Arts and STEM – the great divide

Image by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash.

The debate between the perceived usefulness of arts degrees compared to their STEM counterparts has been kicking around for a while.

Traditional stereotypes exist everywhere, and in this case, there’s nothing different. On social media, the standard response to the discourse says STEM, especially engineering, is one of the best ways to snag a high-paying, secure job post-study.

With the arts, the classic unemployment line joke is made over and over again.

UCSA Arts Representative Aneliz Gardener Fregoso certainly feels the heat of being an Arts student at UC, where it is widely understood by the students that engineering is king. 

“I can sense a silent judgment as some believe that studying Arts is the easiest, so they take Arts students less seriously,” the media and communications student said.

“I feel most students joke about commerce and arts degrees a lot.”

She’s not the only one. Electrical Engineering student Taylor Matthews said he knows many of his peers view arts as a lesser degree.

But is there really a need to pit these two fields against each other, and in the process drive positive and negative rhetoric? Because as it turns out, there’s more in common than what we see on the surface.

Associate Dean (Academic) of Engineering Pedro Lee said to Canta there’s space for both to thrive at UC, and the two fields are interlinked more than we may expect.

“I think the link between engineering and arts has historically been there. Unfortunately, things have become a bit too siloed – ‘art is art and engineering is engineering', but at the end it's a whole spectrum of knowledge.”

“Arts is such a broad, diverse and important faculty, and there's so much knowledge that is directly relevant to engineering.”

Lee highlighted how many aspects within the Arts are drawn on by engineering in order to be successful.

He said the Washington Accord (the international body responsible for accrediting engineering degree programmes) has re-defined “what engineering problem-solving is”, placing importance on factors such as political and cultural understanding.

"A graduate that is able to have different world views will be able to make a bigger impact in the workplace.”

In fact, Lee said diversity and inclusion is “placed on the same level of importance as, say, mathematics, or science, or technical knowledge in our engineering graduates.”

Two elements that are consistent with – you guessed it – Arts students.

In a modern job market where we’re constantly hearing how hard it is for tertiary graduates to gain employment, it’s refreshing to hear that even in a traditionally staunch discipline like engineering, there’s room for creative fields to thrive.

It comes down to how you apply knowledge, which is the very basis of many Arts degrees. They’re flexible – you can mould skillsets into a wide range of job descriptions (more than you realise).

So don’t let some bloke on the Internet bashing your major get to your head. Do your research on what you want to study and nail what you’re learning on the head.

Because the opportunity to apply it may be in the place you least expect.