How humanities changed this math student's perspective
October 02, 2026
The same curiosity that brought international student Ana Galicia to UVic for a degree in mathematics became a doorway into storytelling. For Ana, humanities courses tapped into curiosity and wonder, which she calls “the invisible threads weaving together the courses I took throughout my degree.”
Humanist curiosity
Driven by a desire to understand the world we inhabit—“its enigmas, its patterns and our place within it”—Ana’s curiosity felt too big to be contained by just one discipline. It led her through courses in mathematics, her chosen major, as well as physics, astronomy and computer science. Alongside these courses, she jumped at the opportunity to incorporate humanities classes in philosophy, religious and cultural studies, languages and the arts.
“My degree became a kind of quest to satisfy my curiosity from as many perspectives as I could. The intersection between these fields is where many of my most interesting questions emerged,” she reflects.
Understanding our universe
One course offering in the Religion, Culture and Society program brought Ana the opportunity to approach complex theories about the universe through a philosophical lens, rather than through the mathematical perspective that she was accustomed to. RCS 303: Origin of Space, Time and Matter in the Universe, taught by Arif Babul, combines physics, astronomy and cosmology to study space-time and matter. The class also explores the nature of scientific knowledge.
“I hadn’t encountered many opportunities in my other science courses to engage with these questions in this way, with the space to slow down, make room for wonder, and simply be curious. That was something I deeply resonated with.”
What inspires scientific discovery?
In response, Ana was inspired to explore the roles of imagination, intuition and wonder in scientific discovery for her final project.
Science is often understood as a straightforward process: observe, hypothesize, test, verify. “But I became interested in everything that happens before an idea can even become a hypothesis, such as the intuitive leaps, images, metaphors, questions, and moments of wonder,” she says. “How much of scientific discovery happens before we reach the part of the process that we usually call the scientific method?”
While it’s not about replacing rigor with intuition, Ana developed a deeper understanding of scientific thinking, recognizing that rigor and intuition can coexist: “Imagination opens a door, intuition points toward a possibility; and mathematics and empirical evidence can help us determine what is actually there.”
“I don’t think we have to choose between being a ‘science person’ and a ‘humanities person,’” reflects Ana. In fact, some of her most important questions exist in the spaces between disciplines.
“Mathematics can teach us to look for patterns and structure; the humanities can ask what those patterns mean, why we seek them, and what it means to be human while doing so. Curiosity needs all of these languages.”