Paper rustles as the surveys are passed across the desks. I wait, unsure what these high-up college guys could possibly want to know about my aspirations. I flip the survey, unsure what to expect from the first question.

“Are you interested in a career in science, mathematics, or engineering?”

Seriously? Are those the only careers of importance these days? What about the painters, the vocal wonders, the storytellers? The ones that chronicle the culture around them? Okay, sure,  the dancer may never find the cure for cancer, but her inspiring story about beating the odds my motivate dome mathematician to overcome his own obstacles and find the formula for time travel.

Without the arts, ideas are non-existent. Things are not created or marketed or broadcasted. There is more to the world than engineers and rocket scientists. These professions are, of course, essential to society and occupied by many a math lover. But the arts are just as important contributors to the evolution of humankind. Without the arts, human culture is dead.

In an ever-changing world, the idea that one can make it with an impractical dream like performing on a stage or writing a novel has become absurd and mocked. How did we get here? How did we get to this dark place where we try to force these kids into “useful” and “practical jobs”? *NEWS FLASH* Some kids do not fit that mold. Some kids have a gnawing passion that is not to be ignored. They have to create and express, be it with paints, words or film. They must create. And to deny them of that simple pleasure of doing what they yearn for is downright criminal. Never would the kid excited about math be stifled, but the lowly girl whose one dream is to sit with her guitar, center stage, must be persuaded into a different path because this is not “helpful”. Many do dismiss the arts as trivial, but they do not understand the affect that even a small drawing can have.

Say some engineer designs the perfect aerodynamic 360 1.0 sunglasses, but how do they get people interested? It is the artist they call. It is the artist who designs the marketable poster. It is the artist who shows the world how great the sunglasses can be. People with different types of opinions and thoughts and ideals can and must work together to make the world go around. So let us stop trying to force the artsy into the “mold” and start teaching two mindsets to work together.