At my high school there wasn’t much of an emphasis on the sciences: the basics (biology and natural sciences) were required, and that was where most of my classmates stopped.

At age 16, my interests were pretty much the same as they are now — history and writing. But that didn’t stop me from taking the upper-level science classes like physics (which I still love — I’ve forgotten it all, but I still love it), chemistry and the advanced biology course. I understood the importance of  these, even if I knew they weren’t what I was going into.

Recently, science, technology, engineering, math education has gotten a push from a number of schools, states and even President Obama himself. At the White House Science Fair In April, Obama said, “One of the things that I’ve been focused on as president is how we create an all-hands-on-deck approach to science, technology, engineering, and math. … We need to make this a priority to train an army of new teachers in these subject areas, and to make sure that all of us as a country are lifting up these subjects for the respect that they deserve.”

STEM education is great. There’s a very good chance that these fields are going to take over a lot of the job force (if they haven’t already). But, STEM can’t be the sole focus of schools, especially high schools. Arts — which not only  include visual arts, but history and writing — are just as important for students.

The thing is, the arts teach skills other than knowing what color looks good with what other color, or what historical figure died in what year. The arts are about creativity — which is important for engineers and software developers. And, perhaps a little less known, the arts are about analytical thinking. As a history major, I’ve found I need to know less about dates, and more about the analytics of events in history. My critical thinking skills are probably just as good as a physics major’s even though I’m studying history, and the same principle applies to political science and similar fields.

Arts also teach communication, writing or otherwise. Effective communication is, strangely, in an increasingly-connected world becoming less and less of a skill many people know. Everyone, even those going into the STEM fields, needs to be able to communicate. In a way, arts are much better at teaching valuable communication skills.

This isn’t to say that I don’t think STEM is a good concept — especially for young women, who are underrepresented in the field (for absolutely no reason). The point is, that in addition to STEM, we (and students in K-12 schooling) need to keep the arts in schools. They are not just an afterthought, but a component that plays a part in STEM education.