What’s in a Name?

The old saw is that if you can’t explain something to your grandma, or to a five-year-old, then you don’t really understand it. That once you really know something, you can boil it down to its core features and describe it as easily as retelling a story. That understanding comes first, and that words come second.

I think that’s only half true.

Words are powerful. Stories are powerful. Sure, they come from understanding, but they’re also how we understand things in the first place: by “putting things in our own words,” by turning some book’s abstract nonsense or a teacher’s dry lecture into something that that we can relate to and see in our normal lives. They are how we discover and rediscover passion.

When I first joined STEAM, I loved it. And what wasn’t to love? STEAM was STEM + Art, plain and simple. I did strange science things, I did strange art things, sign me up. And the more I got into it, the more wonderful STEAM became. STEAM was biomimicry and design and human computer interaction. It was about making cool things with cool people and it was everything to me until it wasn’t. Until I stopped having the time to do cool projects. Until I just spent more and more time in the lab. Until I stopped writing.

It’s hard to believe in something you don’t do anymore.

Last year, I went into our end of year post mortem with the words “I’m done” rattling around in my skull. After all, I was the president, and some president I would be if I couldn’t practice what I preached. At Brown, our post-mortems usually entail what we did that year and any issues we had with logistics or events. We talk about what we want to do next year and start planning our overall goals. This year, since we did a lot of reorganization around what we wanted STEAM to be, we asked everyone to define what STEAM meant to them. The first time the question came around to me I just said what I’ve said before: “STEAM is about making cool interdisciplinary projects. It was the first one that came to mind. It was the one I’d been taught, the one we told everyone else. It was the only one we had. And I hated it. I hated how trite it was. I hated it because it kept me from something I knew I loved. I hated it because if STEAM were just making, then STEAM shouldn’t have been a part of my life (but it was), shouldn’t have been something that I thought about every day (but it was), shouldn’t have been something I felt in my bones as something that made me me (but it WAS).

So I thought about it.

And thought, and thought …

What was STEAM to me?

To me STEAM is learning that dancing has its own notation system that some people use to teach robots how to move. It is listening to people talk about how much gesture-based UIs can learn from ASL. It is watching the way sharks and jellyfish move, and thinking about how different characters move through the air in Melee. It is realizing despite how vast the universe is, that you can never truly get lost — that you’ll always have something to hang your hat on. It is seeing things I know in things I don’t — putting the world in my own words.

After those realizations, I came out of our post-mortem more excited for another round of STEAM than I had been since freshman year. Because STEAM isn’t just about making, isn’t something I have to take time out of my day to do, it’s a way of thinking, a way of seeing the world. It’s something that anyone can do by just looking around or talking to a friend. STEAM is a way of learning that embraces how interconnected everything is, and how much more interesting that makes the world we live in.

I think I finally understand STEAM — Grandma, do you?