STEM education critical life skills

As we have barreled into the new millennium, STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) has grown to occupy an ever-larger portion of our common education. But many people remain unconvinced of the particular value of this broad class of studies. Read below to learn more about how STEM education can pass on some incredibly valuable life skills.

If You've Got a Problem, STEM Helps Solve It

The ability to examine a problem and find a solution is key in addressing any challenge in our personal or professional lives. As technology expands in the workplace, this has become exceedingly more important. Proficiency at repetitive, simple tasks is becoming less relevant as technology grinds these tasks into automation, rendering the ability to identify and solve problems more important with each passing year.

But what does a STEM education do to combat this? STEM programs give students the opportunity to get hands-on experience in solving problems. At its weakest, this can mean shifting to word-problems and formulating questions in real-world situations. These questions are at their strongest, however, when the lessons give a hands-on experience in solving problems. An excellent example of this would be challenging students to think of ways to contain an oil spill, by simulating a small oil spill in the classroom. Teaching a lesson in this way will not only get students more excited about what they are learning, but gives them experience and knowledge they can build on for the rest of their lives.

STEM Builds Confidence

Building off of STEM's particular value in giving students the hands-on experience of solving problems, these educational opportunities can build up confidence in a student's abilities, helping them trust in themselves when challenges arise later in life. Every time a student solves a real problem, every time they get the pleasure of using their skills and knowledge to accomplish something tangible, every time they can look back on their successes, these will give students a thorough base of successes they can look back on with pride, encouraging them to develop their skills further and succeed all through their lives.

STEM Helps You Harness Creativity

All too often, STEM education is portrayed as being anti-creative, or somehow in opposition to the arts. This could not be further from the case. A successful STEM education relies on the creativity of its students and beyond that, goes out of its way to promote this creativity in direct and measurable ways. An unsuccessful STEM lesson might require students to simply go through a set of proscribed steps to reach a pre-determined conclusion, and perhaps for some of us that was our experience in school.

Thankfully, a STEM education does not have to rely on this tired method of teaching. Giving students problems to solve and allowing them to work out their own solutions is perhaps one of the best ways to help develop creativity in growing minds.

STEM Proves that Curiosity is the Mother of Invention

Because a STEM education offers students the challenge of working around problems and finding their own solutions, it is perfectly suited to building students' curiosity for the subjects they are studying. Many traditional education methods reward students for following a very specific set of steps to reach one, pre-determined conclusion. By focusing on the project and the result over the repetition method used to get there, STEM encourages students to use their curiosity to develop their own solutions.

STEM Is Great for Critical Thinking

Curiosity, creativity, and confidence then develop into the critical thinking skills so important to success in the modern world. The ability to look at a problem from as many angles as possible and then find a solution is important, and STEM teaches that skill well. But perhaps even more importantly, STEM teaches the ability to weigh a variety of solutions against each other, consider their merits, and determine the best course of action for a problem. Critical thinking like this is very difficult to teach in a direct fashion, but once acquired, can be the most valuable life skill a person will ever learn.

Want to Be STEM-peccable? Go To a STEM Jobs Approved College!

If the lessons from a STEM education sound exciting, or perhaps even remind you of the valuable lessons you've learned through your education and work experience, maybe a career in a STEM field is right for you. ECPI University is not only STEM-Jobs-Approved College, but has been proud to achieve that distinction each year it has been offered. Our programs will offer the training and education you need for the job you want, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a school that will prepare you any better. Contact ECPI today, it could be the best decision you ever make! It could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!

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