I’m a simple man. I come from the outskirts of Indianapolis. It’s just like any other place in Indiana, really. Fields of corn and soy stretch across the horizon quite dreamily. I like the waves of grain much more than the ones a couple miles east of here.
To be completely honest, there aren’t many landscapes I would prefer to the view I had in my previous bedroom. It was practically Monet’s “Haystacks, midday.” Boston has instilled in me a longing for my hometown that I had not anticipated. I miss the lesser amounts of vocational variety. Back home, I had four jobs growing up, all heavily involving manual labor. A fellow roofer once said to me, “Kid, if you love life, don’t do roofing.” These are words I live by.
Nothing spurred my desire to pursue an education more — when I grow up, I want labor that is most definitely not physical. I just couldn’t reach the ceiling of my capacities roofing.
The majority of Hoosier youth experiences a similar choice. We can work the fields or get a degree. As a high school student, I remember my calculus teacher thoroughly stressing the importance of majoring in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
According to “Mrs. Weber,” these were the only fields that could really change the world. The following year, I had a teacher by the name of Mr. Chung. He shared a similar attitude on the importance of STEM majors. I remember he’d poke fun at lesser majors.
The artists, writers and musicians never seemed capable of grasping a Mr. Chung joke, or maybe those types of people were just way too serious and couldn’t appreciate good humor. I’m grateful for my math teachers, as they taught me a valuable lesson on more than just calculus.
Clearly, in order to change the world, to advance society, one must be educated in the correct field. These two teachers are role models, progressing the world whilst making $40,000 a year at my “C-plus rated” high school.
I think the acronym is “STEM” in order to make the farmers feel as important as math teachers. I even bet it was a group of math majors who thought of it. That was nice of them. Boston strives to do more than progress our society — quite annoyingly I might add. This place tries to cultivate culture instead of crops.
Here, the people think art and music and food and theater matter. My home state, thankfully, has less ambitious criteria for success, and there are certainly no expenditures on things like the College of Fine Arts. That’s probably why the cost of education is so cheap back home. The schools don’t waste money.
According to Indiana, as long as your career involves one form of the word “stem,” be it the structural base of a crop or an important degree, you’re doing just dandy. That’s what I miss about home. Regardless of the color of one’s collar, the Hoosier culture encourages stagnancy. Since that rebel writer George Ade finally retired his pen, Naptown thankfully hasn’t had any sort of contribution to modern culture. Indiana, unlike Boston, isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
I suppose this focus on science and technology is the result of humanity’s desire to move toward a healthier, more perfect way of life. It’s admirable — living past 100, curing cancer and exploring space. Of course, these sorts of advances don’t come easily, It takes a genius in one’s field to extend the scientific reaches of our race.
I guess we’re just waiting for the next genius, and being the impatient lot we are, the process could surely be expedited. If every single student were pressured into majoring in something that mattered, our hero would be found in the next century. It’s almost guaranteed.
In fact, I can positively assure you that perhaps one of my fellow classmates will break through the barriers of scientific discovery and change the world. I’d take one in 33,000 odds for technological breakthrough rather than encourage an educational system interested in producing the next Thoreau.
Why encourage the youth of America to take up the arts or other silly schools of thought?
Instead of contributing to cultural change and providing a record of our past, would it not be more beneficial to be part of progressing our future? It’s just not productive to waste time learning things outside the STEM fields. Besides, everyone knows the sweetest and most beautiful part of the fruit is the stem.
