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To get kids into science, just do it

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Re: To get kids into science, just do it

#61

Post by fastneutron »

n0tth3dro1ds wrote: post #53
hnews_account_1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are .. are you saying it’s a bad thing children can’t handle dangerous chemicals anymore? Wut?!

Yeah, a little bit. It’s not just kids that can’t get their hands on stuff. Even trained adults have to jump through regulatory and legal hoops. Schools face tons of liability. Mass market chemistry sets are lame now.

If you want to buy anything from Alfa Aesar, Fisher Scientific or any similar “real” supplier, you need to be a corporation or educational institution and have a purchasing account or p-card. Even if it’s distilled water or sodium chloride. Find a kid who can jump through those hoops and you’ll have someone who’d probably make a decent cofounder

Re: To get kids into science, just do it

#62

Post by [deleted] »

scrappyjoe wrote: post #58
rdtwo wrote: post #2

Why would you want to get kids into science? It don’t pay for shit and career/life prospects are grim. Grind out a phd for 80k starting salary? Hard pass

This is the sort of comment that makes me really take a hard look at capitalism. The way I see it, scientific work is rewarding in and of itself. I don’t _need_ to make huge amounts of money if I’m doing something intellectually rewarding that contributes to our collective knowledge. Sure, add monetary compensation to your list of optimising constraints. But to make it the SOLE optimising constraint in your life? Tha…

[deleted]

Re: To get kids into science, just do it

#63

Post by c7DJTLrn »

To get kids into science, make the education system better. Less memorisation, more practical work. Accelerate things for those interested and remove those that aren't. I wanted to be a chemical engineer or pharmacologist but got so bored that I moved on to something else. Now I fiddle with code and do nothing of real value to society. At least I get paid well I supppose.

Re: To get kids into science, just do it

#64

Post by watwut »

scrappyjoe wrote: post #58
rdtwo wrote: post #2

Why would you want to get kids into science? It don’t pay for shit and career/life prospects are grim. Grind out a phd for 80k starting salary? Hard pass

This is the sort of comment that makes me really take a hard look at capitalism. The way I see it, scientific work is rewarding in and of itself. I don’t _need_ to make huge amounts of money if I’m doing something intellectually rewarding that contributes to our collective knowledge. Sure, add monetary compensation to your list of optimising constraints. But to make it the SOLE optimising constraint in your life? Tha…

PhDs are massively taken advantage of. The whole "do it for passion" thing is literally used as argument to abuse them.

Little money, long hours, effectively up or out pyramid where most people gonl out, expectation that you will move in few years and partner will follow.

Re: To get kids into science, just do it

#65

Post by humanrebar »

c7DJTLrn wrote: post #63

To get kids into science, make the education system better. Less memorisation, more practical work. Accelerate things for those interested and remove those that aren't. I wanted to be a chemical engineer or pharmacologist but got so bored that I moved on to something else. Now I fiddle with code and do nothing of real value to society. At least I get paid well I supppose.

Lots of code is valuable to society. Find a product you believe in more if that's the problem. And a lot of software is very valuable but taken for granted.

To pick an arbitrary example, word processing removed all sorts of even less "valuable" work from the world: mailing thing around, extra printing, photocopying, physical filing, transcription services, and all sorts of related rote secretarial duties. Those jobs are gone and people do other things now... maybe they work in healthcare.

Re: To get kids into science, just do it

#66

Post by chriskanan »

btrettel wrote: post #36
chriskanan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a scientist, I'd say this claim doesn't hold true for many scientific disciplines. I know scientists working in biopharma earning over $1M per year. That said, I do think the salary mentioned is accurate as a starting salary in academia for a research faculty position (tenure track starting salary in USA is ~50% higher though), but academia pays much worse than industry. You give up salary for huge amounts of auto…

> You give up salary for huge amounts of autonomy. The "autonomy" is a facade in many instances. Professors have to do what can be funded. For a lot of professors that means doing what's trendy or what panders to moneyed interests rather than what they'd actually like to do and what would be more valuable. Read chapter 4, titled "Assignable Curiosity", in the book Disciplined Minds for more detail. https://discipline…

This is true if you need large amounts of resources ($) to achieve your research goals. At least for me, I have not found this to be true.

However, what I was thinking about when I wrote that was that I control my schedule, calendar, research objectives, and have a yearly check in on my performance. In contrast, my experience in industry was VERY different across the board.

Re: To get kids into science, just do it

#67

Post by tenpies »

rdtwo wrote: post #2

Why would you want to get kids into science? It don’t pay for shit and career/life prospects are grim. Grind out a phd for 80k starting salary? Hard pass

I had the same question, but my response was: "at the end of the day, authoritarian politicians will order you what to think, and their media/technology lackeys will enforce those orders".

Re: To get kids into science, just do it

#69

Post by ehBut »

fastneutron wrote: post #32

To the people posting about having good chemistry sets as a kid: what were these sets and where did you/your parents get them? Where are the good sources today? Everything I remember growing up in the 90s was pretty dumbed down at best, and if you wanted to order any of the interesting chemicals or equipment, you needed a company or school letterhead with a PO account. Things got better in the 00s when eBay was still…

To these people as well; cooking is chemistry. Making household cleaners is chemistry.

To do chemistry with kids all one needs is a grocery store, an herb shoppe, and the right explanations for what’s going on.

But instead there’s bunch of waxing poetic about how the world has changed. It’s rather pathetic to think science should come neatly labeled in a box. The lack of individual creativity and imagination in our culture is stunning.

Re: To get kids into science, just do it

#70

Post by rdtwo »

OgAstorga wrote: post #57
rdtwo wrote: post #2

Why would you want to get kids into science? It don’t pay for shit and career/life prospects are grim. Grind out a phd for 80k starting salary? Hard pass

More than half the American families earn less than 75k household income[1]. So the career/life prospects are grim either way. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distri...

They won’t be Able to make it to a career in science. Since you need a PHD or at least a masters to do it you need to go through some top tier universities and invest some serious $$ into it. Science is for love is only a marginally better career choice than art.
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