A discussion about the term "STEM" fields

[TakeruK]

In several different threads on GradCafe, particularly when the term "STEM" is used, there has been some side discussions about the use of this phrase. Rather than continue to side-track threads with this discussion (as I have been guilty of in the first few threads), I thought it might be better to discuss this on a completely separate thread devoted to this topic!  (btw: I think this is the first time I've started a thread? lol)

 

I'll start by responding to this comment, posted in

 

Why exactly should we get young Americans excited about STEM...?

 

Do you realize how many applicants the programs have and how much more funding they get compared to the arts..? It's far from underserved and yet that's where the term STEM "stems" from. I think knowing that it's mostly the construct of a particular aerospace engineering/weapons consultancy company in order to assure their ability to fullfill government contracts requiring US citizens for the sake of security clearances.. I'm not much of a fan.

 

I've read essays/articles discussing the fact that perhaps the STEM fields are actually saturated with applicants and as has been mentioned in this thread, we might actually be in a situation where there aren't enough jobs for everyone who is interested in STEM and adding more applicants won't help. These essays make some good points, but there are also many counterarguments:

 

1) The diversity of STEM workers do not represent the diversity of the general public (in terms of gender, race, socioeconomic backgrounds etc.); STEM research might have only been accessible to certain portions of the population in the past. The general belief is that many people who choose STEM fields do so early on in their schooling and in fact, in some places, the education system works so that you need to have taken certain pre-requisite classes in high school to take a Science or Engineering major in University. So, I think we can work to increase the diversity of STEM workers by engaging young people from all backgrounds in STEM--exposing them and letting them decide if they are interested.

 

2) The amount of jobs available in STEM is a direct consequence of how much money there is to create these jobs. Scientific research, especially the fields without real military or economical practical purposes, greatly depend on government, corporate and/or private donor support. If the overall general scientific knowledge of the population is increased, it may result in more public support and understanding of scientific research, resulting in better/cheaper technology and better quality of life for all. Also, I think the pursuit of human knowledge is pretty valuable too. Ideally, governments listen to their people so an increased scientific knowledge might mean more support for STEM in the government. Corporations are led by private citizens, and donations are made by private citizens. People don't fund what they don't understand so an increase in scientific knowledge can lead to better support for STEM research and STEM jobs by these citizens. Also, an overall increase in knowledge is not a bad thing and it can lead to people naturally understanding why some things, such as homeopathy, is nonsense. 

 

As for comparison to the arts, unfortunately I don't really know how much funding the social sciences and humanities get in the US. I have heard that it is much less though and that is unfortunate! Although ultimately, budgets are indeed a zero sum game, so if STEM "wins", the Arts/Humanties will "lose". But the reality is that both "STEM" and Arts/Humanities are very small slices of a much larger pie of money so that right now, it's possible for both STEM and Arts/Humanities to make gains without cost to the other. One way to look at this, that is relevant to us, is to look at government funding for PhD programs in social sciences and physical sciences (STEM).

 

In Canada, there are 3 main governmental funding agencies for graduate students. NSERC is the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council and SSHRC is the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The third one is not relevant here, but it is for Health Sciences. These awards are for roughly the same amount for students funded under NSERC or SSHRC. Both agencies fund in two tiers, one at $35k/year and one at about $20k/year (NSERC is 21k, SSHRC is 20k). They also both have a very limited amount of the most prestigious awards, which fund at a level of $50k/year for 3 years -- usually each school has a quota of X awards per Y years and X is the same for all three funding agencies. However, it's important to also look at the total number of awards funded, not just the amount per award. I just picked the 2012 award year (for tenure in 2012-2013) because not all of the 2013-2014 awards are taken up yet and that can still change. And, I am counting PhD award applicants only, not Masters level. Here are the stats:

 

For SSHRC (download xls files here: http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/results-resultats/stats-statistiques/index-eng.aspx); Award info here: http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/programs-programmes/fellowships/doctoral-doctorat-eng.aspx)

