by No matter where you are in the world, what you do for work, what school you attend, or what you enjoy doing, and everything in between, culture is always prevalent. At Colby College, there are many different forms of culture that we see in our everyday lives as students on this campus. Some of these forms of culture include humanities students versus STEM students, athletes and non athletes, people who live on and off campus, among many other differenciations of that exist between students on campus. In this post, I will examine the differences in culture between academics who focus on humanities and STEM scholars who focus more on the sciences.
In the global community, there has long been a distinction between academics who focus their time on humanities, and STEM scholars (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), who spend their time a little differently. In my opinion, both disciplines are widely respected, but there are certain words or stereotypes that go along with each. When I think of a an academic with interest in the humanities, like myself, I think of someone who is thoughtful, considerate, open-minded, curious, and analytical. Social sciences require a lot of reading and deep thinking in order to find meaning in certain literature or history. Writing is also a key component of a scholar interested in humanities as writing about research and creating new literature is an essential part of the discipline. I also tend to consider literary humanists and social scientists as we identified in class, to have much more in common with each other than natural scientists. Thus, I have grouped the two disciplines together. When I think of STEM scholars or natural scientists, I think of people who are Intelligent, fact-oriented, critical, curious, and hard-working. Scientists and others in similar fields work tirelessly to find cures for disease, important environmental research, how to build a better functioning automobile, and many more important tasks. I think all people can agree that without scientists, the medicine and technology we have today would not be nearly as advanced and our society would be in trouble. When it comes to whether or not one culture is more important than another, I do not think its possible to make such a distinction. Reason being, without both academic scholars with interests in humanities, and STEM scholars, we have no idea where we would be today as a society. Both have made valuable contributions that make the world we live in a better place. I suppose its possible for a humanist to look down on a scientists as nerdy or less sociable, and for a scientists to think of a humanist as someone who doesn’t study an important subject, but I would denounce those as being appropriate blanket statements for both fields. I can see how a scientist would criticize the work of a humanist for lacking real substance, but I think analyzing our society is one of the best ways we can learn how to improve and create a better world for everyone.