
Ask HN: What does HN think about adding “A” to STEM? - throwahey
I have to admit, when I first heard about this I thought it was a clever joke. But at today&#x27;s Apple keynote, Cook mentioned STEAM himself.<p>For those unaware, STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. It&#x27;s the category of fields considered to be in high-demand all over the world. There however seems to be a group of people concerned with inclusivity, and so they are pushing the addition of &quot;Arts&quot; to STEM -- i.e. STEAM.<p>Thoughts?
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janitor61
The technology, engineering and applied mathematics fields have applications
that benefit real-world industries, whereas theoretical science, mathematics
and art are more academic pursuits with little proportional real-world
investment or degree of financial assurance. If STEM is meant to be an acronym
for high-paying high-demand jobs, it seems imprudent to change the definition
just for inclusivity's sake. Changing the meaning of words isn't going to
alter reality.

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tyingq
One of these things is not like the other. And it kind of defeats the purpose
of the acronym. It's like changing FAANG to FAANGG because you care about and
like GitHub. Even though it's not in the same genre as the others.

I'm all for promoting the arts, but this idea is silly.

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timthorn
Arts are important in their own right, but STEM is about the numerate
disciplines - and they include creativity as an intrinsic part. If you're
going to add Arts to STEM, why not Humanities? At what point do you just get
to a broad and balanced curriculum?

~~~
jdietrich
I'm reminded of the Sesame Street song "one of these things is not like the
others...". STEM makes sense as an interconnected cluster of highly demanding
but economically valuable disciplines. The arts might be equally important on
a personal and social level, but they don't fit the category.

You can reasonably tell a young person "study a STEM subject and you'll
probably get a good job". You can reasonably ask "why are there so few women
in STEM?". You can reasonably ask "why do so many students start high school
without the maths skills needed for STEM?". You can reasonably say "arts and
humanities students are being used to unfairly subsidise STEM students,
because STEM degrees have the same tuition fees but cost much more to teach".
Add arts to the category and it suddenly becomes a much less useful term.

I understand why arts educators want parity with STEM subjects, I understand
why they want a piece of the hype and the funding that goes with it, but I
think that the term STEAM might have a detrimental effect by creating a
meaninglessly broad category.

~~~
eesmith
While I don't think STEM makes sense, precisely because it isn't "an
interconnected cluster of highly demanding but economically valuable
disciplines."

Eg, we don't see politicians who want more people in STEM calling out for more
people to go into anthropology, archeology, marine biology, horticulture, or
linguistics.

The US government also seems to de-emphasize an education in ecology or
climatology, compared to those fields like computer science which are more
economically valuable for US companies.

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jinushaun
As someone who grew up “A” and migrated to “STEM” later: No.

1) Art is dramatically different from the math and sciences. I can do both and
it is a huge context switch to go from analytical and creative and back. I
always feel like the other half of my brain suffers when I pick one.

2) The addition of art means that STEAM is basically general education. So
what’s the point?

3) I think one of the goals of STEM was to promote getting children into
technical high paying jobs where there was a severe labor shortage. You’re not
going to get more programmers or engineers with a music or art degree.

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untog
A little conflicted, if only because if the definition expands over and over
it'll eventually just mean "education".

But maybe that's not a bad thing! I really strongly believe that the coming
decades are going to need engineers to think about ethics and culture a lot
more than they have historically, as tech moves directly in the center of our
lives.

I think STEM is fetishised a little too much, so maybe diluting it would be a
net positive.

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jdoliner
This is a truly awful idea. You can't add an "A" to "STEM," you can introduce
a new word, "STEAM" with a different meaning, but the word "STEM" will still
exist, and will still have the same meaning. If you're talking about "adding
meaning to a word" what you're really talking about is prescribing language.
I.e. telling people don't express this idea "STEM," I find that idea
uninclusive, express the idea I want instead. It's especially egregious in
this case because STEM is the opposite of arts, so you're destroying as much
meaning as possible. Down this road is a world where everyone is "included"
and completely unable to communicate with each other because you've suck all
the meaning out of the words to make them feel more inclusive.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
I agree with the other reply - I don’t think arts and STEM are opposites. I do
engineering at home outside of “work” engineering, and the work I do at home
feels like a kind of techno art to me. I am personally curious about the
history of art though we never studied it in engineering school.

I agree that adding an A to STEM does not spell STEM, but I think the question
is more about the merits of STEAM as “the goal” versus “STEM”.

