11 Oct Is STEAM the new response to a STEM education?

STEM or STEAM

I was facing a conundrum. My son was considering a degree at a liberal arts school. “Impossible! Dad is an Engineer. I am a CompSci major.” We are both products of a STEM education and we enjoyed positive STEM careers.

As the sun sets on the Industrial Era, conventional wisdom holds that a STEM education is a more reliable ramp into an entry-level position and a career. Like most STEM-educated immigrant parents, that was my priority for my son. It would take a lot to shift my thinking.

STEM – Science Technology Engineering Math

But I’m also a Futurist who focuses on Future of Work – a future where our relationship with information has changed dramatically. Previously, those who could reel off dates and figures at will were highly valued. Doctors. Lawyers. Professors. Apps and databases are rapidly replacing those functions. Now, we churn through large volumes of information, to discern what is true and pertinent, then use it to make complex connections and decisions. In this future the rapidly advancing AI engine will quickly reduce the shelf life of purely technical skills. It appears that the humanities are a great sandbox within which to develop and hone the skill of dealing with ambiguity.

STEAM – Science Technology Engineering Arts Math

The new world of work is one where we need a good balance of STEM and Humanities skills. Technology is clearly a core driver and a very necessary element for the next level of progress. But are we at a point where we risk the human in humanity if we ignore the Humanities? Is a blend – STEAM – the way forward?

Thought A: GenZ thinks in continuums

“STEM or Liberal Arts?”
“Nerd or Jock?”
“Male or Female?”

“Why OR?,” they ask back, “Isn’t it a continuum?”

The problem, I realized, lies in my generation – the Industrial Era parents of these new Explorers. We are the sorters. We grew up with discrete choices and hard boundaries. In our day, Engineering students became Engineers. Medical students became Doctors and Surgeons. Language and PolSci majors became journalists. All delineations that are rapidly blurring. Prior to the democratization of information, these career paths demanded rigour and rewarded you for knowing oodles of facts. A lot of the entry-level tasks in the space are now being replaced by routines: AI, ChatGPT – and if they are very repetitive tasks, by robots.

GenZ’s instinct to include humanities classes alongside STEM is an intuitive response to the world unraveling before them, which is in the process of reinventing itself. While that is in progress, the way ahead and the methods to get there are ambiguous. The new World of Work (Future of Work) is still under construction. We are at the beginning –  testing the boundaries of remote work, gig work, and portfolio careers.

Everywhere we turn, established frameworks are ripe for reinvention. Is this possible? It has happened before: Think “The earth is flat”. Think “Man cannot fly.” Think “Gravity”.

With our generation’s reliable roadmaps being torn and tossed to the wayside, this younger generation of students, workers, and managers has to navigate by compass. It turns out that courses in the humanities – philosophy, language, and anthropology are great sandboxes for dealing with ambiguity. The ability to synthesize and create connections between large bodies of work in different disciplines becomes a 21st-century skill.

The question is no longer STEM or Humanities. The answer is STEAM – where a healthy dose and understanding of the Arts blend with the technical skills necessary to navigate today’s landscape. The ability to deal with rapid change balanced against considerations of long-term consequences.

Thought B: Humanities classes teach us to process ambiguity

Recent studies by David Deming (Harvard Professor on Education and Economics) indicate that a liberal arts/humanities degree gives their students a better ability to collate and synthesize huge amounts of data/information.

We know that complex problem-solving and critical thinking are key 21st-century skills. In a world where technical knowhow has a rapidly decaying shelf life, the ability to hold multiple points of view, to reinvent, to debate your point, to absorb and learn from those around you (learn how to learn), critical thinking, problem solving and leadership become the more valuable 21st-century skills. Then, in a rapidly changing job market dealing with incredible complexity, surely these are profoundly important skills to incorporate into any post-secondary study.

I grew up as a coder. The machine did exactly what I told it. The first time. Bugs and all. This is very different from philosophy and poetry essays where the results were open to interpretation. [If you ever wonder why immigrants gravitate towards STEM disciplines, it is because Math and Science translate the same way the world over, making them easily transferable.]

The Humanities also teach us how to engage in healthy debate, how to consider nuance and play with imagination.  If you are in Explorer mode (rather than paint by numbers) it helps to hold a healthy level of skepticism, but also to be willing to take on risk. Both these are 21st-century skills that make an emerging adult more appealing to a prospective manager.

Thought C: Humanities graduates are employable

Dealing with the elephant in the room. Many parents have steered their young adults away from Liberal Arts degrees because they may be “unemployable”. (I was one of those parents.) Pre-pandemic stats did prove them out. To some degree. However, studies done before the pandemic indicated that while STEM gave students a faster ramp into a career, more C-level positions were held by humanities graduates. [I will keep searching for updated studies that may reflect the switch toward startup culture prevalent among younger teens.]  This may be because they bring team building, complex communication, and idea synthesis. At the higher levels of management, complexity rules: we deal with extended amounts of information, situations requiring negotiation as well as increase levels of complex problem-solving.

In today’s world, more managers are seeking candidates who can demonstrate their ability to be flexible in their thinking, incorporate technology in their solutions, and consider the holistic process.

Later we will discuss the math behind why I think that there is no more “Impossible”.With eight billion people covering Mother Earth, we now have four times the number of people (2 billion) and 40x the number of people with degrees when we created nuclear science. And twice the number of people (4 billion) and significantly more technical prowess than when we sent man to the moon in 1969. If we can dream it, we will be able to create it.

This is why I live in complete hope that if we are able to marshal our resources appropriately, it is within our power and capability to solve many of the problems on earth including Climate.

I’ve said it before the best idea can come from anyone, anywhere, at any time. So long as we create the opportunities for diversity of thoughts and disciplines to bump into each other, creating momentum and steam.

This essay started as a round table discussion at the recent PrepSkills Breakfast for Guidance Counselors when one counselor asked how they could make a better case to parents for allowing their young adults to consider Liberal Arts colleges as an option.

Thanks to Chris Wong, Jen Dyck-Sprout, Baxter Blackwood, Monica Magalhaes, Andriy Kulak and so many others for streamlining this essay.