STEM and Football: Are They Really That Different?
- The STEM Academy Paper
- Apr 3, 2019
- 2 min read
April 3, 2019
Zak Elguindi
Although STEM and sports share many differences, there are similarities in both that help me through life. I do think that sports would be much more difficult without STEM, and I think that STEM would be much more difficult without sports. The two support each other and both test your limits, and in the end, make you a better person than you used to be.
Let’s face it, STEM is known to be a nerd school, and football is thought to be a jock sport. Nerds have the stereotype of not being athletic while jocks have the stereotype of being dumb. However, both have very similar core principles. Football is mentally challenging because the workouts and commitment are so rigorous that you’re trained to be mentally tough. Mental toughness is one of the things that all of my coaches have preached since my first day. They believe that, in life, it doesn’t matter how talented you are because obstacles will arise one way or another. One of their favorite quotes is:
“Tough times don’t last, but tough people do.”
STEM is similar to that, not in the sense that you will do sprints until you want to throw up, but in the sense that you have so much work to do that you want to quit and lay down and do nothing. The thing that gets me through most of my days is the mental toughness that football provided me, and it gives me the patience and durability to finish all of my schoolwork on time while attending 3-5 practices every week of the school year (excluding December).
On the flip side, STEM helps me in football in similar ways. Through hard work I was able to realize that effort gives me great satisfaction, and often, results that I like. I believe in this reaction because of all the assignments I would score well on because I stayed up late working on them the previous night. I believe that I will succeed if I work hard enough at something. This determination helps me in football because there are times when I want to skip a set or my workout and just go home and not have to worry about it, but the mental toughness STEM taught me forces me to finish and leave nothing behind.
On the surface, STEM and sports may seem very antithetical, but their work ethic is universal and helps me throughout life.
Challenges are incomparable.
It's cool to read you found a way to incorporate your drive for football into challenging subjects at school.