The Humanities. History. English. Linguistics. The Classics. Business. Economics. Finance. Management. Marketing. Law. Criminal Justice. Paralegal. Kineseology. Library science. Nursing. Spanish. Africana. Education.
You get the point. So, why is STEM not enough and SHLAME-T or something else fucking stupid? Some examples. Theater. Set design. Have you ever seen the riggings and sand bag counterweights? Mechanical props? You could say those are made by “engineers”, which is true in a sense, but most often they are engineered by people who themselves have experience in theater. Why? They need to know how it works just as much as how it is used. Same with lighting and sound design
Studio art. Painting. Have you ever seen an artist stick their thumb out at arm’s length? They are using it to get an understanding of perspective and scale. It’s geometry. Da Vinci used geometry extensively. Look at the Vitruvian Man or Mona Lisa. Little known fact. Mona Lisa isn’t finished. Da Vinci never painted over all the circles and triangles.
Ballet. They way they extend their arms and legs is to adjust their center of mass for balance. To maintain static equilibrium. When they spin and move their arms in and out, their angular velocity increases and decreases to conserve angular momentum. In the most literal sense, they are doing physics. They can explain gyroscopic stabalization better than most STEM grad students, because they know how it feels.
Their are loads of other examples. The mathematics of music. Sculpting with CAD. The billion and one uses for 3d printing. Geometry and mosiacs. The ‘elegance’ of mathematical physics. Poetic code. But, back to Da Vinci. The concept of a “renaisance man”, is not one who is a master of STEM. They are a master of STEAM. Take the arts away, and you lose half the genius.
“As a Hispanic-American, I have been fortunate to navigate through the clutter of the STEM world and find and pursue my passion. For many, the thought of STEM studies – and the enormity of the term – creates fear before consideration of the potential reward. We need more education and access in all communities, representing people of all ethnic backgrounds and walks of life, providing a clear understanding of the many exciting paths available in STEM so that kids can find the specific field that inspires them.”
Unfortunately, as Stukalsky and visionaries like him would tell you, “We need minorities” is not a diversity strategy. Encouraging non-white talent from all aspects of the socioeconomic spectrum to consider a technical career requires unfettered access and opportunity. In fact, lumping all our efforts behind this clunky, tired acronym of STEM only dissuades young people from trying out fields that might interest them due to false equivalencies.
Maybe there’s an economically disadvantaged student whose life was touched by cancer, who dreams passionately of going to medical school and curing cancer. She might be reluctant to participate in STEM camps and the like because she struggles with math, and to most, “STEM” equals “math.” Or she might feel that such programs only cater to teaching software programming, which doesn’t interest her. How do we open the doors for her to pursue a career in medicine when we’ve grouped what is arguably the most important field in the universe with a bunch of unrelated subjects?
What degree are not included in STEAM, though? Feels like an overly broad category that isn’t as useful as STEM
The Humanities. History. English. Linguistics. The Classics. Business. Economics. Finance. Management. Marketing. Law. Criminal Justice. Paralegal. Kineseology. Library science. Nursing. Spanish. Africana. Education.
You get the point. So, why is STEM not enough and SHLAME-T or something else fucking stupid? Some examples. Theater. Set design. Have you ever seen the riggings and sand bag counterweights? Mechanical props? You could say those are made by “engineers”, which is true in a sense, but most often they are engineered by people who themselves have experience in theater. Why? They need to know how it works just as much as how it is used. Same with lighting and sound design
Studio art. Painting. Have you ever seen an artist stick their thumb out at arm’s length? They are using it to get an understanding of perspective and scale. It’s geometry. Da Vinci used geometry extensively. Look at the Vitruvian Man or Mona Lisa. Little known fact. Mona Lisa isn’t finished. Da Vinci never painted over all the circles and triangles.
Ballet. They way they extend their arms and legs is to adjust their center of mass for balance. To maintain static equilibrium. When they spin and move their arms in and out, their angular velocity increases and decreases to conserve angular momentum. In the most literal sense, they are doing physics. They can explain gyroscopic stabalization better than most STEM grad students, because they know how it feels.
Their are loads of other examples. The mathematics of music. Sculpting with CAD. The billion and one uses for 3d printing. Geometry and mosiacs. The ‘elegance’ of mathematical physics. Poetic code. But, back to Da Vinci. The concept of a “renaisance man”, is not one who is a master of STEM. They are a master of STEAM. Take the arts away, and you lose half the genius.
Hmm good points, thanks for putting the effort into this comment. I think I actually agree with you now.
I think that’s the point, the arbitrary division line over the arts and sciences is a wildly restrictive categorisation.
Most scientists I know are highly creative and very arts literate. Likewise, many professional artists are highly technical in practice.
Good thing there’s not an issue of few women in STEM, now that the new category is STEAM /s
You know, the British Science Association promotes STEAM as a way to combat that, particularly within the STEM pipeline starting at young people.
https://www.britishscienceassociation.org/news/future-forum-report-2022-published
Also
Article here
Interesting, I hope it works, then!