Wells Fargo recently released an ad for a “Teen Day,” displaying two students doing science experiments and including the text, “A ballerina yesterday. An engineer today,” and “An actor yesterday. A botanist today.” Both are followed by the statement, “Let’s get them ready for tomorrow.”

Artists, actors, and supporters of the arts have all begun to take their stance on this advertisement:

Wells Fargo has recently released a statement apologizing for their advertisement:

But this apology isn’t enough. It is undeniable that many schools and organizations are currently promoting students interests in STEM majors, but at the same time, this encouragement does not discourage or insult liberal arts. But this advertisement portrays arts careers as less valuable than those in science and technology.

This Wells Fargo ad is not the first example of people’s disdain towards the arts. The Washington Post released an article discussing the issue of parents forcing their children to ignore the liberal arts in favor of more lucrative STEM or business majors. In the article, Steven Pearlstien describes reports of liberal arts majors living lives of deprivation and disappointment as overly exaggerated. He explains that it is true that STEM and business majors earn the most, but even the average humanities major earns enough to fit comfortably in the American middle class. It would be a mistake to attribute success solely to the choice of major.

As a liberal arts major, I continue to see the benefits of my major choice every single day. Without people like me, expressions of the heart would cease to exist. While the world does need mathematical minds and scientific experimentations, we need people who dare to think who have learned to think critically and express themselves and their ideas. What makes us human? The ability to use tools, as science and technology majors do. But more importantly, it is to think and dream, to go beyond what has been done before, exercising the use of imagination.

The main issue I have with this advertisement is that Wells Fargo assumes that artistic pursuits are inherently less valuable. It is an assumption that you must grow out of your dreams if they may not prove to be monetarily successful.

Not everyone will grow up to be a ballerina, but why are we discouraging those who have the ability to pursue their dreams? These people have the potential to make our society more artistically rich and focused on the emotions behind our motivations. The mentality that the arts are less important than sciences needs to be stopped. Our society functions through both logic and arts. The collaboration between the two will enable technology to suit the needs of the people it serves. Technology created in a vacuum by like minded people will be devoid of the heart of creativity that makes us human.