Don’t avoid STEM subjects

• There is a higher return on investment in science courses

Official column logo

THE PILGRIM, Friday, November 12, 2021

I was on my way home the other day when I met an interesting young man from Mongolia.

I don’t often meet people of his ilk in the USA.

But what made him interesting to me was, ironically, the distress emblazoned on his face.

We were strangers who met moments before boarding a bus, but we went on to strike up a conversation that revolved around science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and would last for the ensuing 20 minutes.

It was the sort of thing he needed, as a freshman majoring in computer science at my university, out of humour this day because his subject was becoming hard, and he was planning to change majors.

“I’m finding the coding part very hard for me,” he told me.

“So which programme,” I said, “would you rather take?”

“I’m considering a degree in business.”

I could relate to my young friend's problems because I’ve my own coding classes in my media studies master’s programme, where we have herculean tasks developing mobile websites and animations.

Having previous experience as an undergraduate student at the University of Zambia (UNZA), I was afraid my young friend was about to make a mistake if he changed schools.

Just like in this case, I wouldn’t on any other day advise anybody to give up on a STEM discipline, like computer science, given the arguments I state below.

A popular acronym, STEM refers to degree programs outside the purviews of a liberal arts, humanities, or social science education.

It includes training in chemistry, physics and biology, or medicine, and it has come to be touted as one of the priorities of progressive countries.

When I was at UNZA, we referred to STEM as NS (or natural sciences in full) and it was the most dreaded field among students.

At UNZA we referred to STEM as NS

Despite it being UNZA’s flagship programme, the failure rate in first year was usually high and students who flunked courses told us horror stories about the intense workload they faced and the indifference of some professors in the school of natural sciences.

But those who opted out for development studies or political science would sooner or later discover that they had shortchanged themselves.

You see, the fact that STEM subjects tend to be hard shouldn’t be the reason why you abandon them.

When students are in school, they tend to be far removed from reality, and they forget that the so-called soft, bird or easy courses (or ifikwakwa as UNZA students call them) are just a fad for the time that you are in university.

When you graduate, however, you discover that there is a higher return on investment for learners who had put up with greater toil and stress in the courses that were largely loathed.

For this reason, renowned American economist Thomas Sowell makes the following critical observation: “People who have acquired academic degrees, without acquiring many economically meaningful skills, not only face personal disappointment and disaffection with society, but also have often become negative factors in the economy and even sources of danger, especially when they lash out at economically successful minorities and ethnically polarize the whole society they live in. . . . . In many places and times, soft-subject students and intellectuals have inflamed hostility, and sometimes violence, against many other successful groups.”

So the soft-subject student does not see the misfortune that they invite on themselves when they run away from responsibility or seemingly tough work.

Economist Thomas Sowell

Against this background, I advised the student from Mongolia not to fall for the easy trap.

At the end of the day, life honours principles, not our mere fantasies or delusions of grandeur: if you do easy things, expect simple, mundane results; but if you do hard things, expect big results.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do the things that you love.

You should, of course, but first think of the practicality of your preferences and their relative importance in the world.

Life isn’t a romantic movie where you do what you like and get the best results nonetheless. Life is about doing what works and what affords you the sort of security you wish for, financially or emotionally.

It’s the STEM field generally that boasts of the most rewarding careers in terms of a comfortable lifestyle.

But that eventual happy existence doesn’t come easily, neither does anything that is worthwhile in life.

The world needs more students in STEM now more than ever before.

We need more doctors and scientists to find lasting solutions to the onslaught of public health crises like COVID-19, and we also need more teachers who can teach mathematics, chemistry, physics and biology in our universities and secondary schools.

But to achieve this, not only do we need questioning minds that belong to the university, but we also need brave students who can take keen interest in the hard classes of natural sciences and make the most of whatever rigid subjects they face.

Besides, the Zambian government itself has introduced the Ministry of Science and Technology in the interest of economic growth, development and transformation, a move which underscores the centrality of STEM in modern economies.

Since Zambia already has a disproportionate number of social scientists, what we now need are deliberate policies that will incentivize young people to pursue STEM education and make it more attractive than it currently is.

To be clear, my column does not endorse avarice as the guiding principle for career choice.

The argument, however, is that you shouldn’t choose careers because they’re less exacting than others, when you’ve the innate ability to change your work ethic and withstand any tough subject.

People ought to do STEM because they’re ready to work hard.

When I shared this perspective with my Mongolian friend, he was so pleased and told me he would not abandon computer science for anything!

I won’t self-deprecate myself and my profession, but if I was younger like him, I would study electrical engineering in addition to my journalism qualification, just to increase my range of economically useful skills.

America itself offers more perks and opportunities for STEM students, and so does Zambia.

So while we’ve enough liberal arts graduates to be able to think as a country, we need lots of STEM graduates in order to be more economically useful.

*This column is published every Friday in Zambia's best-selling newspaper, the Zambia Daily Mail