How to best promote and integrate STEM into college curricula

For those who are not aware, STEM is an acronym that stands for “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics”. Technically, any field of study that falls within one of these categories will be considered STEM. 

Of course, these disciplines should form the bedrock of any civilization’s educated class. The skillsets learned in STEM directly translate to practical benefits for society. Yet, proportionately, STEM education programs’ popularity has stagnated, if not outright dropping. 

The numbers would be even slimmer if it weren’t for the explosion in popularity of the IT industry. 

In this article, we will examine STEM education and analyze its importance while examining how best to integrate it into a modern program. 

STEM Study and a Broken Incentive Structure

Unfortunately, the decrease in STEM’s popularity is highlighting a more widespread societal problem. Even the best laid-out plan will do nothing to push STEM if the incentive structure is not fixed. 

Not to get into economic theory too much, but there are two types of jobs: those that create something and produce extra value that wasn’t there before and those jobs that are important but just re-shuffle value that was already there. 

Of course, STEM represents hard sciences and the fields of study of people who build, make, and maintain society. 

So if someone builds an engine from scratch, he has added value to the economy and the world. Meanwhile, if someone invests in buying engines and selling them slightly cheaper due to a bulk discount, he is not creating extra value. 

A very short while ago, the Western world was heavily industrialized and used to produce most of the world’s goods. But nowadays, the economies of the American, European, and Australian continents have shifted towards a Service Economy model. 

The incentive simply isn’t there anymore. Why spend an extraordinary amount of time in college learning Engineering when you can quickly get rich in real estate? 

Graduating STEM is usually a resource-intensive, and intellectually challenging process whose benefits may kick in only after a decade. Other types of jobs can be quick wins, so the current social trend is against STEM. 

The problem with that mentality is that we can’t all be nutritionists, delivery drivers, and social media influencers. Someone, at the end of the day, has to still make stuff. 

China by itself is producing more STEM graduates than the three continents put together, and the global economy is rewarding it greatly for this trend. 

Tying things back to the real world

College degrees used to be for the elite of society, and STEM degrees used to be for the elite of that elite. However, nowadays, diplomas have become as common as driver’s licenses, and it is a requirement to join the middle class. 

As a result, there are tons of students who are not interested in the field of study and just skim by to get the piece of paper. Especially during the online age, you can search for the best service for paper writing and have an anonymous writer do your homework. In the humanities, this works perfectly. 

In STEM, however, it is much harder to skim your way through a degree, so it requires more commitment. But as we discussed before, economic motivation is just not there. The cost/benefit equation is much better in other jobs. You can’t learn enough to pass from an essay forum thread. 

So, how can STEM be better integrated into college education and engagement in STEM learning be raised? 

Well, you have to tie it to the real world. 

Unfortunately, STEM educators can suffer from myopia. Every educator is aware of his narrow slice of the pie but fails to integrate within the actual economic, political, and societal landscape. And here we can find fertile ground. 

Due to the rise of the internet, we have a rise in a very politically involved generation. In their millions, college age students are expressing concern and interest about technology, space exploration, environmental breakdown, social issues, and more. 

The lynchpin of having a successful STEM program in college is not the program itself but “marketing” it right. Make those young people understand that, more than anyone, engineers, scientists, programmers, and mathematicians can help solve the problems that they care so much about. 

For anyone who spends even 5 minutes on social media, it becomes obvious that there is so much zeal coming from young people, so harnessing that zeal can be very powerful. 

Tech and STEM 

There can be barriers to entry when it comes to technology integration into STEM. On average, Science, technology, engineering and mathematics can be more expensive to implement and maintain. 

For example, a literature department and program require only books and a teacher to lecture students. Meanwhile, STEM can require a lot of didactic material and physical technology to implement good programs. 

There is only so much you can push with theory alone, so the need for better funding is becoming readily obvious. Thankfully, Western and East Asian governments have started to become aware of STEMs drop in popularity and are trying to redress that. 

One would expect STEM education graduate programs to become much better funded in the future. 

Avoid a disjointed approach

Getting to the programs themselves, we will have to speak in generalizations.

It has been easy for STEM programs in the past to focus more on science and mathematics and divorce them for practical applications. There is the risk of seeing these practices as isolated, almost as their own slotted skillset. 

Stem students can easily fall into the trap of thinking that creativity, social skills and implications, or an appreciation for beauty are out of their scope. STEM fields have even started to see themselves separate from other STEM fields, such as mathematicians not realizing the intrinsic tie between their expertise and engineering. 

Students need to understand that there are no lines, definitions, and textbooks in reality. We just make up these categories to split knowledge into bite-sized chunks. Being heavily invested in your area or expertise can blind you to the vast interlocked machine of real life. 

The numbers on a page will then be sent to an engineer, who will then design a machine, and that machine can impact society as society impacts the environment. It is all tied together.

Conclusion

Formerly industrialized countries are trying to revitalize STEM education. Service economies cannot be competitive in the long run, given the global landscape. 

STEM, more than ever, needs two things: better funding and better PR. If graduates of a STEM program in college do not see how connected and vital they are to the world’s progress, the entire venture will seem uninteresting.