WHY STEAM?
When I was younger, I never though I'd get involved in STEM or have a career in any STEM field.
For some reason, I thought that STEM was for boys who are really great with computers or math. The thought that girls could get involved in those exact same fields never even occurred to me. That way of thinking seems ludicrous to me now, especially with the recent push to get girls interested in STEM... but back then I just didn't see it as a possibility.
Over the years, I've realized that many of the topics I'm truly passionate about and activities which I've invested much of my time in are rooted in STEM.
I've become fascinated with neuroscience; biology, chemistry, the brain, all of that really really cool stuff. And that fascination has opened my eyes to the world of STEM and several important distinctions that I think must be made.
The first is that STEM is for everyone.
Programs have been led over the past few years to get women more involved in STEM, but those programs don't change the fact that there are a number of obstacles facing women in STEM careers. It's not that women aren't getting involved in STEM, it's that they face so much discrimination in the workplace that STEM fields aren't welcoming to them. So that's one problem that I think has to be fixed. Regardless, STEM fields are fantastic because there are no shortages of jobs in those areas. We're always going to be looking for engineers and mathematicians and technicians and programmers.
And that brings me to my second distinction: it would be a big mistake to forget to include the humanities in STEM education.
We need the humanities in order to teach students to ask the moral and ethical questions of our time and to identify the biggest problems in society.
If students involved in STEM have the arts integrated into their education, the next generation of scientists will be able to see the social impacts of their work and ground their experiments and designs in empathy (hello, design thinking).
That's the foundation of a liberal arts education, as well as the mindset that my school has been taking up recently (that's why we have a STEAM Expo each year, with the "A" standing for "Arts").
STEAM could really be about giving a hands-on approach to education.
In the words of my independent study teacher Mr. Heidt, it could be meant to enliven kids, helping them utilize the empathetic skills they acquire to fix real-world problems.
In short, I have a significant interest in STEM, specifically in the fields of neuroscience and psychology, and I want to use what I learn in those fields to impact the education system.