 

Total Applicants for the 2012-2013 school year: 4448

Top Tier awards granted: 416

Second Tier awards granted: 1769

Overall funding rate = (416+1769)/4448 = 49%

Approx. total money awarded (Top Tier awards are 3 years, second tier are 1-4 years, assume all awards are 3 years long): $149.8 Million

 

For NSERC (stats here: http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/NSERC-CRSNG/FundingDecisions-DecisionsFinancement/ScholarshipsAndFellowships-ConcoursDeBourses/index_eng.asp?Year=2012) Award info here: http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Students-Etudiants/PG-CS/BellandPostgrad-BelletSuperieures_eng.asp

 

Total Applicants for the 2012-2013 school year: 1628 

Top Tier awards granted: 233

Second Tier awards granted: 426

Overall funding rate = (426+233)/1628 = 40%

Approx. total money awarded (assuming all awards are 3 years long): $51.3 Million

 

These numbers show that Canada is actually funding a slightly larger percentage of SSHRC students than NSERC students (49% vs 40%). But, while SSHRC is often the main/sole source of funding for many SSHRC fields, there are other ways for an NSERC student to get funded. So we can say these numbers are pretty much equal. If you look at the total money spent on SSHRC and NSERC students, you'll see that while the government spends three times as much on SSHRC than NSERC, there are also three times as much social sciences and humanities students as there are "STEM" students. So, overall, the Canadian government spends an equal amount on SSHRC and NSERC PhD students. 

 

In the US, I think the NSF funds both social sciences and STEM, right? I don't have any experience with NSF (non-American!) so I have no idea how to find statistics of the competition results. They don't seem to make this information available from the main page that tells you how to apply etc. So maybe someone else can see if the funding is roughly equal?

 

But what's my point? The US isn't Canada! Well, first I am trying to show that it's completely possible for a country to fund both the STEM fields and the Arts & Humanities with no one losing. Canada isn't a superpower and we don't have fancy things the US has (e.g. aircraft carriers, tanks, Amazon Prime, etc.) but we aren't really living in poverty either. Funding both STEM and Arts & Humanities equally has not caused an apocalypse. Secondly, in Canada, there is definitely fewer students in STEM fields than Arts & Humanities. Thirdly, maybe this explains why I don't think STEM and Arts & Humanities aren't really competitors. We are both working to increase human knowledge, and advocating for STEM fields is not the same as advocating against Arts & Humanities. 

Edited December 22, 2013 by TakeruK

[Loric]

I think I've used Amazon prime while in Paris.. Poor Canada.

[Loric]

In case you're curious.. there's a whole movement to try and get STEM legally changed to STEAM (which adds Art and Design).

 

And it's proven that arts exposure actually leads to more STEM patents.

[VioletAyame]

In case you're curious.. there's a whole movement to try and get STEM legally changed to STEAM (which adds Art and Design).

 

And it's proven that arts exposure actually leads to more STEM patents.

 

I like STEAM. But then where's the D?

[Loric]

I like STEAM. But then where's the D?

 

I think it's technically covered under the T/E area, but currently the way the law is written it's excluded.

[TakeruK]

In case you're curious.. there's a whole movement to try and get STEM legally changed to STEAM (which adds Art and Design).

 

And it's proven that arts exposure actually leads to more STEM patents.

 

That's cool and I'm all for that. But as a non-American, my opinion doesn't count I didn't know that STEM was a legally defined term in America though, how naive of me! And also in case you're curious, SSHRC award committees are divided into different disciplines and "Literature & Fine Arts" make up about 20% of the SSHRC awards granted each year!

[Loric]

Well, i'm pretty sure the law doesn't use the term STEM - it does however allocate funding support to those fields.

[perfectionist]

In case you're curious.. there's a whole movement to try and get STEM legally changed to STEAM (which adds Art and Design).

