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But you can't play with all that expensive equipment until you get to at least the graduate level. Take chemistry for example. For your entire undergraduate deg

But you can't play with all that expensive equipment until you get to at least the graduate level. Take chemistry for example. For your entire undergraduate degree you're doing strictly cookbook procedures in the lab. Other than a bit of technique, everything you learn in undergraduate labwork you could have learned from a book. Try going to the lab instructor and asking him or her if you can come back later at night to run some of your own experiments. You'll get a hearty laugh. The expensive equipment becomes an argument in favor of a traditional education only after you get to the post-grad level when you have real access to that equipment.

Ar-Curunir 10y ago
If you want to have a job in those fields, you likely need lab experience; you won't get it by reading textbooks.
VLM 10y ago
The first specific problem with internships instead of school labs is schools like to be a one stop shop so how do you guarantee everyone accepted into a school will be accepted into at least one productive lab? Remember the only criteria for school entrance is a pulse and ability to get a guaranteed loan for a ridiculous amount of money. The odds that a physical school with X slots for chemists precisely overlaps professional demand for X chemistry interns is pretty low so either the private labs are going to be understaffed or there will be (profitable) students who can't get required internship places. The second problem with internships instead of school labs is the classic birth problem where we produce too many trained chemists for too few jobs. And flooding the labor market with free intern labor isn't going to help the fraction of grads who can get a job in the field. The result would be even more people with chemistry degrees doing anything other than chemistry as a profession after graduation. The third problem with internships instead of school is related to the second in that pre-med uses ochem as a weedout, or used to. So "most people" trying to learn ochem are trying to get into med school, no interest at all in learning ochem itself. That means the vast majority of chemistry interns are going to be pretty useless and unmotivated in the professional labs, so the few interns trying to become actual chemists are going to get ripped off by being ignored. Those are very chemistry specific problems but something similar might apply to many other subjects.
Fomite 10y ago
"But you can't play with all that expensive equipment until you get to at least the graduate level." This will come as a surprise to the expensive equipment I used as an undergrad.
- mysterypie 10y ago
  Did you design and run your own independent experiments as an undergrad? Or did you do assigned and supervised lab work following exact procedures from an exercise book in a group setting with a lab instructor watching over you, and you had to be done and out within 2-3 hours?
  - Fomite 10y ago
    I ran my own independent experiments, usually designed to help a graduate student with one of his projects, and was then left to my own devices. If it was done in 2-3 hours, it was because the cultures needed to incubate overnight anyway. I did group lab work with an instructor as well, but my university had a pretty vibrant undergraduate research program.

Ar-Curunir 10y ago

If you want to have a job in those fields, you likely need lab experience; you won't get it by reading textbooks.

VLM 10y ago

The first specific problem with internships instead of school labs is schools like to be a one stop shop so how do you guarantee everyone accepted into a school will be accepted into at least one productive lab? Remember the only criteria for school entrance is a pulse and ability to get a guaranteed loan for a ridiculous amount of money. The odds that a physical school with X slots for chemists precisely overlaps professional demand for X chemistry interns is pretty low so either the private labs are going to be understaffed or there will be (profitable) students who can't get required internship places. The second problem with internships instead of school labs is the classic birth problem where we produce too many trained chemists for too few jobs. And flooding the labor market with free intern labor isn't going to help the fraction of grads who can get a job in the field. The result would be even more people with chemistry degrees doing anything other than chemistry as a profession after graduation. The third problem with internships instead of school is related to the second in that pre-med uses ochem as a weedout, or used to. So "most people" trying to learn ochem are trying to get into med school, no interest at all in learning ochem itself. That means the vast majority of chemistry interns are going to be pretty useless and unmotivated in the professional labs, so the few interns trying to become actual chemists are going to get ripped off by being ignored. Those are very chemistry specific problems but something similar might apply to many other subjects.

Fomite 10y ago

"But you can't play with all that expensive equipment until you get to at least the graduate level." This will come as a surprise to the expensive equipment I used as an undergrad.

mysterypie 10y ago
Did you design and run your own independent experiments as an undergrad? Or did you do assigned and supervised lab work following exact procedures from an exercise book in a group setting with a lab instructor watching over you, and you had to be done and out within 2-3 hours?
- Fomite 10y ago
  I ran my own independent experiments, usually designed to help a graduate student with one of his projects, and was then left to my own devices. If it was done in 2-3 hours, it was because the cultures needed to incubate overnight anyway. I did group lab work with an instructor as well, but my university had a pretty vibrant undergraduate research program.