My first class in college was sociology, in a lecture hall so large that I stared at the room wide-eyed for minutes on end wondering how it was even possible to teach a class so big. During one of the first classes, the professor stood up on the stage, all the way in the front, and asked us “how many women here are going into STEM fields?”

I almost raised my hand, but quickly stopped myself and put it back down on my desk. I was going to go into a STEM field, but in the days leading up to freshman year, I decided to go undeclared in order to evaluate if art was what I really wanted to pursue instead. I had always been so proud to be part of the STEM women crowd, to be one of the ones pulling women forward and doing something truly important. But, I realized with heartache, I was no longer part of that crowd. I couldn’t raise my hand.

All of the students looked around the lecture hall, searching through the sea of students for a raised hand. There was one. One solitary female STEM major in the entire mass of students.

I was stunned. And, as the professor went on to lecture about how we all need to do more to encourage women to go into math and science, I was left feeling like a traitor to my own gender. I should have raised my hand. I should have been able to vouch for us. I should be part of the solution, not the problem.

That feeling didn't go away. It hung over me like a dark cloud for the remainder of the year. People would ask me what my major was and I would tell them that I was applying to the art school, only to get a chuckle in response, followed by an "oh, are you good at art?" People felt the need to question my ability when I was looking to go into the arts when they never had before. Somehow, going into the arts made me less intelligent in the eyes of my peers, less worthy. And, worse than that, while I knew that wasn't true, it became increasingly difficult to keep that bias at bay, even as it pertained to myself.

Everywhere I looked, television, social media, magazines, my classes, and my own friends were all telling me how vital it was for women to be going into STEM. And I wasn't doing that anymore.

As the year drew to a close and it came time to make my decision, I did indeed choose to go into a STEM major after. Though this decision was not influenced by feeling an obligation to go into STEM as a woman, I won’t deny that it was nice to have that support again, to have people applauding my decision and its merits, and to have people look to me as an intelligent person again without any need of proof. It was surreal. I was still the same person people would scoff at just a few weeks prior. I was just as smart, with the same interests and passions, but people saw me in a different light.

As my peers applaud STEM women and as my other STEM friends and I talk, I often see the women who chose to go into the arts look down at their hands and wait for the conversation to be over. If it doesn't end, they force out a smile and nod along, sometimes adding a note about how they wouldn't be able to take classes in our fields.

To these women, having lived both your side of the story and mine: you are not a traitor to your gender. You are no less intelligent, and creativity is among the most valuable and underappreciated brands of intelligence that exists, for it takes a truly brilliant mind to invent and express new ideas rather than merely study the ones already laid out for us. Not everyone can do that, and the world would be lost without that intelligence. Your work is still needed and valuable and in no way inferior to that of your STEM peers.

While a large disparity between men and women that choose to go into STEM remains, it's no reason to make anyone feel that the field they're passionate about is inherently wrong. Being dissatisfied in your line of work, whether because you don't enjoy it, or you've been led to believe that you shouldn't enjoy it, is a much higher price to pay than not having many women in STEM.

Choosing a career that you'll be happy to get out of bed each morning for, one that will give you a sense of happiness and fulfillment in life is a daunting task, any anytime someone is able to accomplish that is a win for everyone involved.

STEM fields may make the world livable, but the arts make it worth living. This is a team effort, and your part is no less important than mine.