Posted By Kenzie Smith on Apr 12, 2025 | 1 comment

This article originally appeared on page 19 of the No. 5 April 2025 edition of The Gettysburgian magazine

By Kenzie Smith, Arts & Entertainment Editor

In recent years technology has become a heightened focus of our society, as it has been integrated into our daily lives. The most recent technology put in the spotlight being AI as it has  become increasingly present from search engines such as ChatGPT to even the release of some demo models of AI powered robots. The world seems to be moving in the direction and focus of STEM, looking for advancements in these fields, which brings forward the question of where the arts fit in. There are arguments that the arts are unimportant, especially in studying them at the post-secondary education level. 

Arguments against the arts include that there is a lack of career prospects — that the arts are not as applicable to life as other areas of study, that funding should be allocated instead to core, STEM-focused, subjects or that the arts hold little monetary value — but do these arguments hold any weight?

Gettysburg College is a liberal arts and sciences institution, relying on a curriculum that spans across subjects, requiring every student to take courses in both arts and STEM related fields. The STEM classes may easily provide students with hard skills, but may lack a more productive environment for some of the desired soft skills. Skills including creativity, critical thinking and empathy are integral aspects of many arts classes. These soft skills are not only sought out in the employment market but are essential to existing in everyday life and interacting with others. 

Being able to analyze products of the arts is also highly beneficial, as art is often closely connected to the culture of the place and time it is produced, providing insights into larger aspects, including those relating to society, economics, politics and many more. Practicing and analyzing the arts also allows for an exploration of complex emotions and inner psyche that otherwise might not be able to be expressed or explored. The arts can provide another lens to look at the world through, expanding one’s knowledge and perceptions, which is always beneficial.

Arts and STEM do not have to be two separate sides of a coin, though; in many ways they are more integrated than many realize. One of these examples can be seen through the Art in Science Competition/Exhibit hosted annually in Musselman Library. Students working in the sciences can submit images, illustrations, scientific drawings, graphics, 3D objects or videos to this exhibit, showing how they combine their artistic and STEM abilities. 

Another example of mixing the arts and STEM fields is the college’s environmental studies major; this major intentionally uses the word “studies” instead of “science” because the program focuses on a combination of the humanities and sciences to study, research and understand the environment. These intersections also extend outside of Gettysburg and can be seen in influential people throughout history, such as Leonardo da Vinci who created masterful paintings but also studied and illustrated human anatomy as well as conceptualizing engineering ideas such as the parachute. A more recent example is Steve Jobs who on top of creating the Apple technology was inspired by a calligraphy class he took to create new fonts integrated into the computer’s system.

One of the reasons that the arts and STEM intersect so well is because both are focused on trying to understand and advance the world around us while also examining how we fit in it; they just use different processes to do so: arts uses more subjective and emotional interpretation whereas STEM uses more systematic observations and investigations. Combining these processes and using the arts and STEM to understand the world may even help paint a more whole and accurate representation compared to focusing on one of the two areas alone. 

Arts and STEM are not fields meant to be pitted against each other, rather they are most beneficial when they are integrated and used together.