Funding for liberal arts education in the public school system has been on the decline over the past several years. This decrease is a result of President Barak Obama’s emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education, along with other extraneous factors. STEM has diminished interest in fields such as language, history, music and art. However, the increased emphasis toward STEM does not necessarily mean that the USA has improved its scores in science and math. According to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), students in the USA have failed to show any significant improvement in science and math scores when compared to other developed nations. While nationally, our students’ performance in both math and science remains relatively stagnant.
To top it all off, students’ scores in reading and writing have decreased over the same amount of time. However, the purpose of this article is not to delineate the USA’s abysmal education system, but to point out the effects of the USA’s emphasis on STEM. Primarily, how this emphasis has discouraged students from pursuing their passions because they are not relevant to society.
I have experienced this firsthand. Currently, I am enrolled in college as a chemistry major, but I have found that I only have an interest in chemistry and cannot see myself doing this for a living. So, you may be asking yourself, why have I chosen chemistry as my major? Well, that’s because the public school system heavily influenced me. Growing up, I enrolled in honors and gifted classes. Not much changed moving on to high school where I took AP classes. Same students. Same teachers. Different name.
Essentially, AP classes provided the same environment that the honors and gifted courses did in elementary and high school. There were only students who were aspiring doctors, engineers and the occasional lawyer. Concurrently, liberal arts classes kept on shutting down due to lack of students, funding or both. That was not the only problem. There was even discrimination within the AP classes themselves. Amongst my peers, everyone held AP English Language and Literature in a lower regard than AP Physics B/C and AP Calculus AB/BC. Admittedly, I was one of these students as well.
In middle school, however, I would have thought differently. Beforehand, I was active in my real passion, art. I remember that I would spend my mornings and afternoons in the art room. Come eighth grade, I had applied to various art and design schools, which I gained admission. In the end, I forfeited my passion and, instead, I attended an engineering school. I remember that my teachers had told me that there was no future in the arts and that it would be better for me to pursue a career in STEM, as I was already performing excellently in those classes.
“Better quit now and become an art major.” That was something that my friends and I would say between ourselves every time a difficult test approached in either AP Physics C or AP Calculus BC. However, I did so begrudgingly because, in the dark recesses of my mind, I was mocking the dream I thought I had relinquished.
No matter how you look at it, our society has put a tremendous emphasis on STEM and this has discouraged many students from pursuing their passions. The problem does not only lie in schools but politics as well. Recently, Florida Governor Rick Scott teased an Anthropologist, insinuating that they are not useful to society whatsoever. Potential Republican candidate Marco Rubio also said that “The world needs more welders and less philosophers.” However, do not let politicians, teachers or other students choose your career for you. When selecting a major, choose a major that you're passionate in, or you will quickly find that you will not be happy on that career path, just as I have.
