S.T.E.M. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. This acronym is something I have been hearing since I was in high school. It’s an acronym that is used all the time. You hear it on the news, you read about it in articles, and it’s tossed around in conversations. These subjects are valued highly in today’s society. It’s where all the hype is. And where there is hype, there’s money. Everything that’s not in that four-letter acronym is pushed to the side.

I was never good at math or science. My teachers constantly moved me to sit next to the smart kids, hoping their genius would rub off on me. Spoiler: it didn’t. Science theories would have to be simplified for me to understand. I remember one time, my chemistry teacher had to describe compound elements as people dating for me to finally get it. I eventually gave up and starting bringing something to read during class.

You see, I thrived in English and social studies. I loved learning new vocabulary words and reading. We had discussions about historic events and helped one another become better writers. My senior year English literature class had only seven people in it. They were all girls. I knew so many people taking Advanced Placement (AP) biology or physics. I knew fewer people who were taking AP government or literature.

I was excited to go to college for two reasons and two reasons only. First, I was happy to get out of my small town. And second, I was even happier to know I would never have to take a math or science class there. I played my cards right in high school. I took local college classes in math and science, passed, and kissed those subjects goodbye. My credits transferred, leaving me able to take all the liberal arts classes I wanted.

My college is a liberal arts school. There are 24 different liberal arts and science majors. This is not including fine and performing arts, education or business majors. Half of the top ten undergraduate problems at my college are from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Only one is from the School of Science & Engineering, aka S.T.E.M.

I majored in digital media management and programming and minored in journalism. These are housed in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. I loved my classes, my professors, and my classmates. The classrooms, however, were another story. Most of my classes were held in the basement of the science building. Windowless, cold, and crowded is how I remember it. I hated going to class there, but I loved being surrounded by the people who had the same interest as me. The three floors above us were filled with students majoring in biology, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, etc.

During my years there, my college constructed a new academic building for engineering. They just opened it this year and it looks beautiful. It has windows and places to study. There’s even a cafe! I was jealous. Why wasn’t my major good enough to have our own space?

During my senior year of college, it was announced that our school received funding for another building. Can you guess what it is going to be? A new science building. I could have screamed. There are so many majors on campus that need help and funding that are overlooked because they don’t belong in S.T.E.M. They aren’t making the college as much money. Music majors are cramped in a building that is attached, yes, attached, to two residence halls. Journalism and digital production majors are in a dank basement.

This piece is just a shout out to all the letters that aren’t included in S.T.E.M. Your work and what you do matters. It’s important. The famous Robin Williams’ quote from “Dead Poets Society” comes to mind: “And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.” I cannot imagine a life without museums, movies, or news. I think I would rather die than live in a world without books and we wouldn’t be able to read those books if it wasn’t for teachers. Sure, we would have radios due to S.T.E.M. but we would have no content for those radios if it wasn’t for the music majors, the production majors, the business majors. Netflix is how I spend most of my Saturday nights but I would have nothing to watch if it wasn’t for performing arts majors.

S.T.E.M. is destroying the arts at the high school level too. So many times we have to defund art and music classes and are forced to take “important” classes like pre-calculus and physics. While it’s true that I might not paint everyday or play an instrument, I also know I’m not going to be solving equations for the rest of my life. Students should have a right to choose. By college administrators expanding the space for S.T.E.M. they are telling the rest that they aren’t important. They are trying to sway us to the S.T.E.M. path.

This isn’t a dig toward S.T.E.M. people. I have so many friends and people in my life who are a part of those programs and they are great people. I love them. It’s also really important to me to see women in the S.T.E.M. departments. But girls, or boys, shouldn’t have to enter that field because of their gender or because there are more resources and jobs. It should be because they genuinely have a passion for that field.

This is just a reminder that we exist. The letters in between S.T.E.M. exist and are just as important and worthy of resources that S.T.E.M. majors are. This is for the college freshman or the high school senior struggling to figure out what they want to study. We may not be in the spotlight, but we are here. We may not be making millions, but we are here. And to the college administrators, the politicians, the parents who try to deter us from pursuing our dreams: shame on you. We matter.