STE(A)M 3

[SuperSalad]

Maybe I'm totally out of the loop and late to this party, but in recent months I've been seeing the mention of STEAM programs in the local education system. The "A" standing for "Arts".

Now correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't adding the arts to a STEM program defeat the purpose of STEM, which is to highlight technical fields?

STEAM appears to me like the traditional curriculum minus the social studies. So how long before it just becomes STEAMS and it just includes all areas of study, thereby completely making the distinction meaningless.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the arts and feel they play an important role. Why lump them in with STEM though?

Andrew H.

http://www.mototribology.com

 

[CheckerHater]

The topic was already beaten to bloody pulp:

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=339397

"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the future

 

[3DDave]

Santana something.

(Edit: George Santayana, not the singer.)

 

[dvd]

I love art. I think that including STEM in art is a way of introducing STEM to those who would ordinarily avoid those topics. Artworks incorporating technical aspects can be very inspiring to those in the arts and general public. We never know where true talent can come from. Do not discourage the A.

 

[SuperSalad]

I don't think anyone is discouraging the arts, I just don't feel like it is any benefit to jam it in where it doesn't fit. The arts and STEM can absolutely work wonders together, but they aren't the same and shouldn't be approached with the same methods.

Andrew H.

http://www.mototribology.com

 

[beej67]

In my area, it's called STEAM in daycare and STEM in kindergarten.

Your mileage may vary.


Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

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[lacajun]

There is actually, in my opinion, a lot of subtle overlap between art and engineering.

When something is engineered well, and you stand back and look at the resulting product, it can be a very beautiful thing.
Something the mind's eye sees as beauty with intense function behind it...without an intentional effort to make it beautiful.

I agree. Some are inspiring!


Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
NSPE-CO, Central Chapter
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[SystemsEngr72]

It's a bad idea to add the "A" into STEM. STEM is the on-going effort to get kids interested in those fields and make up for our country's lack of people in those careers. The rest of the world is emphasizing STEM… not the “A”, and, as a country, we’re far behind the power curve in the numbers of people pursuing STEM careers.

 

[IRstuff]

I think the purpose of STEAM is to avoid a real potential of completely dumping the arts to make room for the STEM, resulting in a artless education, which would be a shame. Music, literature, and visual arts are all part of the accomplishments of humanity. We have very little of the engineering legacy from people from 30,000 yrs ago, but we still have their art. Their hopes, dreams, loves, etc., are not embodied in arrowheads and stone knives.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...dorf_01.jpg/800px-Venus_von_Willendorf_01.jpg

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[SandCounter]

There is no "A" in STEM.

I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.

 

[HamburgerHelper]

SystemsEngr72,

You really drank the kool-aid. There is no shortage of native STEM graduates. You could send half of the fresh STEM graduates to Mars and hardly feel anything in industry.

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If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.

 

[ScottyUK]

In the UK it's not numbers so much as quality. Good engineers and good technicians are rare, poor ones seem to be everywhere.

 

[IRstuff]

"In the UK it's not numbers so much as quality. Good engineers and good technicians are rare, poor ones seem to be everywhere.

Which is precisely why the STEM emphasis is bad, in that regard, as they depress wages by providing a cheap supply, with lower quality. Forcing everyone into STEM is not necessarily going to help find the best and brightest, who might actually get de-motivated from entering certain professions because wages are depressed.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[HamburgerHelper]

I don't think compensation varies that much between different levels of competency to offset wage suppression due to the market being flooded with engineers. Some bean counter will say "why do I need a senior engineer when I can get two fresh grads?" If it is consulting, a bean counter will see that they get better margins on selling the hours of a fresh grad than a senior engineer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.

 

[CWB1]

You really drank the kool-aid. There is no shortage of native STEM graduates. You could send half of the fresh STEM graduates to Mars and hardly feel anything in industry.

In your particular niche that might be true however American industry overall has had a shortage in many areas for years, particularly in the skilled trades.

 

[HamburgerHelper]

CWB1,

When only 30-40% of graduates end up working in engineering, there is no shortage of fresh grads. Trades are not part of STEM.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.

 

[IRstuff]

The shortages are extremely nichy; machine/deep learning PhDs can garner absurd amounts of money, e.g., multi $100k range, but I think that's more of a dotcom boom scenario than any realistic wage structure. The typical data science grads don't make as much as pure computer science grads. Nuclear engineering, although NPR's reporting last week indicate that there's a bigger crop of them than there's been for decades.

In general, wages in the US have not gone much over inflation, if at all, indicating no significant shortages anywhere. If anything, shortages in the non-engineering sectors seem to be evident in that non-degreed positions were getting significant salaries, e.g., dental hygienists making $71k median in 2014.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[CWB1]

Trades are not part of STEM.

Sure they are, STEM focuses on learning by building --> trades. The goal isnt to help the 2% become engineers, its to expose the 98% to industry and help them find their own path. Google STEM careers, most of them are trades.

 

[JohnRBaker]

You've got to get their attention when they're young:

‘Robotics Engineer Barbie’ Aims To Inspire Girls To Pursue STEM Careers

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/robotics-engineer-barbie-stem_us_5b34eed1e4b0b745f17bdda2

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
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[drawoh]

The trouble with the Toronto high-school black list

This is an article about political correctness at a Toronto arts school. The important point from our point of view is that there is an arts oriented high school in Toronto. This stuff is taken very seriously. There are no technology oriented high schools in Toronto.

My case against arts oriented schools is that I don't think it is healthy for the arts community to withdraw into its own little bubble, detached from the outside culture.

--
JHG

 

[drawoh]

JohnRBaker,

I see that the robot engineer Barbies are wearing safety glasses. Do they have spiked high-heel safety boots?

--
JHG