Erwayne Lacsina

Students often associate specific colors with different school subjects, influenced by personal emotions, memories, and classroom experiences.

Students associate certain colors with certain classes.

When you think of your classes, have you ever envisioned a color to go with that class? Most likely you have, and if you’re an opinionated person, you probably have very strong thoughts on what colors go with which classes.

Based on a survey sent out to Metea students, the main reason for color association stems from emotions or memories. For example, over 50 percent of survey takers said they see math class as the color red because of a negative feeling towards the class.

“You have to put all the energy and effort into it, and it’s more stressful,” Junior Abby Nayak said after claiming she believes math is red.

On the other hand, many students use what they learn in science class as a color visualization. When asked what color they see science class as, 54 percent of students said green, the main reason being because of nature and plants. Even students who did not see science as green, they still used nature as an explanation for reasoning

When asked what color English class is,the answers varied the most. The most voted color from the survey was blue, with yellow and red tyingfor second. Even though responses did vary, most people’s reasoning was because English is a calm class.

“Because it’s mellow, it’s an easy class,” Junior Danica Aguda explained. This gives reason to why Aguda associates yellow with English class.
When it comes to history class, over 60 percent of survey takers agree that the subject would be a yellow or orange color. Similar to science, it seems that many students agree that they associate color with the subjects learned in that class. Some responses on the survey include that they believe the class is yellow because of “old documents,” reminding them of the past.

“I feel like yellow is a very washed out, older looking color,” Nayak said.

For the last subject, participants were asked what people saw art and elective classes as. There was not one majority color, but it looked like it was seen as a very colorful subject because of the “fun” nature of art classes.

“I put rainbow because, when you are in art class, you use all different colors,” Aguda said.

Nayak’s perspective was similar, as they both associate art with vibrant colors.

“I feel like art and music classes are very bright and colorful, and you make something out of them,” Nayak said.

Another way we associate colors is through memories. Some responses which stuck out were the ones where students frequently mention that they believe a subject is one color because it was the color folder they had in elementary school.

“It just is,” one survey taker said. My math folders have been red ever since elementary school.”

While the debate for colors and classes still rages on, it seems that there is a general consensus on what colors belong with which subjects. It is fascinating that just one topic can spark so much discourse, and it is prevalent that everyone’s brain works differently in how they categorize different subjects.