When I traveled to China to teach for the first time in 2020, I was surprised by a remark made by one of my students.

“Why do I even need to learn English? “

I didn’t know how to answer him. I didn’t know how to make him understand that I had taken Spanish lessons in high school for three years in a row because it was one of the most spoken languages ​​in the world, or how I tried to start to read books in Chinese because not only did it feel like my career would require it, but also because I wanted to better understand China’s rich culture and long history. Citing similar motivations for learning English, I found her unimpressed.

I thought about the unprofessional calls, thinking she might be too young to appreciate the reasons I had given previously. After all, my pre-teen peers, obsessed with the portrayed glamorous aesthetic and chic lifestyle of France, were devastated when French was not offered in eighth grade; and unbeknownst to me at the time, I would become the owner of Korean beginner books almost ten years later, as I began to take an interest in the music, food and culture of South Korea.

The influence of cultural influence on our decisions can be attributed to soft power. Soft power has traditionally been viewed as having a significant influence on the decisions people, businesses and governments make. Joseph Nye, a renowned political scientist and the term’s original thought leader, argues that soft power has impacts as “a means to success in world politics” for those who know how to capitalize on it.

The Soft Power Index, offered by the Institute for Government, measures soft power in six categories: culture, diplomacy, government, education, business / innovation, and subjective measures. These can take many different forms, such as food, medical care, communication networks, and outright monetary grants. Cultural exports, such as films, food, and luxury goods, are also seen by Nye as essential elements in the growth of soft power. More recently, media, entertainment and the arts have gained influence in soft power rankings as the world becomes increasingly connected via the Internet.

Yet despite this solid strategy to exert influence over foreign policy, American soft power declined after September 11 and has steadily declined in rank according to the Soft Power 30 project, which aims to rank the top 30. soft power country fairing every year, since the inception of each country.

It is clear that our influence and the admiration of others comes from both technological advances and the arts. Yet in STEM-dominated institutions like Stanford, do college campuses share the responsibility of encouraging their student populations to engage in this latest quest as well? In The Daily, numerous articles have been published on the overwhelming dominance of STEM / CS related degrees, identifying trends and statistics of these degrees both on campus and compared nationally. The New York Times published an article in 2013 noting the shared fear of humanities departments on college campuses across the country as the percentage of non-STEM students declined, but not that of faculty. Stanford’s humanities department fought this divide as early as 2011. On a campus where integrated development environments (IDEs, used for software development) dominate computer screens, can Stanford play a bigger role in encouraging moderately interested students towards non-STEM majors, rather than allowing only the bravest students to succeed in the pursuit of a less popular academic passion?

To be clear, it’s not that STEM majors don’t contribute to innovations that influence the culture of a generation, but rather the loss of students with potential and passion for the humanities and the arts to the A more “attractive” STEM degree retards the full potential of our cultural influence. On this campus, humanities students are constantly faced with deflated responses to the idea that their major is not in STEM. Stanford alum, Catherine Goetze ’18, had a particularly trying second year as she struggled to let go of her passion for the media and comply with a more “CS-ey” major. However, the byproduct of the humanities can mean a greater reach of the technology developed by America or the creation of cultural products that again capture the attention and hype of citizens abroad. Both are important; thus, both should be equally prioritized and respected.

Ultimately, students want their education to prepare them for fulfilling lives and good careers. Strategies such as providing students with internship or experience opportunities during and after the degree program can achieve both of the above goals and are particularly beneficial for humanities majors. Greater demonstration from campus leaders on their priorities for sustaining the influence of the humanities can change the perspective of every STEM-conscious cohort that graduates from Stanford. With stronger support from our universities, campuses can play a role in increasing representation in globalized workplaces by supporting students in non-STEM majors. We can reduce the number of students who have abandoned their creative pursuits and professional interests to conform to the perceived nobility of STEM education on this campus.

The importance of soft power cannot be understated. In the ranking of soft power, France comes first due to its good performance in the categories of art, cinema, food, sport and tourism, which has translated into French political successes such as the ability of President Emmanuel Macron to appease the United States on French technology. tax. Non-Western countries like South Korea have also started to use their soft power as a political strategy. Once pointed out by an American official as never having been able to achieve a high standard of living, South Korea has gone from the third world to the first world in the past 60 years, to today become a nation that saw itself. provide a global stage for speaking out on major challenges such as climate change and COVID-19 policies at the United Nations General Assembly. South Korean President Moon Jae-In has publicly stated that he is counting on his country’s new special presidential envoys, born of a demonstrated world domination of pop culture, to advance South Korea’s agenda. East Asia illustrates how countries are developing soft power through technology and Arts. For example, China and South Korea are benefiting from increasing R&D investments and technological advancements. Yet both countries have succeeded in enhancing the importance of their cultural influence; although their soft power covers many avenues, only one example is through their entertainment media: China History of Yanxi Palace was the world’s most googled TV show of 2018, despite Google’s ban in China, and South Korea has claimed the most wanted movie of 2020 and the Netflix TV show of 2021 to date. For China, this has resulted in a more positive view of the country in Taiwan in light of recent political turmoil, and although South Korea still ranks 19th, its soft power is steadily increasing. As other countries begin to pay attention to their own soft power, perhaps the reversal of the general downward trend in American soft power can begin with initiatives born in a place as tasteless as a college campus.