Do people change from other fields to science? May be! It is common to see people make career transition from one field to another due to certain relative necessities. Career fields vary from Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. My search on instances of people who changed to science or STEM encountered a shocking discovery of rarity. Most of the cases of career transition I found are from STEM to other fields.

Could it be because STEM subjects are more complicated? Not exactly! In fact, more people graduated with distinctions in STEM than in Arts and Social Science put together. However, following are three main reasons why people are less likely to change from other field to science than from science to other fields.

1. Precision and specificity required in science
   Most times, when you have scientific questions to tackle, answers cannot be either this or that. There is little or no room for relativity. Science deals with a high sense of precision, accuracy, specificity, and measurability in its methodology. However, research has shown that anyone who has not made up his mind on a career in science before age 16 is not likely to go that path any longer. Such people would have developed a lot of tolerance in non-absolute reasoning in a way that is not accustomed to science. Hence it would be unlikely to transit from other fields to science.
2. Post industrialization effect or lack of industrialization in countries
   Production processes in the industrialized world have been standardized and automated. This days, intelligence is going artificial and automation is largely robotic. By implication, there is a continuous reduction in the demand for human creativity and labor in the field of science. This has brought about less motivation in that direction.

   On the part of under-developed world as Africa, where industrialization has never been domesticated, and no commitment to such is in place, we can’t even consider people changing from other field to science. For what? In this part of the world, natural resources are exported in raw state for quick income. So, the absence of industries that may require the skills of people in STEM for mass production engenders a lack of ambition in the field.

3. Affinity to SMEs
   In situations where the labor force lack industrial training, power and machineries to convert knowledge in STEM to products and enterprise, attention has to be shifted elsewhere. People have to build enterprises more on factors within their control, hence the fields of humanities and social sciences appear more friendly to SMEs than science. In this kind of situation, people don’t change from other fields to science.

In an ideal situation, the need for self actualization would be enough impetus for anyone to make career moves from other fields to science. In other words, those limiting factors obtainable in either developed or under-developed parts of the world are no feat against a determined soul. This is especially so, if one is able to take control of the core and associate core subjects in a particular course of study. But, of course, such fellow must have surpassed the need to make ends meet as a motivating factor.

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