Science vs Arts: Which is better career option?
An age old comparison between Science and Arts rages even today especially when it comes to choosing a career option for your kid. The sad part is, most parents view this with the optics that they were viewed with thereby obviously giving an upper hand to science as a career option. But are they right? We will look at how the answer has changed over years.
Science and Arts: How they came into existence.
To understand the emergence of science and arts – it is necessary to understand the history of humankind. When civilizations across the world were shaping up, among the regular rulers, farmers and soldiers, two sets of people gained prominence. First kind who devised newer ways of creating machines, weapons, medicines. And second kind, who created paintings and poetries. Both the kinds were eccentric in their own ways and numerous names have left their marks in the history. But for obvious ways, the first kind often were considered and hailed more valuable among kings and kingdoms.
In the dawn of modern civilization, the picture didn’t change much. People who cured others with medicine or people who created computers often found more economical value than those who who worked in other fields. By then arts has also diversified into multiple other fields. But science and scientists were always more sought after.
As Education systems took shape, parents obviously wanted their wards to study for the most plush jobs in the market. Hence science started taking strides forward. Science graduates were no more scientists, no more eccentric – they became corporate engineers, software developers and doctors – all of which by the way were the highest paying jobs in the 80s and 90s.So, science obviously won the game when it came to lucrative career options.
Science and Arts: How they became equal
While science obviously lead the way, it is time to give equal importance to arts. The industry has woken up to the fact that science graduates have their limitations and commerce and arts needs to fulfil the gap. While a middle path to train all graduates in equal business skills was invented in form of Management degree – another lucrative career option for entire 90s, there were a lot of low and mid-skilled work that requires skill sets in language, design, communication, people management skills.
A science graduate can code a complex program and create a software. But you need a technical writer to write a manual explaining how the software works or a customer care person to troubleshoot for the customer when he gets stuck. This gradually brought in the arts graduates into the fold of scientific communities. The lines are becoming more and more blurred now with crossover courses becoming a major requirement.
Science and Arts: When Arts started moving forward
While arts graduates found a foot in the door in the science driven industries, there opened up a lot of other options too for the arts graduates in recent days. For example, in early days, theatre artists did not make much money. Today, theatre is not only a professional option but school kids are put to junior theatre classes to develop their confidence, public speaking and over all communication. This requires teachers. And it does not end there. People pursue career in acting, singing, choreography, fashion designing. The overall Entertainment industry is booming and offers a lot of high paying job options.
We also see a lot of arts graduates move into media as journalists, editors, graphic designers, visualizers and many other roles that never existed a decade ago. With increasing focus on Mental wellbeing, life coaches is as important as your family doctor. The difference between Arts and Science will continue to blur in coming days. In a highly competitive machine driven world, it eventually will not matter you are a master of which one, you need to be a jack of all for sure.