Advice to high school students ...

Through high school, you are mostly taught the facts. As an undergraduate, you are taught to teach yourself the facts and how to construct answers to questions. In graduate or professional school, you are taught how to ask the right questions. The irony in this construction lies in the common misconception that Ph.D.s know all the answers, when in fact they mostly know the gaps in knowledge. That is, Socrates was not being so humble with his oft quoted saying, "the more I learn, the more I learn how little I know."

At the recent Herty Medal Award Dinner hosted by the Georgia Local Section of the ACS, I was pleased that nearly an entire table was filled by AP Chemistry students from Luella High School in Henry County. One of them asked our medalist, Luigi Marzilli, for advice on her way to college. I took the liberty of conveying the stages I described above. My point is that the mode of learning undergoes a paradigm shift in going from high school to college. My advice to students is thus to be aware of this change and be deliberate in changing their study habits. Indeed students often struggle as they approach the cliff on the edge of what they know coming from high school and the large body of new material that they are now expected to know in a college class. They often respond by trying to memorize every new fact and figure, but the shear magnitude of data makes such a path difficult to follow. Instead, they need to learn the material conceptually so that they can readily process the problems they face on exams and beyond. This requires practicing the problems and making the connections between the concepts steadily through the term, not in a single cramming session the night before the exam!

Tennis, Football, Chess, or Science?

I know.  Chess isn't quite on the list of professions you intend to encourage your kids to take up. (But it's fun and can get her a college scholarship at a few schools!) Many of us do encourage our kids to play tennis, baseball, soccer or other sports. Nothing wrong with encouraging them to be fit. There's also an outside shot that they might be good enough to get a college scholarship. Trouble is that far too many kids are counting not just on that but also on the possibility of getting mad money in the pros. What's the trouble with that? The chances are low. After all, only a few thousand get there. So why not play a game with better odds? I'm not suggesting that they follow the advice of the Music Man and play in a band because sadly the odds aren't great there either.


Instead, on this Labor Day (just like on any other day) I'd suggest a career in science. (Shocking, I know.) The trouble is that it just doesn't seem to be in the same conversation among teens as tennis or football. Clearly science does not have the theatre of the other activities, and thus much less allure. But, a career in science (if you can at least make it to a bachelor's degree) offers a pretty good return no matter how you slice it, and a much higher yield. The question is how to bridge the gap and encourage teens to direct their energy to dreaming about being pros in science and not sports? It's hard to convince teens who see all the money and facilities being invested by cities (that build ever more lavish stadiums) and colleges (that build ever more lavish stadiums) in sports. Truth is that investments are going into science and technology, but teens don't see them because they don't get much press. Or is it that we don't generate enough press? Perhaps this is the place for us scientists to make progress on this windmill?

Do you heart a scientist? (#TSRC and #PinheadInstitute)

In yet another sign that being a scientist is presently cool, here in Telluride, CO, you get 10% discounts at several area establishments just for being a scientist. Or more specifically, for being one of the attendees of a TSRC workshop. You might argue that this is actually an indication of the TSRC Director's prowess at marketing. It's true that she's good, and that the TSRC has a significant financial impact on the town. However, the Telluride folk are not wont to support something they don't believe in. So, if they are supporting this program, then it means that they are genuinely supporting science while seeing its value in facing the grand challenges that confront us in, for example, the environment and energy. Now all we need to do is to take the "we heart scientists" program nationwide! 

The motivation for this request is not so much about the money but the fact that it would bring science to kids' attention. It's hard for practicing research scientists to visit every school in the nation, but the Pinhead Scholars in the Schools program is doing its part in that direction. Back in October, I visited 7 classrooms in two days. The kids were kids. They needed to maintain their highly complicated social positions, and yet they opened up to me. They were that excited to learn about the underlying science of their everyday world! In each of those meetings, I spent an hour talking either about hard cooking an egg or about parachuting. Either way, we spoke about how you could rationalize the science of these processes, and how to use it to make predictions. They were evidently ready to heart science. They gave me hope that if we, today's scientists, engage more with them now, they will continue to do so throughout their lives.