I never bothered to take AP calculus in high school. By junior year, I had firmly decided that I would not go beyond the threshold of required math classes. While this should not have been an ordeal in the big picture, I was still a deviant in the eyes of my family and closely-knit peers. One of my classmates even had the audacity to ask, “Then how are you gonna get a job?”
Granted, he went on to study engineering in university, so AP calculus was integral to his career. I wasn’t interested in any STEM-related job, so it didn’t matter for me. However, this interaction highlights two grievances about education that I’ve contended with for years. The first is the mindset that going to school is purely job training, nothing else. Not only is this entrenched in education, but it can extend into children’s upbringing as well. For instance, a common phrase my parents echoed when I struggled with self-discipline growing up was, “Your boss wouldn’t forgive this,” for any mistakes I made. The second is that a STEM-focused education is allegedly the ticket to a well-paying job. I bought into this for a while during my childhood, but bad grades in math and science led me to believe that I wouldn’t be successful in life. Meanwhile, I was annoyed by how breezing through English and history classes gets little recognition. That is a clear consequence of uplifting STEM at the cost of degrading the humanities.
In attempts to unlearn STEM superiority in education, I tried to jump on the opposite side. It felt easier to reject an entire field that made me feel inferior for most of my life, especially when I was getting admonished for it. I went full Dead Poets Society mode, going into a “humanities-supremacist” tirade closer to the arts in my senior year of high school.
A part of myself still felt frustrated. Ultimately, I couldn’t fully fathom why I had to pick a side. No one is left-brained or right-brained. In fact, that entire idea is a myth. Surely, if our brains have the capacity to balance both creativity and analytical skills, that can also apply to our studies. Amid stereotypes about humanities students being overly pretentious or how STEM students are allegedly illiterate, could these seemingly opposing fields work together?
They absolutely do. STEM and the humanities have never truly been isolated from each other. Several notable scientists in history have been remarkable artists, and vice versa. On several occasions, being well-rounded enhanced their overall contributions. One of the most famous examples is Leonardo Da Vinci. On top of his famous works like The Last Supper and The Mona Lisa, Da Vinci’s anatomy skills were top-notch, and he published numerous sketches of human systems. Additionally, he was also an inventor of war machines like the 33-barreled organ and conceptualized the foundation for modern inventions like the parachute and airplane. On the flip side, English botanist Anna Atkins used light-sensitive material to capture algae and publish her findings about them. She was one of the first people to establish using photography in science, and is widely considered to be the first person to publish a book illustrated with pictures.
Likewise, STEM and humanities continue to intersect in academia today. Disciplines like psychology, sociology, and anthropology combine the two by investigating human behavior, culture, and history with empirical methodologies. That’s what makes them social sciences. Knowing ethics is an integral part of becoming a doctor as well. Politics and law are built on philosophy. All scientists need to know how to effectively communicate their findings with the public, and so on.
If you consider the job market, the strict dichotomy between STEM and humanities falls apart. A 2021 report by the Census Bureau found that only 28% of STEM-educated workers are employed in STEM jobs. However, 62% of STEM grads worked in non-STEM fields like management, law, education, social work, counseling, or accounting. A significant finding on the humanities side found that out of the 21.5% of the total graduating workforce, 7.7% of business students work in STEM occupations. Computer science, in particular. It makes no sense to continue reinforcing such a divide between the humanities and STEM within education when the lines blur outside of it.
It is unproductive to continuously debate whether STEM and the humanities create better prospects for society. Implying that one must be more valuable than the other does not solve any problems. In fact, deconstructing this false rift between STEM and humanities is an instrumental step to keeping both domains on an equal playing field. We are in desperate need of a cultural shift, and it begins with recognizing that one can be both. They always have been.