Everyone has this experience, but mine wasn’t as good as I would’ve liked. During the first week of freshman year, everyone goes to events and gets in a circle to introduce themselves to each other. They tell where they’re from and what their major is. When it was my turn, I told the circle I was an English major, the was an “oh,” an inhale and silence. The next person, majoring in aerospace, introduced themselves, and everyone went “oooooh” and “ahhhhhh.” People continued down the circle, naming their STEM major. People started conversations relating to it or how they were also majoring in it. I tried to chime in, but it wasn’t the same. I felt discouraged and felt the need to explain myself. Since then, I’ve noticed this is something that I’ll have to continue facing in college and even into my career.
Here at UIUC, there are various majors to choose from, but there is a big capacity for STEM majors, specifically in engineering and computer science. A concept often heard is that people who major in stem are more stressed than me and my humanities major. This idea of saying the amount of stress equates to the value of our major not only contributes to the false perception that education in the humanities is less valuable than that in the STEM fields is toxic.
For as long as I can remember, the United States education system has always been encouraging STEM. Especially with the fact that good money comes with it.
During my elementary school days, there were students who were going to more advanced math classes, while everyone else stayed in the main classroom. But what about the kids who excelled in humanity topics, such as analyzing literature? How come they didn’t get a special class to showcase their skills?
I was one of those kids, who took pleasure and was good at the humanities. The humanities, as the name implies, focus on the issues that are most important to humanity and help to determine who we are as people.
However, the push of STEM, has impacted the number of people in humanities, or even the number of people who were considering it. The way STEM has affected our culture to the extent that there is something abnormal about you if you don’t major in STEM never fails to baffle me. The overwhelming push has not only pressured students, but it has also steered them away from humanities they might’ve been interested in.
So instead of putting STEM on a pedestal and looking down on humanities, why can’t we integrate them? While at first glance they might seem like two completely different things, they actually need each other in order to create citizens who can contribute well to our society. In reality, it’s not just one or the other, it’s both. Like many things, STEM and the humanities can coexist and are better together.
