1. Challenge

Yes, the hard sciences are challenging enough, especially to us more geared toward the softer sciences. However, that gives us students of art more reasons as well as more opportunities to grow with our art: whether on our canvases or laptops, or within our music halls or dance studios. There's never a chance to not improve your craft…

To prove my point, while Seneca Academy claims that "the arts provide challenges for learners at all levels," Art in Action also states that "the arts create a safe space for students to explore their talents and build their confidence."

Also, as an afterthought, if you ever doubt yourself in how "low-paying" the arts professions can be, Park West Gallery has research from a study conducted by the Americans for the Arts' fifth Arts & Economic Prosperity to support the fact that "the nonprofit arts and culture industry drove $166.3 billion of economic activity during 2015."

So, be confident in that the arts will pay off!

2. Communication/Collaboration

Regardless of the professions, arts or sciences aside, there is communication involved, as well as collaboration with other people. The arts thrive on both of these things that neither scientists nor mathematicians would find just as easy breezy.

According to Art in Action, "By working collaboratively on a project, students [in school] learn to communicate more effectively, compromise when necessary, and work hard even if their role may seem small," meaning that the humanities can help you out with interacting with – you know – humanity! (I mean, that is their job…)

The way I see it, though it may not be correct as a whole: in the sciences, there is a fixed answer or maybe even a fixed set of answers, whereas in the arts, there is no right or wrong answer for any one person, that it all depends on interpretation or how well-supported your point turns out to be. So, you decide if it's better to find the right answer or find a right answer with others.

3. Creative Expression

Ever need to get all of those feelings out? Well, the arts can surely help with that!

Art in Action says that "in a world full of trained professionals and highly educated workers, creativity is one of the top skills that set someone apart from the pack. Of course, being qualified in your field is important, but having the ability to think imaginatively and bring fresh ideas to the table are essential to innovation and progress." In other words, this will give you more credibility as a "qualified" professional artist!

Not only that, but Park West Gallery, with info from research study conducted by the University of Michigan, states, "Older adults who both created art and attended arts events reported higher cognitive functioning and lower rates of both hypertension and limitations to their physical functioning than did adults who neither created nor attended art."

4. Critical Thinking/Analysis

This is a very definitive point right here. When taken seriously, art is not strictly for fun and games; it improves how you think about things analytically.

Art in Action has the floor here: "When students are making a work of art, the process includes conceptual and interpretational thinking that helps build their critical thinking skills including observation, reasoning, and problem-solving. During the creative process, children use logic and problem solving to strategize how to reach their intended outcome."

Take away the arts that can make you think critically, and you have taken away the tools that kids, upon getting out of school, would need to approach life situations.

5. Development

Yes, while advances in medicine or in technology is always a win for the STEM fields, not that many people realize just how much the arts can effectively impact human beings and how they function. According to Seneca Academy, teaching art to children improves their "motor skills, language skills, social skills, decision-making, risk-taking, and inventiveness."

So, in a nutshell, you're not really you without art to help you along the way…

6. Empathy

Without empathy, how can people of STEM, or anyone for that matter, connect with the people around them? How can doctors relate to their patients when dealing with bad news about their health? They had to have had at least some integration of the humanities in their lives, in learning about what makes us human beings and how to treat humanity with respect and understanding, if they were to treat humanity with medicine.

According to Art in Action, "the arts [in schools] provide a unique platform to discuss many different cultures, socioeconomic levels, and current events." Mainly in the case of English, this would expose students to different kinds of literature (or other works of art) featuring a large array of people who are different from them and what their experiences had been throughout the course of history up to this point via the course of a novel, fictionalized or not. By making art be a part of kids' lives, this is instilling a heightened sense of empathy within them.

7. Happiness

Of course, this one is a biggie! How you feel about your job would be just enough to steer you towards the arts, or whatever your lifelong working passion may be. Just curious: how happy are scientists and engineers in their jobs? Depending on who you are, if you fit the description, you can think about this one, or you can ask someone you know or just happen to come across, or you could watch The Big Bang Theory to find out the answer to this question!

Park West Gallery states, with research from the University of Western Australia to back themselves up, that "exposure to the arts for just two hours every week can drastically improve your mental health and overall well-being." So, if you are working towards a degree in the arts, thinking seriously about a long-term career as a teacher in the arts, a writer, a journalist, or anything along those lines, that shows that any of those passions will fulfill you from day to day, because you want to teach others of the beauty of the arts, or want to find out the truth about the world and how it functions, or especially in my case, want to write the next bestselling novel!

Even if you're not pursuing a degree in any of the arts and humanities fields, just paint a picture, visit a museum, just do something creative and artsy to take that hardened, scientific edge off!

8. Interconnectedness

This ties in with my empathy point. While the arts can make us realize how we can be connected with each other via our experiences or any other relations we may have to one another, it can also help us understand how we can connect to the rest of the world, human or not: how we can connect with the nature surrounding us or with whatever spiritual guide we prefer to follow, either externally or even internally. Seneca Academy states that "art education connects students with their own culture as well as with the wider world." If you don't believe me, pick up a book on theology and you might learn that the Buddhist understanding of interconnectedness would allow us to see just how interconnected nature really is!

To think, with the humanities like theology, philosophy, and other fields of that nature (see what I did there?), in your life, life would all just be a matter of putting together the pieces of a puzzle, and possibly seeing how you might fit in it…

9. Problem-solving

This connects back to my point on critical thinking.

Seneca Academy states, "Working in the arts helps learners to develop creative problem-solving skills." It is through thinking things out critically that you would be better able to solve a problem from angles that may not easily present themselves in the world of science. I'm not saying that they never can, just that the arts can really help…

10. Recognition

Of course, this one is obvious. While it can apply to both the arts and the sciences, how many people can talk about scientific discoveries every single day?

Let me follow this point up with this fact from Seneca Academy: "A study of Missouri public schools in 2010 found that greater arts education led to fewer disciplinary infractions and higher attendance, graduation rates, and test scores." You can easily get recognized in school! For art! Who can beat that?"

In my experience, I'm surrounded by people who strive to talk about the latest books or TV shows/movies that have really sparked conversation or at the very least have piqued their interest. Science could be one of those things too, depending on whom you surround yourself with, but nevertheless, there is always a certain kind of beauty that comes from talking about the things you're passionate about. You love them! Who can really love a scientific discovery other than being grateful for having it when people have suffered in the past without it?

And yes, people suffered without art in their lives, and it's with this love for the arts that can make life worth living… Don't ask me; ask Mr. Keating in Dead Poets Society, because he can surely tell you!