Arts vs Science students where do they actually stand (from an guy from Arts)

NOTE: Only those who have knowledge about real world and academics are allowed to read the body - And I am under neither Superiority complex nor Inferiority complex it is all what I have observed by living both type of lives and concluding some things at the end so don't conclude that I am claiming myself superior or inferior... Its a long reading btw but has a lot to know btw... Based on Indian education system

I choose Arts in class 11th not because I loved arts at that time but because at that time I had no exposure to the real world and never learnt new things and explore my interests and our Tier 69 city Arts is the default option for most (I am from arts, my czns, my dad, my mom, all of my uncles/aunties, frnds) Most people don't know much beyond Arts here.

So I also choose arts (English Lit., Geography, Political Sci.) (unaware of the outside world) and get done with my school somehow which was my only goal. And after that I surely had to join college and obviously a BA. Till now I knew nothing beyond Arts. But slowly I started hearing about things like Coding, Physics, Engineering, Mathematics and all these I was like this is something interesting and new then why not explore it. I started exploring these things more and more, met some guys who were already into these things (online). Taught myself to code (at that time web dev now ML and DL), started studying physics (at that time without maths and mostly theorical physics like Relativity, Quantum Mech.) but obv without maths since I didn't have any mathematical bg.

I slowly started realizing that Intellectually both things what arts students study and science students study are drastically different where the things Arts student study pretty much everyone can study but the thing science (STEM) students study requires some serious amount of brains.

At one hand Arts students after 12th are preparing for govt jobs where they have to study mostly 10th class mathematics, some basic logical reasoning and GK but on the another hand science students have to study the things which made some of the genius physicists/mathematicians sweat from their a$$ where some scientific discoveries took years of hardcode research to prove and are no piece of cake to study. At one end BA students are studying politics and historical events on the other end btech students are building cars in their college as their project or some IISc students working on the most difficult problems humanity have ever tacked with.

I started realizing that in my school with Arts we rarely talked about logic, critical thinking or philosophy which are subjects of arts but they are extensively talked by physicists, engineers, mathematicians.

Two same kind of students at 18: One prepared for a highly competitive govt job exam and got a job where the second one is preparing for the toughest exam of Ind (academically saying not competitively) - JEE for last 3 years and then going to a college where he has to study extensively for next 4 years to get a job. The second guy could also choose the same path as the first one but he choose hard work and knowledge over comfort. I agree that not all JEE students don't have the same mentality but its about the population.

I found out that - BA students and Govt job Aspirants/Employees are no where close to Engineers, Doctors, Researchers, Physicists, Mathematicians after spending a long time with both obv I spend a long time with arts students since they all are around me so you can't say that I am throwing it in thin air.

If we hypothetically choose some features after a lot of researches that can be used to analyze intellectual and critical thinking abilities we will find that in the majority of the cases Arts students/govt job aspirants (except UPSC and some others) stand nowhere close to STEM guys.

In that method if you go and compare top 25%ile of SSC CGL (which is the most difficult exam of SSC) with top 25%ile of JEE Advanced the graph will look drastically moved towards JEE folks because of the obvious reasons and also a tons of researches show that guys who study adv mathematics and physics are generally ahead in critical thinking and cognitive abilities than who don't.

I am not demeaning Arts guys (us) but I am telling you guys the reality I mean I as an Arts student have no problem in accepting that we stand nowhere close to you JEE/NEET guys in term of most matric to analyze intellect, critical thinking, logic or cognitive abilities (on a mass scale that means not all of them are same but vast majority is).

And I openly accept that choosing Arts was biggest regret of my life till date since my actually interests drive me somewhere else.

Edit: I have a lot more points to mention but you know it would be too difficult for you guys to read it without loosing interest. Repeating it again it is not about inferiority complex at all nobody would be feeling inferior that much that he tries to end his life because of one wrong decision of his life its everything what I have seen, felt and observed in least words but the actual comparison between arts and science will be a lot more rigorous and detailed.

Submitted September 24, 2026 at 06:49AM by padhaku_mard https://ift.tt/oWIH9t5