We’re told that STEM students are the students of the future. After all, we are living in an age where we are constantly discovering and developing, branching into realms that were previously unknown with our research and our innovation. With how fast technology is changing so early into this century, we can only imagine what the next generation will bring.
And yet our career paths seem a bit…outdated.
After all, only recently has the topic of mental health become so prevalent. It used to be that mental health was stigmatized, but now it is beginning to be prioritized in a much more healthy way than before.
Just in the last century, you could either be normal or you were crazy, there was no in-between, and the trope of “going insane” was often, and still is, dramatized in movies and is seen as something to be feared.
Nowadays, we acknowledge that we all struggle with mental health in some way, shape or form and that we all need to take a bit of time to make sure we feel as though we are in a good place. After all, if we do not take care of our minds, the rest of ourselves will not be in a very good place either.
People acknowledge that conditions such as bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety exist and are very common. They are also just as valid as any other medical condition anyone else may have. They are also not scary, and plenty of people function very well in our world with those conditions. People are starting to value taking care of themselves and each other just a little bit more in this fast-paced world.
That is such an improvement. After all, for most of this country’s history, we have just been a world of people working harder and harder to get ahead, striving for that one time that we can say we are happy. We pushed ourselves past our limits each day so that one day we could have a house, go to college, or get our kids through college.
Nowadays, we are starting to acknowledge that all this constant work towards the future means that we are missing out on our present. We are also starting to acknowledge that maybe life is more than what other people call accomplishments. We are starting to acknowledge that we should do what makes us happy, instead of believing happiness only lies in a home, vacations, marriage, making a family, having a lot of money, etc. We are taking a moment to step back and breathe when it comes to our fast-paced, capitalist world in which we are always trying to get ahead.
But a STEM career is the very embodiment of the fast-paced capitalist world. And I had no idea that that was how it was going to be as a young high schooler who had just finished her sophomore year. I was doing Running Start, which meant that I was going to finish my first two years of college as a high school student. I had done a lot of thinking about what I wanted to go into, but in some ways, it was still a whim. I had always enjoyed learning about biology, and I kind of was interested in medical research, so why not take biology? My Running Start adviser was like, sure, whatever. She didn’t ask any questions, and simply signed me up to immediately start taking the General Chemistry series, all three classes of it, then to take three classes of calculus in the Fall as well as the General Biology series. At that time, I had no idea if I was even going to be prepared for calculus, seeing as I had not even taken my second Algebra course yet, and I had literally only taken one chemistry course in my whole entire life. I don’t really think college advisers are paid to actually advise.
One of the first things you learn when you take your first General Chemistry class is that it is a system designed to weed people out. People start dropping out almost instantly. Even more, people drop out after the first test. My General Chemistry professor also didn’t make it easier on anyone by designing the hardest tests I have ever taken in my life (I kid you not). I don’t know if he expected everyone to just be as smart as him, or what. Anyway, one girl in my class spelled it out for us. These classes aren’t really needed, she said. They’re just designed to take anyone out who isn’t fit for med school.
As you can imagine, more people began dropping out throughout the Chemistry series. And if you don’t drop out, you get to work extremely hard, either doing homework or studying. And if you’re really lucky, you also get to work a part-time job in addition to being a college student in high school. I never had to deal with that, but I knew a lot of folks who did, and I can only imagine how brutal that had to have been sometimes.
If you’re a Running Start student, you have to balance your high school life with your college life and that can be very difficult especially if you have friends who do not have as much work as you. STEM students are often found working where their counterparts are not. Even at the beginning of the series, you hear people talking about how their friends or partners don’t have that much to do while you’re furiously studying or doing homework. Sometimes, the amount of homework you can get is unhealthy, especially if you’re not used to it.
It doesn’t get much better the further along you get. You could make it through General Chemistry and General Biology, only to get lost in your third year in Organic Chemistry. That series is also a nightmare and is very hard for most students. What’s more, with all of these things, you either get it or you don’t. Some people will have to work harder than others, but if you fundamentally do not understand what is going on, you won’t. But for the most part, throughout your third year and fourth year, there is a sense of accomplishment, some level of trust that if you made it this far you can make it all the way. Through undergraduate school, that is. Then you have to take a look at your future and wonder what’s next.