Could you elaborate on what you mean when you say art and STEM are
“opposites”?

~~~
jdoliner
Opposites may have been the wrong word here. But STEM expresses a concept
which arts are very much not part of.

> I think the question is more about the merits of STEAM as “the goal” versus
> “STEM”.

Neither of these is a goal, they're words. Words enter the lexicon because
they're useful. There was never hacker news post saying: "hey guys, we should
have a word that encompasses all the in demand technical subjects" someone
used it and others picked it up because it expressed something they wanted to
express. STEAM is a perfectly well formed concept, and if people had any
interest in expressing it then it would probably already be a word. Now, maybe
people do have a need for this concept (I very much doubt it, but maybe) in
which case I would expect to see it take off in usage. But trying to forward a
goal by telling people they should change their use of language in some way is
an inherently destructive process. For example, imagine a child asks you which
subjects in school they should focus on, easy you say: "STEAMHLHGFS..." we've
included everything in this acronym, and now there's no way for you to
actually express anything to this child that provides the least bit of focus.

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aklemm
Hate it. It's just an indication that we don't know how to talk about
education. How is STEAM not basically just "education" itself? As someone
pointed out, only the humanities are missing, so surely it will soon be
SHTEAM, or METAHS or...actually METAHS sounds pretty good.

~~~
halfnibble
MSHEAT

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jacknews
I think STEAM is particularly the application of STEM create
artifacts/experiences.

STEM encompasses all of science/engineering teaching, but in the context of
STEAM, STEM is "how to make a thing", and STEAM additionally addresses "why to
make it, how it should look" etc. I think the "A" is also likely a rather
restricted subset of Art, in this context.

~~~
crispyambulance
I think that is correct.

The STEAM idea has been around for some time. I first heard about it from John
Maeda like 7 years ago ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yc-
_Ei2Yto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yc-_Ei2Yto)).

"STEM" by itself lacks an emergent, creative quality. There is very much a
need for that in technical curricula.

~~~
throwahey
> "STEM" by itself lacks an emergent, creative quality

I think many would argue otherwise, there is an inherent level of creativity
with regards to all four disciplines, in particular Engineering, where novel
solutions to real-world problems can be both practical and creative, although
you might argue this extends into the other three as well.

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AlexB138
It strikes me as those in the Arts trying to make themselves appear more
relevant by forcing themselves onto to coat-tails of STEM. The thing is, the
Arts are extremely important to humanity, and heavy-handed attempts like this
just serve to cheapen their image.

~~~
throwahey
I also get this impression, but with my university for example, they all but
shut down departments that were non STEM related. We weren't a particularly
notable institution, so the administration decided to focus their efforts on
engineering fields to set us apart. I don't imagine this sat well with the
faculty and students outside of STEM but it may also be that there is a
downward trend of people willing to spend the money on a liberal arts degree,
and that threatens the livelihood of those who rely on it's existence.

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gnodar
Maybe it was just an assumption that I never thought about, but I had always
thought STEM to mean the _intersection_ of science, technology, engineering
and mathematics. There's already a large overlap between them, so the
intersection was also large. So STEAM would not be the addition of all Arts
but the intersection of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and the
arts. For example, something like the Mona Lisa is not a part of STEAM, but
the aesthetic design of a UI would be. In that sense, the arts matter very
much. If we ignore the arts, we have ugly and non-intuitive designs, which
lead to lower usability.

~~~
omarrida
I agree that UX is an important intersection of engineering, but I feel like -
in the context of education - institutions will not stick to your
informed/moderate definition. Most "artists" I know would totally suck at UX.
In today's world where interface design is embedded into every team's
workflow, and where we have versioned stylesheets and designers extracting
CSS... I'd say modern UX designers are definitely under the T for Technology
rather than arts.

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spartanatreyu
MEETS (Mathematics, Engineering, Ergonomics, Technology, Science)

"Art" is too broad. if anything should be added, Ergonomics is a good pick.

If a tool or process made by STEM industries can be better fitted towards
being used for people (regardless of if it supposed to be used by niche groups
or the general public) then it's going to be better used.

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shiado
STEM is a meaningless buzzword used to conjure happy thoughts about careers
that pay well. The reality is that many of the careers contained in STEM do
not in fact pay well at all. Adding another letter seems to be fine once you
have already created a set which contains careers which do not pay well.

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baddox
What is the purpose of adding the arts, or any other field, to the idea of
"STEM"? Or similarly, what is the purpose of the concept of STEM?

It seems like people have started thinking of "STEM" as some label that means
"better or more worthy of focus than other disciplines and careers." That's
probably because of the push to put more focus on STEM fields, especially in
primary education.

