Subjects Leading To A Career In STEM

Some worry that they will regret their choices after more life experience. Others worry about employment prospects and how their choices affect them. But, many students fail to realize that most jobs require not only technical expertise, but also soft skills and well-rounded, developed individuals.

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields are growing fasts in terms of both job opportunities and renumeration. Many employers and governments around the world are encouraging more students to enter the STEM fields in anticipation of a crisis involving a shortage of STEM workers in the near future.

However, sometimes students who are interested in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math fields feel like their scores aren’t good enough to succeed in the field, or that they don’t have an aptitude for it. For pragmatic reasons, they may choose other fields of study as they feel like they won’t succeed in the STEM fields.

In an article in response to the claim that there will be a future shortage of STEM workers, Robert N. Charette, came to a conclusion that there is no shortage of STEM workers, but there is a shortage of well-rounded STEM graduates. He writes:

“A broader view, I and many others would argue, is that everyone needs a solid grounding in science, engineering, and math. In that sense, there is indeed a shortage—a STEM knowledge shortage. To fill that shortage, you don’t necessarily need a college or university degree in a STEM discipline, but you do need to learn those subjects, and learn them well, from childhood until you head off to college or get a job. Improving everyone’s STEM skills would clearly be good for the workforce and for people’s employment prospects, for public policy debates, and for everyday tasks like balancing checkbooks and calculating risks. And, of course, when science, math, and engineering are taught well, they engage students’ intellectual curiosity about the world and how it works.” This is supported by a recent report by the United States Census Bureau on STEM and non-STEM graduates and their occupation groups. Let’s take a look at the visualization below.

We can see that 22% of people employed in STEM occupations come from non-STEM majors. This is quite a significant number. To see a further breakdown of non-STEM majors, let’s take a look this visualization.

While STEM-related majors also enter the STEM-fields, we see that business students make up the majority of non-STEM majors in STEM fields. This doesn’t mean that students from other majors don’t take up these occupations. We see every department being represented, including the visual and performing arts, which is definitely not something one would associate with STEM fields.

This only goes to show one thing, students are not boxed in by their educational choices. Students who are multi-talented and quick learners are able to diversify into myriad career prospects. As Charette also says, students shouldn’t worry because “children born today are likely to live to be 100 and to have not just one distinct career but two or three by the time they retire at 80. Rather than spending our scarce resources on ending a mythical STEM shortage, we should figure out how to make all children literate in the sciences, technology, and the arts to give them the best foundation to pursue a career and then transition to new ones.”