Week 1 | Two Cultures

After reading the two articles, "Two Cultures and The Scientific Revolution" by C.P. Snow and "Third Culture: Being in Between" by Vesna V., I would say that the seperation between arts and sciences can somehow been reflected in the education in the U.S., and even perfectly matches the senario of education in China. 


Gap & Separation Between STEM and Liberal Arts


Walking through the traditional pathway studying at normal Chinese primary and secondary school, then graduating from Chinese international high school and getting into UCLA, I had a quite comprehensive view of the contradiction between arts and sciences in the system of both countries. The education system in the states is relatively more inclusive and diversified, so such separation is not extremely obvious or serious. However, the society values sciences much more in Asia,  where almost all the parents, teachers, and the society itself favor science students, especially STEM students, among those who study liberal arts. This creates a great gap between the groups of arts and sciences.


Opposite Ways of Education for Arts and Science Students


I myself is also strongly influenced by such trend, which I was forced to give up studying my second foreign language and switch to physics eventually at high school. At UCLA, I also noticed that a great proportion of Asian students majored in sciences, such as physics, biology, computer science, economy, etc. It seems to be an unwritten rule for Chinese and Asian students like me to study sciences and ignore our interests in the fields of arts.



UCLA Major Population Data


Fortunately, we see a great platform and an inclusive & diversified education system at UCLA., which provide us with the opportunities that we can learn both arts and sciences, building bridges between these two fields. Although it seems that there is still much work to be done in building the bridge between humanities and sciences (Vesna 122), there starts to have a great initiation for both STEM students and liberal arts students to start on forming intersections thanks to the various kinds of platforms nowadays (Vesna 121). I believe students can cultivate better skills and learn more through the combination and interwinement of arts and sciences by forming more comprehensive perspectives in their studies.


Word Count: 352


References:

Beijing Reviewer, "Should Science and Arts Education Be Separated?", 2009
    http://www.bjreview.com/forum/txt/2009-01/11/content_174147.htm

Smith, Tandra, STEM and Liberal Arts: Pros and Cons of Both Degrees, The University Netwrok, 2020
    https://www.tun.com/blog/stem-and-liberal-arts-the-pros-and-cons-of-both-degrees/

Snow, C.P . The two cultures and the scientific revolution. Martino Publishing, 2013.

"UCLA Facts & Figures", UCLA Official Website, 2021
    https://www.ucla.edu/about/facts-and-figures

Vesna, Victoria. "Toward a third culture: Being in between." 2001



评论

  1. Umut Serhatkulu2022年4月17日 23:35

    Thank you for sharing your story from China to UCLA. I also have a similar story like yours from Turkey to UCLA and in Turkey people also have the same perspective where almost all the parents, teachers, and the society itself wants their loved ones to be involved in STEM majors and not that much for the art side. This is probably because of financial hardship in the first place but I see that art values a lot more in the United States. This is a good thing because we don't only need engineers and professors we also need artists and especially any kind of art in our lives. If we think about a life without art, it will probably be boring and depressing.

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