There's nothing wrong with non-STEM fields, and I feel like this push to
include more and more things in the label implies that STEM means "good" and
non-STEM means "bad." It reminds me of the common recreational debate about
which things qualify as "sports," as if any activity that isn't considered a
sport is somehow worse than activities that are considered sports.

~~~
throwahey
I initially took the addition of Arts as a matter of inclusivity and for that
reason I thought it was an awful idea.

> I feel like this push to include more and more things in the label implies
> that STEM means "good" and non-STEM means "bad."

I take it that is the impression students are getting, or rather, teachers are
assuming that students are getting, and in an attempt to curb any feelings of
inferiority, they are making the addition. I think in this case, it is a
dangerous precedent. University will cost the engineer as much as it will the
liberal arts major, but you are lying if you tell a student that society
values them all the same.

I suppose we would need to determine how to measure the value of a given
field. Is value determined by impact on society/human civilization, or by job
availability and salary. In either case I would argue that STEM fields rank
higher, and of course even within STEM, some do far better than others, but
suffice it to say, there definitely seems to be an agenda by stretching the
definition of a very simple acronym to include fields that are probably being
phased out. I seem to recall reading that Japan was no longer going to offer
liberal arts in Universities.

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dahart
STEAM is one of the (many) variations listed on Wikipedia's page on STEM.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_enginee...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics#Other_variations)

> It's the category of fields considered to be in high-demand all over the
> world.

The same WP page mentions one criticism of STEM is that the 'S' might not
belong.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_enginee...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics#Criticism)

Personally, my favorite subject is the intersection of art & math. I wish math
teachers would use art to teach math, and I wish more art teachers would use
math to teach art, and feel comfortable expecting some mathematical rigor of
their art students.

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HankB99
I have mixed feelings about this. My sons are both involved in technical
careers. They both develop S/W for a living. They both were also involved in
the arts, both musical and graphic. The younger one continued with music
through college (UIUC marching band.) In fact, there were probably more STEM
majors in the Marching Illini than music majors because marching doesn't
really attract music majors.

Notwithstanding, there is a strong mathematical underpinning in busic and
graphical arts and it seems not unreasonable to consider that effort in one
area supports learning in the other. For this reason I believe that the arts
are an important component in technical education and perhaps earn their place
in STEAM.

OTOH art on it's own does not seem to stand shoulder to shoulder with the
other disciplines in STEM.

(The younger one is recently involved in music performance in his spare time.)

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Havoc
I think all the starving artists out there prove that it's in a somewhat
different category

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keithnz
I don't like it, but if I was going to add an extra thing it would be more
focused and be "design" which can already be part of STEM courses.

So Architecture / Industrial Design / Ux

etc.

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hnlurker
I read through all the comments, I think there's a point which is being
overlooked. The addition of the 'A' category will serve as a useful idiot to
increase the participation of otherwise under represented groups.

I'm all for it. It's generally the 'A' people that do not at all understand
how statistics work and would be most likely to be placated by this type of
addition anyway.

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DoreenMichele
It sounds to me like at that point it is a made up new word for _classical
liberal arts_ (or, as others have said here, _education_ ). See explanation
here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16555514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16555514)

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username223
It seems like a classic money-chasing move to me, like when Big Pharma had all
the money, and suddenly everyone did "bioinformatics." STEM roughly divides
undergrads by whether or not they have to take Calculus. STEAM... I can't
figure out what line that's trying to draw.

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mr_toad
Is there a shortage of Arts graduates? Is there a shortage of Women/Minorities
in Artistic careers?

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emddudley
I think it's stupid. Once you add Art, what is the point of even calling out
the category?

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clavalle
Each is a creative and skilled discipline focused on bringing things into the
world that haven't existed before for the advancement of humankind. I have no
issues.

It seems to mirror the ascent of design in the tech world.

Might as well get the creatives working together early.

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bllguo
Funny, STEAM is basically everything but the humanities. It's actually _less_
inclusive in a sense.

To me the common thread in STEM is the importance of quantitative skills, and
everything else emphasizes those abilities much much less.

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0kto
I thought STEM is mainly a category that includes subjects that have certain
principles and approaches, that are distinct from, say, humanities or art:
they are based on falsifiability and mathematical theories.

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dekhn
I hate it.

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hirundo
Creating a new acronym does nothing to depricate the old one. It's just a new
acronym for a different concept. We'll see if it's useful by whether or not
it's used.

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nategri
Interesting, although you'd likely need to verrrry precisely define what is
meant by "arts" to have any meaningful discussion about it here.

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dharness
Well it depends if the thing you are doing makes sense to include Arts or not,
if so, call it STEAM otherwise call it STEM -- case by case.

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ansh0l
I read the title and thought to myself Analytics could be a good add to STEM,
but IMO arts seems a bit far off from the others.

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techbubble
It has been in common use for a few years. At my kid’s school in Mountain View
we have had STEAM night for the past four years.

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devnull791101
"There however seems to be a group of people concerned with inclusivity"

this is how we ended up with a problem in the first place.

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Sonnol53
Love this. Design and culture impact matters.

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stevew20
If art contributes as much as the rest to the well-being and advancement of
mankind, then sure, stick it in there!

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hprotagonist
the proper word is then “education”.

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notafxn
This looks like an attempt to lower the bar of a serious thing, which is based
entirely on merit and hard work, just for the sake of inclusivity.

