Over the last decade, approximately six million more STEM workers joined the workforce, with a major percentage of them having a bachelor’s degree or higher. This is largely due to the recent decrease in the number of students going towards liberal arts and humanities degrees at universities nationwide. STEM has become increasingly defined as the epitome of development, success, and progress, thus swaths of students in the 21st century thus far have been seeking towards the field in their higher education in hopes of being part of that defining success. This has subsequently left liberal arts and humanities and the importance and relevance of the field behind, which could arguably prove to be a negative consequence for the future.
What is STEM and Why is Everyone Obsessed?
STEM—Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math—was coined in 2001 by Judith Ramaley, an American biologist working at the National Science Foundation. It defines a workforce that ranges from neurologists to statisticians, from people who work with their hands every day digging through soil to uncover biological wonders to people who are seated in front of computers for hours on end, uncovering patterns and secrets in numbers and codes. Historically, STEM has served to create the defining sentiment of development and progress, particularly in Global North countries like the United States, China, and various European countries. Events like the establishment of NASA in 1958, the first moon landing in 1969, and the creation of the first cell phone in 1973 clearly exhibit this, as the U.S. was able to define itself more and more as a leading global force afterwards.
With this has come an overwhelming sentiment that pursuing anything other than STEM is unproductive and unbeneficial to a career. Incoming college students are increasingly choosing majors like computer science, biology, and engineering, even if they are not particularly interested in those subjects, because it seems like the “right” thing to do for their future. Consequently, higher education has become largely reduced to “whatever makes sense at work” rather than what really drives a student, what they are passionate about, or what new ideas they can cultivate from it. This is not to say that all students going towards STEM majors or STEM-based higher education are doing it just to see the best return on their investment; many, many students are truly interested in this growing field. However, there is a toxic culture that is causing a growing majority of students to choose those education paths simply because everyone else is doing the same, or because they are shown to have the “best results,” lacking true interest in the field.
What are Liberal Arts?
Liberal arts or humanities, on the other hand, are a multidisciplinary facet of education much older than STEM, dating back to ancient Greece. Liberal arts, put in simple terms, are essentially the broad study of how the world works, assisting with students’ critical thinking, creative application, and social skills, ranging from topics like psychology and sociology to linguistics and history. While topics like psychology and sociology—both technically classified under liberal arts—may be perceived at first to be STEM subjects due to their being scientific topics, that isn’t the case. Scientific topics like these are taught to students on a much broader scale, taking into account things like historical context, origin, implication on a global stage, and human experience. Scientific topics under STEM are taught on a more practical “pure” level, while those under liberal arts are taught showing their applied nature, answering deeper questions like Why do these topics truly matter? and How do they affect society?
Why Liberal Arts?
Although, today, the overbearing sentiment is that STEM-based education is the most effective path to take for the best career prospects and success, liberal arts can produce just as much success. This is mainly due to the fact that a liberal arts education teaches students the important soft, social skills they need to be both productive employees and well-educated, productive people. These skills include clear and effective communication, error-free writing, problem-solving, and successful data analysis, among others. How can a student properly prepare themselves for a career, the sole reason most students even attend and get educated at higher institutions, if they are not taught to apply these skills that every good employee should have? Studies show that 89 percent of recruiters say that when a new hire doesn’t work out, it is usually due to a lack of soft skills. Countless professors, deans, and other higher institution heads have supported that claim through their experience with companies trying to work with students coming into the workforce. Employers want employees who are able to read critically, analyze data effectively, and write without error, and universities often cannot turn out such candidates due to the lack of liberal arts students actually educated and equipped with those skills.
In addition, students in liberal arts possess the unmatchable and arguably most important trait of being more human. With this extensive, deep education and contemplation of what makes the world the way it is comes an understanding of society that generally can’t come from anywhere else, especially not from STEM-based education. This in turn produces empathetic, “more-aware” students who strive to truly understand the world around them rather than just sticking to the practical, almost survival-type of way students are expected to go through their education due to the fear of not being able to get a job. This empathetic nature not only translates into more humanized employees in the future workforce but also provides a significant tangible positive effect, too. For example, as much as AI (artificial intelligence) has taken the world by storm and will continue to do so in the coming years, it does not take away from the fact that when someone calls customer service, they want to hear a human voice. They want someone who can empathetically help them solve their problems on a more emotional level rather than just being assisted by a robot that follows an algorithm. When someone is in a life-altering situation that could result in their going to jail for several years and not being able to raise their children, they will want to have the guidance of a human lawyer who can actually connect with them and bring a level of emotion into the case rather than just communicating with a device. Ultimately, no matter how advanced or productive a STEM-driven workforce may seem, the lack of humanity will only diminish that progress.
Putting Them Together
Nonetheless, the fact is that both liberal arts and STEM education are important for a progressive and productive society; more importantly, the two need to be combined to yield the best results. As Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once said, “It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing.” Whether it be the launch of a new tech product or a software update to an existing one, liberal arts will always play a significant role in making those developments as pertinent to society as possible, subsequently yielding the best results. As society continues to evolve, and people’s needs and wants continue to change, merely sticking to practical, baseline solutions will not work, and that’s exactly where liberal arts come in. As good as AI developments may be in replacing what we think are trivial human processes, AI will never be able to truly understand humanity as an actual human mind can, and that’s the beauty and importance of liberal arts. As much as economic leaders may want to stick to automated practices that have worked for many years, better results could be yielded if those practices were shifted and altered to fit what society really needs.
Ultimately, the world needs both liberal arts and STEM. We can’t have a world that runs solely on computers, robots, and AI, but we also can’t have one completely without them. Liberal arts will always be important, and humanity will always be important, no matter how much of a tech-driven world we become, because at the end of the day, we are all humans, and to live as a cohesive society, we need each other to be humans as well.
Sources
- Blanchette, Rebecca LeBoeuf. “What Is a Liberal Arts Degree and What Can You Do with It?” Southern New Hampshire University, 31 July 2024, www.snhu.edu/about-us/newsroom/liberal-arts/what-is-a-liberal-arts-degree.
- Dix, Willard. “A Liberal Arts Degree Is More Important than Ever.” Forbes, 16 Nov. 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/willarddix/2016/11/16/a-liberal-arts-degree-is-more-important-than-ever/.
- Hollis, Jennifer. “The Benefits of a Liberal Arts Education.” Coalition for College, www.coalitionforcollegeaccess.org/mycoalition-counselor-all/the-benefits-of-a-liberal-arts-education.
- Kumar, Vijay, et al. “The Workforce Relevance of Liberal Arts Education.” MIT Open Learning, 4 Aug. 2022, openlearning.mit.edu/news/workforce-relevance-liberal-arts-education.
- Sipes, Stephanie. “Why STEM Students Need the Liberal Arts.” Providence, a Classical Christian School; providencestl.org/why-stem-students-need-the-liberal-arts/.
- Themm, McKenna. “6 Reasons Why a Liberal Arts Education Is Worth It.” Point Loma Nazarene University, www.pointloma.edu/resources/undergraduate-studies/6-reasons-why-liberal-arts-education-worth-it.
- University of Massachusetts Global. “5 Significant Advantages of Liberal Arts Majors.” UMass Global Blog, www.umassglobal.edu/news-and-events/blog/liberal-arts-majors.
- University of Nebraska Omaha. “Why Be a Liberal Arts Major?” College of Arts and Sciences, 7 Sept. 2021 www.unomaha.edu/college-of-arts-and-sciences/academic-advising-center/choosing-a-major/liberal-arts.php.
