Raised in a country like India, there was no shortage of exposure to mindsets that were artistically or scientifically inclined. If you grew up in a city in India, coming from a middle-class or higher family, education was a top priority. School was non-negotiable. And thanks to the competitive nature of India's population, you're almost guaranteed as a kid to be signed up for after-school extracurriculars - either in sports/athletics or with language and art (primarily, singing, dancing, or musical instruments).

Having my roots in India really helped me establish a strong base in both, with a surprising lack of confidence in either. I spent the bulk of my twenties putting art aside and focusing extensively on my STEM degree. For the first 25 - 30 years of my life, science and engineering have been embedded in me.

It wasn't until I turned 27 that I started letting my expressive side flow, and it took me a few months of internal conflict to understand the balance in terms of where I want to dedicate my mental energy. I'd like to share how I view this balance in terms of my dreams and goals.

Before that, let's establish what covers these terms.
The acronym STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. It is primarily used in education and career-based industries. Having a degree in a STEM field signifies that you've been trained in certain scientific and mathematical principles, which are generally globally accepted. Given how tech-dependent we've become now, in the past few years, STEM as a career course has definitely skyrocketed in popularity. Notice that STEM does not contain business, which would fall under its own umbrella.

When we refer to art, it encompasses any form of expression that invokes emotion. Art can be music, stories, paintings, haikus, collages, dancing—any way that you use to express yourself.

Engineers are trained in the art of "process." In terms of experiments, mathematical derivations, engineering designs, the entirety comes down to how a result is achieved. What assumptions are made, what rules are followed, what structures are applied, what limits are set, what are we trying to prove. A key mindset in STEM is, "I have a goal to achieve, a hypothesis to prove, an object to build, a problem to solve. I have the resources with me. How do I use available resources to get to my goal in the most efficient way possible?"

That is the key to this definition - "efficient." Given enough time, any engineer can get to a solution, but the best ones train themselves to make the process as efficient as possible without wasting resources. This is the engineering mindset.

Another thing engineers are trained on is scalability. You can't build something that works in a vacuum. It needs to have the ability to expand.

Say you've found a way to grow an orange banana that has 10 times more potassium than a regular banana, but you can only grow it in the summer, on a small island off the Caribbean. That's not effective, that's not efficient. If you want it to impact the world, you need to understand what elements of your process to change so that this banana can be grown everywhere.

Now lets shift to art.

Art focuses on expression. All of us, artists or otherwise, have a unique perspective of the world. Our experiences have fleshed out a persona in us that we wouldn't have achieved any other way. With art, we learn how to articulate our experiences, our emotions, our lifestyles, our deepest darkest thoughts, into a medium that the world can process and interpret.

And when you deal with expressions, it's rare to establish structure. Expression is free-form, it flows oftentimes naturally. When you begin to add rules, deadlines, and timelines, is where artists panic.

Where artists excel is to see the world in a brighter light. Art is a chance to interpret the best and worst parts of the world, on a canvas. Artists have so much to say, but their thoughts are also fickle. They'll have brilliant ideas every day, that would be forgotten in a week. Engineers usually ponder on one idea for as long as they think it's feasible.

Artists have a lot of unfinished projects, started with a desire to be completed, but broken from a lack of process and planning. Artists struggle with developing a mindset that will allow them to channel their art on command.

This is where I believe the key distinctions lie.

Engineers are problem solvers, while artists are inspiration drivers. STEM helps you understand the world, while art gives you hope for it. Engineers set the limits so that artists can push them. It's possible to have one without the other, but when the two overlap is when innovation happens.

Through introspection in my life, as a person raised in STEM who is now entering the art world, I believe I've got the best combination - an artist's passion with an engineering mindset. A desire to have my inner thoughts articulated and expressed, within a timeline that would be most efficient.

Art is the soul's reflection, while engineering is the mind's creation. Both require imagination, precision, and an unwavering dedication to bringing ideas to life. Ultimately, it's this fusion of mind and soul that drives progress and has gotten us, as a civilization, to what we've achieved today.