I grew up in Silicon Valley, so my education was definitely more biased toward the sciences. Looking back, I am thankful for the enrichment and encouragement I received in my field of choice, but sometimes I also view this bias as something unfortunate. It’s not that my high school had weak humanities departments. No, not at all. My English and history teachers were people I always admired. But, I think the overall environment was more geared toward STEM, especially because of how much influence the Silicon Valley has. Personally, I only took advantage of the math and science resources available at my school. I spent my high school career doing intensive research, taking extra math and science classes, and doing all I could to thoroughly develop the engineer in me. As a result, my “liberal arts education,” as they say, was cut down to the bare minimum. I took the number of humanities classes that I needed to graduate from high school, and nothing more. On the flip side, I noticed that my friends who were more inclined toward the humanities took the bare minimum of STEM classes to fulfill graduation requirements as well. This created an unhealthy learning environment in that students who were more interested in STEM dreaded their humanities classes and vice versa. Rather than realizing the importance of both sets of subjects, we began to form unsubstantiated poor opinions of the “other” field.

It was not until I got to college that I realized that I was essentially “hating on” the humanities for no reason at all. I met people who were pursuing majors or minors in both STEM and humanities. I realized that just because your primary focus may be in one area, nothing is preventing you from exploring the other. Most importantly, I learned that “interdisciplinary” was not just a fancy word colleges use to market themselves, but an actual concept. At my university, all freshmen are required to take two freshman writing seminars. Honestly, I was dreading these classes before I started college. Looking back, they were some of my most interesting classes. One of the many reasons I have always enjoyed being a STEM major because I like the definitive, black and white nature of science and math subjects. The satisfaction and insight I gain after my code runs or after I solve a challenging math problem is sometimes unparalleled. On the other hand, I have always struggled with the idea of multiple “right answers” or interpretations. However, I am finally beginning to realize that this is the exact quality of the humanities that makes the field beautiful. And, people who deem the humanities as “useless” don’t realize that proper communication and acceptance of multiple perspectives is just as important as being able to create the next popular gadget or come up with the next scientific breakthrough.

Since I am not actually pursuing a humanities degree, I can’t comment on the flip side of this situation to such an extreme degree. However, I will admit that the phrase “liberal arts education” has always somewhat bothered me as well. Why are we never throwing around the phrase “STEM education” in the same way? Many of my friends are pursuing degrees in the humanities, but I know that they are required to take science classes in order to have a more “wholesome” education, but it seems like science majors are always being reminded of the importance of the humanities, but never vice versa. I may be entirely wrong, but this is merely my general impression. Regardless, it is true that the two fields are collaborating constantly, which is why exposure to the “other side” is more than necessary. So, the humanities and sciences can’t just coexist, they can’t just be “civil” toward one another, they must engage. While I do see this communication between the two fields to be increasing, the most fruitful discussions will only occur if both sides are well informed of their counterparts' perspectives.