Got a quick screen grab so you could see what I was talking about.
WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE. WHOEVER MADE THAT NEEDS TO FIGHT ME
honestly this mindset hurts kids who love the arts so much.
imagine constantly fighting high school councilors just to get into the one class that keeps you alive. imagine constantly lying to teachers about what you plan on majoring so you don’t get “the talk” imagine no one you love believing in you, and constantly asking what your “back up plan” is. imagine being kind of miserable at your own graduation and grad party because people are always asking you about your future, and when you tell them they just look at you like your stupid.
imagine constantly being told that what you do isn’t good enough. that you’ll never succeed without changing who you are.
imagine having to try to stop yourself from flat out breaking down and sobbing in front of your professor after your first lesson, because they simply told you “you know what? I think you can do this. If you work hard I think you can be very successful in this field.”
because that’s the first time anyone’s actually believed in you.
yeah, science is great, but putting it above the arts is one of the biggest mistakes this society has ever made.
^^^^^ This is really well put. ^^^^^
In addition to all the other good points on this, I want to point out that Wells Fargo would have had to pay a graphic designer to create this. How can they say the arts are impractical and unnecessary while they are paying someone for their design skills?
and they have a lot of gall to say that considering the work of visual artists is literally everywhere in research labs
from educational posters
to textbook figures
to even the packaging art and design of the reagents we use
so as a scientist i just want to say: without the hard work and expertise of artists, research science, for one, would not be as productive. so thank you. your skills are valuable and you are needed.
and look, science may keep us along longer and make our lives more productive but what is the point if we can’t also do things like watch shows and movies and go to museums and dance performances and listen to music?? STEM is like the flat outline of a drawing. yeah, you can tell what it looks like, and i guess it could function on its own; but the things like humanities and literature and art fill it with color, and shading, and emotion. so much more beautiful, so much more fulfilling right? they make the life that STEM helps improve worth living.
so i’ll be the scientist bc that’s what i’m good at and what i like to do, and you be the dancer, the actor, the artist, the historian, the poet, ok? and together we’ll both make the world a better place 🙂
And honestly – pursue both. But if you’re paying for a degree, may I suggest that you buy the degree in science and supplement it with add-on minor degrees/modules/hobbies/certificates/expertise in:
Science + performing arts = so now you are an incredibly desirable person, science communicator, teacher, lecturer, demonstrator, media officer, festival performer, comedian, workshop leader, person who is paid to teach these skills to scientists, person who is trained to talk to the media; people throw themselves at your feet, basically you’re primed for a position as a television science presenter (and you just might make it), but you combine skills of performance/charisma with “actually has interesting stuff to talk about” in ways that make you fascinating and successful; if you go into entertainment the marketing writes itself; and if you stay in science/academia you’re damn good at wooing panels, winning grants, convincing people to buy you new labs, and enchanting lecture halls full of hundreds of students; if you stay in both you are part of the scicomm scene and have a tribe of bloodsworn siblings; you are an Outreach Person now;
Science + writing = you’re the popular person who writes the research papers and picks up pocket money editing theses and cover letters. You can sell science writing for money and are extremely good at composing arguments. your English credentials earn themselves back really quickly. There are many, many jobs that want you, and will treat you like a magical beautiful unicorn treasure. Nothing’s stopping you from writing a novel, but in the meantime, you’re doing very important work and always have more fascinating material than you can possibly compile,
Science + fiction = this is a genre, apparently,
Science + poetry = this is a startlingly common combination and was basically a requirement for being a Victorian scientist (and even earlier, before scientific writing became its own thing, books on science were sometimes written as poetry.) Nature, often noted as the most influential and high-impact scientific journal on the planet, used to publish quite a lot poetry in the journal (and still publishes flashes of science fiction on the back page!)
“The ideal scientist thinks like a poet and works like a bookkeeper,” EO Wilson says, and sometimes the poems get written down. There are entire anthologies entirely composed by scientist poets, and some beautiful stuff lands in my inbox every day. Science and nature are some of the most common themes in poetry, to everyone’s benefit:
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.
