Every time someone asks me what my major is, I never want to answer the question. I know exactly how they will reply. If I tell them the truth and admit that I’m majoring in mass communication, I know I will get the looks that say, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I am no stranger to the endless ridicule. It’s a feeling that I, and any other person majoring in the arts or humanities, are far too familiar with. Most students and adults who are STEM-oriented are never too shy about telling an arts or humanities major that we are throwing away our time, money and future.
However, if I told someone that I was majoring in a STEM field, which is science, technology, engineering and mathematics, I would receive unending praise. I would be the star of my entire family, and no one would ever dare to question whether or not I was making the right decision.
People constantly argue about whether STEM is more valuable than the arts. STEM proponents argue that without STEM fields, there would be no sustained life. Without those fields, there would be no medicine, no technology and nothing that helps society improve basic living.
Those who are in favor of the arts agree that we need STEM fields to survive, but they argue that without art and culture, there would be no reason to live at all. Society could function, but there would be nothing more to life than black and white, life and death.
“The emerging and new emphasis on science and engineering is valid, but you still need liberal arts thinkers applied in other fields,” said Alison Byerly, president of elite Pennsylvanian liberal arts school Lafayette College.
Many people place STEM and the arts on entirely different spectrums, but in reality, they contain many similarities in necessary skills.
“One needs to understand that in many instances this is a false choice between the two,” said John McCardell Jr., vice chancellor of Tennessee’s Sewanee University of the South.
When someone paints a picture, they must use their creativity, but they must also pay close attention to the details on the canvas. Likewise, when a software engineer writes code for a product, they must pay attention to the details of the language, but they also must be creative to make the product work.
Too many people try to pit the arts and STEM fields against each other, but in the end, people need both fields to have a complete world. No field is better than the other because they work together, intertwined, to make the world everything it is and needs to be.
Though the two fields are extremely similar, and there are even pushes across America to incorporate the arts into STEM programs, there is still a stigma surrounding non-STEM majors. Society still sees success in a narrow frame, and those who cannot immediately get steady and decent-paying jobs from their major are constantly seen as failures before they are ever given the chance to succeed.
Inhigh school, I knew far too many people who loved the arts but planned on majoring in a STEM field because of the pressure society puts on them. Though my friends and I shared most of the same passions, I was one of the few who actually sought to pursue a career in what I loved.
Majoring in a STEM field might be the safest option for a lot of people, but nothing is 100 percent guaranteed in life. If a person majors in a STEM field just because they feel like it’s what they are supposed to do, then there is nothing stopping them from waking up in 20 years only to realize they wasted their life on a career they hate.
Majoring in the arts or humanities does guarantee success, but majoring in a STEM field does not guarantee happiness. People must do what they are passionate about if they ever want a fair shot at being truly happy.
Lynne Bunch is an 18-year-old mass communication freshman from Terrytown, Louisiana.