 

And it's proven that arts exposure actually leads to more STEM patents.

 

What would be the purpose of this? Why would you add Art to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics? It's an entirely different field.

[Usmivka]

I'm also confused by this point. And if we are going to go acronymn-happy, why add in art over, say, writing, or communication? Both are important skills in STEM fields.

 

And STEM is in fact defined by the legislature, in the America COMPETES Act of 2007. Not that that takes away from other uses, but since congressional funding is keyed into the definition there, it won't do much good to redefine the term (anywhere besides congress that is) and expect that to suddenly make NSF money available for the arts. That is what the National Endowment for the Humanities is for--the arts funding equivalent of the NSF.

 

Finally, according to NSF 65% of undergraduate degrees are not in a STEM field, and NSF generously defines STEM to include all of the social sciences including things like psychology and history. So that remaining 65% of undergrad students? They are in business, nursing, and (you guessed it) the arts. I'll take a guess and say that the majority of those are the arts rather than business and nursing students, since those tend to be small, competetive programs that are on the average more expensive--I'd assume demand is thus tempered by cost. So I think it is false to suggest that STEM fields receive a disproportionate share of applicants, or that the arts are somehow underrepresented. I think the more likely scenario here is that there are more people who take art degrees than one could reasonably expect funding for, and not all of them expect or want to go to grad school.

 

For our society, how many artists per capita do you think is ideal? 1 in 100, 1:1000, 1:10,000? I don't know what is the right answer, but I'm pretty sure 2:3 is not it, which is what you'd get if you assumed that college degrees should reflect career paths.

Edited December 24, 2013 by Usmivka

[Seeking]

Takeruk,

 

I don't know much about the funding sources of each discipline, but concurring with your view, yes it is not only possible, but necessary for the government to fund both STEM and Humanities/Social Sciences research.

 

Let alone Canada - if you remember the discussion on the academic jobs thread, we found that even Third World universities like those in Brazil and India have more or less equal funding for STEM and Humanities/Social Sciences research. India has an entire Ministry devoted to awarding hundreds of research fellowships in arts and culture every year.

 

But the important point to note here is that in countries such as Canada and elsewhere, higher education is regarded as an important investment in developing human resources. On the other hand, in the US, investment in higher education is profit oriented - profit in terms of financial gains or in terms of technological advancement which keeps the US ahead of the rest of the world - and this is not necessarily geared towards only the arms-manufacturing and military interests. There is a whole range of technological fields that cater to advanced research in non-military relate fields. And apart from government funding, there is a lot of industrial funding that supports this research for use in industry. 

 

Perhaps the US model needs to be revised. This requires an understanding that all disciplines are equally essential for the society. We only have to imagine a society where people are only engaged in STEM-related activities, with no outlet for Humanities and Social Sciences-related activities. I don't think many people would like to live in such a society!

 

But at the same time, we should also be aware that if we look at the US situation from a global perspective, there are in fact more number of jobs available in the Humanities/Social Sciences fields in the US than in any other country. It's not as if the US is not promoting the arts. It's just that the focus on STEM is a little more tilted than on other disciplines. 

[TakeruK]

But the important point to note here is that in countries such as Canada and elsewhere, higher education is regarded as an important investment in developing human resources. On the other hand, in the US, investment in higher education is profit oriented - profit in terms of financial gains or in terms of technological advancement which keeps the US ahead of the rest of the world - and this is not necessarily geared towards only the arms-manufacturing and military interests. There is a whole range of technological fields that cater to advanced research in non-military relate fields. And apart from government funding, there is a lot of industrial funding that supports this research for use in industry. 

 

This is interesting and good to know about the United States. Thanks for sharing

[84Runner]

What about MEATS instead of STEAM?

[DerpTastic]

I recommend CHESPHERGBSLHEAPMEMPSNCSWCSWLCPJF

 

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