Science + audiovisual/photoshop skills = you do all the figures for the papers and posters, are hired to illustrate textbooks and are a consultant, people think you are magical, perhaps you are a wildlife photographer or videographer, or you can help design items and goods for the museum you work for, or show off your research department to best advantage with some really good posters, hurray;
Science + fine art = the advertising writes itself, your art shows are well-attended and successful; everyone showers you with compliments and buys your work, people find you weirdly fascinating, pieces get written about you in the news, you are never short of subject matter for your art, you also make reasonable income/influence by illustrating papers and textbooks, your presentations are always A+ aesthetic, you never run out of material or ideas,
Science + music = somebody needs to make music for nerds. But even if you don’t make your music about science, there are plenty of professional scientists who do music as a hobby/second income/second career. Off the top of my head I know a cancer biologist who is a concert harpist, planetary scientist in an acclaimed folk-pop band, a biologist opera singer, a paleontologist who busks, and an all-scientist jazz band. This is a surprisingly common and successful balance. They’re frequently successful scientists (and quite secure with work/life balance) as well as successful musicians (many go on to sign record contracts etc, but again, they’re renowned for being practical and balanced.) There are SO MANY scientist-musicians that this article talks about professional scientists who science their music (and then go on to make music about the science of their music).
Science + history = okay this is literally an entire meta-discipline? and can range anywhere from the entire field of anthropology to the field that is literally called science history. It also includes some of those blurry science/humanities fields like archaeology, which vary on whether they are Science or Art, usually depending on how “easy” they are perceived to be and how many women influence the field. “Easy” plus the presence of women = the field is considered an art. Perceived difficulty plus the presence of men = the field is a science.
ARE YOU REALLY, INDIANA? I THOUGHT YOU WERE A PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY WITH A NAUGHTY HABIT OF STEALING ARTIFACTS. I have some issues with your scientific methods, Sir
Science + programming = THE MOST USEFUL PERSON ON THE PLANET, seriously, if you acquire a proven science background and get yourself up to scratch with coding YOU ARE A DEMIGOD,
Science + visual storytelling = your webcomic is beloved even if you can
only draw stick figures (XKCD). You can go adorably pastel (Bird and
Moon) or sarcastic slice of life (PhD Comics) but your stuff is going to
have a lot of appeal and you will never run out of subject matter. Journals
are now suggesting that research could be published in comic form,
there is definitely a place to tie this back to harder science. Or if
you don’t really want to get into that, you can just be popular on
social media.
Science + craft = there are a surprising amount of things to do with this, but a reasonable market lies in making science-themed gifts and items to sell. The popularity of molecule necklaces and virus plushies is due to scientists showing up with craft skills, and people can’t wait to buy it. Everything from knitting patterns to 3D printing mockups to exquisite sculptures of Dunkleosteus to funky clothing and design has a perfect niche market that can’t wait to buy what you’re selling – and you’re apparently one of the few people on earth that can put these ideas together! And you have SO MANY OF THEM!
But, you know, everyone, PLEASE keep perpetuating this concept of a vast and unknowable gulf between science and the arts. PLEASE? Because it makes those of us who bridge the nonexistent gap seem incredibly impressive.
Stronger together, people.
My college, which is focused on environmental science and engineering, is actively trying to coax our students to get more involved in the arts. Those are the skills that will put our students at the next level compared to their fellow graduates who will be competing for the same jobs, and they are the skills that STEM as a whole desperately needs in order to be able to move forward and be of service to society. As much as STEM is getting pushed as a career path, culturally we’re experiencing some massive problems due to the inability of people in the STEM fields to be able to communicate with the rest of the populace and gain their support, trust and ideally their understanding. See: anti-vaxxers, climate denial, funding cuts to education, NIH, NSF, etc. (Because why the hell would we need studies that tell us whether antibacterial soaps increase the chance of liver cancer and frivolous crap like that?)
So it turns out this is in fact a serious issue that poses a danger to society.
And I personally am annoyed by this ad because do you know how hard it is to convince science kids that they need to pay attention to the arts in order to do their jobs well? Turns out it’s pretty damn hard, thanks to the narrative these ads are perpetuating.
