I was pushed into STEM. I'm 58. My parents are both scientists. My brothers and I were exposed to science, and scientific thinking, from an early age, but also

I was pushed into STEM. I'm 58. My parents are both scientists. My brothers and I were exposed to science, and scientific thinking, from an early age, but also music, the arts, and so forth. I was interested in a lot of things, and ended up majoring in physics and math. Today I'm a physicist working for a tech company. My parents seemed to have a pretty good careers and lifestyle. I was aware that there were potentially more lucrative occupations, but a person either has to be interested in something, or have superhuman discipline, to succeed in any field, and I didn't have the latter. Part of the STEM push comes from people like me, who believe in good faith that developing good scientific and mathematical knowledge is a steady long term bet. The laws of physics will last you a career, and most pepole will always hate math enough to give you their math work. The science oriented company that I work for has just had a couple of its strongest years ever. I don't know that STEM propaganda has resulted in an actual bubble of people going into those fields. There have always been some ominous signs on the horizon. The academic job market has always been overcrowded. The worst thing right now is the emergence of what I call the "sweatshop laboratory" business model, of running things like medical testing facilities 24/7 under plantation working conditions. (Okay, I exaggerate a bit).