As one of the most competitive classes accepted here at NC State, the class of 2020 was no stranger to the university’s prowess in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) field. However, slightly over half of us chose to pursue a degree which was averse to our university’s intimidating STEM shadow.
We chose our respective majors for some of the exact same reasons that many of our colleagues within STEM chose theirs: unbridled passion for our fields and a belief that NC State’s educational values will aid our launch into the professional world, regardless of what the degree on our wall says. However, these reasons for pursuing my major and others like it are not reason enough according to a recent Technician column by Austin Robbie titled “Standing Up for STEM” and that is deeply troubling.
The column was written in response to the arts and humanities community, which felt marginalized by the content of a Wells Fargo advertisement. The ad showed young women holding up signs reading sentences following a common format of “X of yesterday, Y of today”, in which the X would be an artistic or humanitarian field, and the Y would be a scientific or engineering field. The arts and humanities community had qualms toward the ad since it propagated the stereotypical viewpoint that pursuing a non-STEM degree was childish and naive. Upon reading the column in question, the author appears to agree with this sentiment.
The column does make good points about the barebones practicality of pursuing a STEM degree. Plainly put, STEM degrees do, on average, have higher starting salaries and higher mid-career wages than non-STEM degrees, and there is a larger job market currently for STEM majors than non-STEM majors, with the United States needing approximately 1 million STEM-oriented jobs in the next decade.
However, the piece is riddled with too many assumptions about STEM. For example, while having a degree in a STEM field might make one more employable in a general sense, according to the US Census Bureau, 74 percent of STEM degree holders do not currently work within the STEM field.
Furthermore, the column pulls no punches in citing statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that show that the most under/unemployed age bracket is between the ages of 20 and 34. Given this fragile job market, we as college students should be much more sensible and practical with our choice of major.
This point is central to Robbie’s argument: if anything, students ought to avoid the humanities and social sciences (career paths notorious for their unemployability) and instead flock to STEM careers due to the sheer security of both salary and employment. However, one must ask if fear of unemployment ought to be the ultimate motivator behind one’s choice of career.
Career satisfaction is one key component of choosing a major that this author fails to even acknowledge. On a list of 454 jobs represented by a career satisfaction survey by Payscale in which careers were ranked from highest to lowest job satisfaction, an engineering position doesn’t even show up until number 69, with careers garnered from attaining an English degree taking the second-highest spot and music composers taking the 24th spot. Furthermore, the author himself admits that he has never had a particular interest in any specific STEM field, but instead chose his major because the prospects of the subjects he was truly interested in turned him away from the field. Unfortunately, it’s probable that anyone reading this article knows of someone exactly like this: someone who gave up on their interests in favor of security.
However, when considering the reasons why someone in engineering and why someone in the arts and humanities pursues their degrees, you find that they are motivated by the same desire. A traffic engineer designs a more efficient roadway system due to traffic inefficiency for the same reasons that a psychologist works with his or her patients who suffer from mental illnesses: they both seek to create solutions to larger problems through their work.
While Robbie does raise some good points about the immediate attractiveness of the STEM field, we must remember that no matter what field someone goes into, almost always, the hardest working and most passionate individuals find the greatest success in their fields. You can find some of those kinds of people in spades in our humanities college here at State as well as any of our other wonderful colleges.
We, as NC State students, have the extraordinary opportunity to attend a truly well-rounded and diversified school that truly does afford all of its students the chance to propel themselves into whatever professional field they wish, be it through CHASS or the College of Engineering. However, even with the bright student body here at State ready to proceed and carry our school’s name in a positive light through all sorts of disciplines, it is not uncommon to hear viewpoints echoed across campus like the one expressed by the author, those being that nothing but STEM degrees are useful. With that, one can only wonder what will happen if State becomes synonymous with STEM egoism. With that, it seems that maybe it is not STEM which needs to be stood up for.
