. Prior to getting translation course, I thought it was easy to translate. It’s true until I realized I also have to think about my target reader understanding, since different person has different background and ability.

Those are only several paradigms about English Department’s mainstreams. They depend on how we respond to the information, just be careful in absorbing them. Take your time and think a lot about your future. Whatever you choose, be sure that you have enough understanding about your choice, like when the president who said the quote above decided the most crucial decision in history: putting atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.