Medical school is an option. In that case, you have to take the MCAT, which is essentially a test of all the science courses you’ve ever taken. Physics, General Chemistry, General Biology, Organic Chemistry, Genetics, you name it, it’s probably on there. So, you get to re-learn all the stuff you wanted to forget just to get into an institution that will make you wish you were back in undergraduate school. You would think that if we made it this far, they would give us a break, but it only means we’ve leveled up to harder levels. If we thought undergrad work was consuming much of our lives, we had no true idea of that until we get to medical school. Some extremely smart people who would like to have some balance in their lives have avoided medical school for that purpose. That’s not to mention all the years of our lives it consumes, just to get a job, as well as all the debt we accrue. So not only do we have academic stress piled upon our young bodies, we have financial stress stacked up on there too.
Graduate school is another option. In that case, it seems like you’re a little bit better off than in medical school. It just means you have to keep going to school to make yourself a bit more competitive than the rest, to outshine the others, to keep going to school until you find an actual job that hires you. And it better be a job that pays enough for you to live while also paying off your debt. No pressure, especially not after you’ve worked this hard!
Why do we do this? Don’t we tell our kids that they should become doctors, scientists, engineers, etc? We tell kids to dream big, but then make it hell to reach their dreams. And the real world does need competent, caring doctors and medical practitioners. Why do we make it so competitive? And that’s not even to mention the problems with one’s mental health that occur when you go into a job that stretches your ethical boundaries, such as certain jobs in pharmacy. All this can do is make someone feel as though they cannot reach a dream they may have had since childhood when they could in fact be a great doctor, they just aren’t the best at remembering abstract chemistry facts or formulas. It gives them a sense of failure that is undeserved and almost silly.
As for the students who continue on, they continually have to sacrifice their social life, their personal needs, and their happiness for studying. In fact, my Organic Chemistry teacher even joked that he didn’t know sleeping was a thing we were supposed to do. (He also said, jokingly, that sleeping really wasn’t for STEM students and teachers.)
Sometimes they do not even learn much, because most people study for the test, only to forget right after. I personally only enjoy learning when I do not feel pressured to memorize for a test. I enjoy learning when I just feel as though I am absorbing knowledge or a skill solely for my own benefit. A school that is like this can deteriorate our mental health when we are not even learning all that we should be because of the way it is designed. We are told by teachers that we should care about our mental health and we know it’s good for us, but we are given all the perfect conditions for it to deteriorate. In a career that paves the way for the future, we do not get the blessings of a kinder, more considerate future. We are meant to keep our world improving technologically while ignoring the very basic problems that have always existed in our society and allowing them to fester. We are the representatives of the ideal version of capitalism (work hard and you will get to be a doctor or something like that!), which is not even close to being ideal.
Personally, I think our education system could use some innovation as well. I think we would learn just as much if we learned without tests, if we simply learned through practice assignments we did in class and then from a teacher’s feedback on them, I can’t help feeling as though that would be just as much learning with much less of the stress. Who needs grades, anyway? But as I don’t feel as though our education system is going to change anytime soon, I feel as though we need to take a few mental health reminders.
First of all, our life experiences as a whole are who we are, not our grades. You are what you care about, what you spend time doing, what you love doing, who you spend time with, how hard you work, what makes you smile, etc.
Your story and your worth can never be boiled down to one letter or number. Literally, the only thing you can do is what you are already doing each and every day to make it through your life, and that is enough. No one is better than anyone else, we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and we are all smart in different ways. Wherever our talents lie, they matter. And no matter whether we are recognized or not, we should recognize ourselves for how hard we’ve worked and how motivated we are. Just by doing this, we are amazing, especially when we all have other battles we are fighting.
We are always more than our careers, and sometimes what makes our life worth living is everything but our careers. And we must take time to take care of ourselves. We can make it through this all the way, wherever it takes us. So, take a mental health day you guys, and remember your career really only is a small fraction of who you are.