Producing graduates who are prepared for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers has been a major concern for international corporations and government agencies. However, the belief that this focus could harm the creativity required to train STEM grads who can think outside the box is becoming increasingly common.
Business analyst Eduardo Gomez contends that without a liberal arts education, an essential component for advancement would be lost. According to Gomez, many of today’s students are under intense pressure from parents opposed to the liberal arts. These “helicopter parents” go so far as to determine their children’s choice of school, program, and future STEM career. Some young people respond to this authoritative behaviour through pre-professionalism—learning elements of their future profession as early as secondary school. “I believe that a STEM degree on its own is an insufficient tool to access one’s capacity for innovation,” says Gomez. “It should be mandatory for STEM grads to complete a predetermined number of hours in the liberal arts stream.”
Financial advisor Naomi Yukawa is skeptical of Gomez’s approach. “Extra credit hours are costly and can result in students missing the economic boat as they enter the workforce with insurmountable debt. She cites cautionary statistics from the Canada Student Loans Program of graduates with an average of over $25,000 in debt last year, and pleads for students to treat their current undergraduate years as a future economic investment by minimizing debt accumulation.
Fears of falling off the economic ladder—often perpetuated by well-meaning family members—mean that students often dismiss career exploration through double majors as an unaffordable luxury. Victor Klein, an advisor at an innovative university focused on the cultivation of broad knowledge, wants to quell this financial anxiety. “Advance University is Canada’s first independent university and offers only one type of degree: a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences.” Klein insists employers are searching for candidates with the ability to think critically and analyze logically—the exact qualities that a liberal arts education is meant to develop.