I once had a question for my friend and it was simple: “If you offer incentives to go into certain careers, is it not a form of mass manipulation?” They answered with a common argument that you have to offer the disenfranchised the opportunity to gain these high paying jobs that have been isolated for some time. Yet, isn’t the reason we live and work to enjoy ourselves? Is it not dangerous to offer cheap education, but in doing so, force someone to choose a career path? For me, I see all the STEM programs as a structured issue that’s goal is to produce workers for companies. This is fine, and a lot people love being creative within the STEM field, but isn’t it dangerous to over produce and create a surplus of STEM qualified individuals?
For me, I work in an engineer concentric company. However, I carry a philosophy, sociology degree, and a masters in business administration. I am beyond happy that I got my liberal arts degrees and I use them regularly for my other career aspiration: novelist. Yet, I feel somewhat sad for those who were coerced into getting a STEM degree because they look longingly at my fiction writing and wish they had some skill that wasn’t only effective for a company. I am not making this up, I was directly told by a coworker with a masters in engineer that they wish they had some skill that could let them venture into the world on their own and use their own ability to generate an income – they don’t realize I don’t generate an income from my writing (yet).
So, I feel the problem to this issue I have with STEM is the lack of “mind expansion”. It teaches you a technical and very creative skill (if you have creativity elsewhere). Solutions I have seen generated by engineers can be insanely creative, but for others in the same field, they are stuck living a life of equations and solving for X. Does that make a STEM education a prison sentence in which the warden is the corporation or corporations you will work for throughout your life? Am I overthinking something that doesn’t need to even be thought of?
If I were to boil it down: I have had an issue with STEM for some time because I think it is a potential pitfall that generates drones – let alone monetarily seducing someone into that field. However, I think if STEM is balanced with art, creativity, workmanship, it will no longer fit the issue I have with it. Instead, I think we would begin to see a lot of very creative and intelligent work generated from the hybrid creative (one of technical and scientific knowledge with a basis and appreciation from the arts). One final question I will leave for you: if we only train those to think within one paradigm, do we condemn them to only exist in that future without an escape into some path?