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“You seem to be very passionate about studying history as it relates to politics. How does it make you feel that there is such a big push now to encourage the study of STEM?” my Harvard interviewer asked me.
We were nearing the end of the interview. I felt pretty good. We had talked about my career goals, why I like certain things and not others, what I think I can offer to Harvard. All around, I felt like I had answered his questions appropriately and intelligently. This was a big one, though. I knew I couldn’t give a response as to why history is better than science. One, because this isn’t true and my answer would be very subjective and, two, because I knew my interviewer was a doctor and I didn’t want to offend him.
It was an important question. It seems everywhere you look, there is a new program to encourage students to pursue STEM careers. “STEM is the future,” they say. “Computers and technology are fast paths to high-paying, growing career fields. America needs to be a world leader in innovation.” It’s a good political tagline. Both Democrats and Republicans agree that we need to stay competitive against other countries. China is better at math than us. How can we live with ourselves?
For students interested in those areas, who have always had a natural affinity for science and math, this is great. Especially programs that encourage women to go into these male-dominated fields. Science took us to the moon and will one day cure cancer.
But how does this make me feel? Or other students like me, who would rather analyze words and people than numbers and blueprints?
“It makes a part of me sad because it seems like we are looking so far forward, we are forgetting the importance of history and losing this sense of who we are,” I said. “However, I obviously recognize that technology is a growing field. I think one thing people forget is that when technology advances, every other field does, too. I was just reading an article yesterday about how a bunch of letters between the founding fathers had been scanned and were now on the Library of Congress’ website. Without technology, people would never be able to read those letters. This technology allows the history to be claimed by anyone.”
That was partially my answer. Was I proud of myself for being able to answer his question in a unique way? Of course. I tried to give him my best Harvard answer.
It is true, though. And it becomes more true the more I think about it. Technology, while a very good career to focus on, at its core is a tool. Tools facilitate interactions and events, rarely do they make them.
Technology, while a very good career to focus on, at its core is a tool. Tools facilitate interactions and events, rarely do they make them.
How do I feel, as a future social sciences major, that technology seems to be the largest growing field? Elated. Ecstatic. New technology means new ways that humans can interact. When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, decreasing costs and increasing accessibility to books, world history changed. This one technology raised the worldwide literacy rate. When the first presidential debate was aired on live TV, people who watched it on television said that Kennedy won, while radio listeners thought Nixon sounded better. Social media is now allowing young people to be directly involved in politics more than ever before. People can tweet their senators in a second and organize marches and walkouts by drawing upon their social networks.
The study of history may conjure images of old people sifting through dusty books, but technology has allowed historians across the world to analyze documents in ways never before possible. By adjusting the contrast and saturation old words that were previously illegible are revealed, in some ways completely changing the meaning of something. I follow my favorite historian on twitter and listen to her podcasts. Websites like ancestry.com have made genealogy something available to anyone; people can rediscover their own personal histories thanks to the internet and digital archives.
On one of my college visits last summer, they said that while they have a “communications” major, they also require you to major in something else. “You have to have something to communicate about,” they proudly say. New social platforms help us communicate, but what can we communicate about? History. Politics. Psychology. Us, our friends, our society, and our world. Looking to the future is good but we can’t lose ourselves in the process. Music, theatre, literature, friendships, family: These are things that make up who we are. Humanity is not found in motherboards and processors.
Social sciences and STEM are inextricably linked; STEM provides the means of communication and social sciences study the impacts the new changes create. As technology becomes more complex, so do we, making it even more important that we can study and understand ourselves. Progress on one front raises the bar and demands progress on all fronts.
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