Beyond ✨Shiny✨ Degrees: World-changing innovations from unexpected places

Your Computer Science Degree, MBA, or Law Degree is a great thing, but don't get it twisted: history-making innovations come from all areas of study.

Right now, quite a bit of energy is being spent on dismantling the United States public education system. In a word, this is absolutely baffling to me.

There is a ixation on cost-cutting, privatization, and the profitability of any field of study. In 2019 (the most recent dates for which I was able to find reliable data), the average income for someone with a bachelor's degree in a STEM field was $78k USD, vs $53k for someone with a bachelor's degree in a non-STEM field. (source: National Science Board).

No doubt that gap has widened by 2025 - if you're motivated by earnings, studying STEM is a smart bet.

The wage gap between STEM and non-STEM fields drives high school graduates away from arts, humanities, and social sciences. Does that mean that the work of artists, writers, and social scientists is worthless?

If you think we should be axing arts, humanities, and social sciences, you've lost the plot.

Among many things that get lost in this debate, I'm concerned that we're losing sight of the fact that education is not just about getting a job. Education, research, and the arts are all about creating a better future.

Many innovations that have shifted the course of history have come from unexpected and unlikely places.

As a builder, I find this inspiring - change comes from unexpected places, and passionate, intelligent people from all walks of life are the ones who make it happen.

Jane Jacobs was an american journalist and author who became the most influential urbanist of the 20th century. Her ideas on urban planning and architecture were groundbreaking, and her work on the book The Death and Life of Great American Cities is a classic. Her influence has shaped the way cities all around the world are built, and her work is still cited today.

It is easy to forget how much Science Fiction has influenced the world around us. Martin Cooper, the creator of the first mobile phone, credits Star Trek as inspiration for the invention. Ever watch an episode of the Jetsons? A fun kids show from 1962 that imagined a world with self-driving cars, doors that open and close automatically, and robot butlers. Take that, Boston Dynamics.

These things are so embedded in our culture that it can be difficult to imagine a time without them. Someone, something had to come up with these ideas. The next time you hear someone saying degrees in literature should go the way of the dinosaur, remember that we have writers to thank for these.

My love for design and User Experience has its roots firmly planted in the Dewey Decimal System. Librarians pioneered the field of Information Architecture - organizing and labeling information in a way that is easy to find and use. This was the seed that blossomed into the field of User Experience.

The examples above: from urban planning and the built environment, to space-age tech to UX itself underscore a common theme: breakthroughs often emerge when disciplines collide.

Tiny Improvements readers tend to be folks building really interesting things - I don't think I need to persuade you that keeping education alive is a good thing. Keep an ear to the ground for shifting rhetoric around education, and the next time you find yourself talking about it over a coffee or a beer, keep these examples in mind.

It is impossible to tell where world-changing innovations will come from, and "letting the market decide" which types of research and education are worthwhile is a recipe for disaster.

Pursue your interests, foster creativity in your people, and build interesting things -- regardless of where the ideas came from.

Only my field matters is a narrow-minded outlook that not only breeds hubris; it blinds us to game-changing opportunities outside our expertise. Interdisciplinary openness and collaboration isn't just a good idea - it's often necessary to bring us to the next wave of cultural and technological change.