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I work in a large academic research lab and I'm with you on the lack of creativity and conformism. Most people here don't have ambitious ideas. They always thin
by tachyonbeam 8y ago
I work in a large academic research lab and I'm with you on the lack of creativity and conformism. Most people here don't have ambitious ideas. They always think in terms of basic improvements to ideas that were recently published about. They seem to automatically think that progress can only be made in the direction of the latest cool papers from well-established authors in the field. Me, I'm with Peter Thiel... Don't compete. Differentiate yourself. Try to find a niche that everyone isn't already trying to fill.
People here are also seemingly very conformist. For the most part, they work extremely long hours, are in hetero-normative relationships, with similar life goals (get a high paying job, buy a house, have kids), they don't do drugs or rarely even drink. If they have any hobbies, it's going to be your typical going hiking and camping sort of deal.
I'm surprised that STEM research doesn't attract more "freaks" and free-thinking people. People who want to challenge assumptions and do things differently, explore new possibilities. Unfortunately, I guess where I am, the main draw is prestige and the possibility of getting a high paying job when you finish.
- dagw 8y agoI'm surprised that STEM research doesn't attract more "freaks" and free-thinking people. At least when I was at university, those people generally didn't have the focus to graduate with good grades (or graduate at all for that matter). It's one thing to sit around and talk about all the 'out there' implications of quantum physics. It's an entirely different thing to get your quantum physics course work in on time and study enough to pass the exam.
- WalterSear 8y agoI think I'm one of the freaks in question. I'm not one to sit around pipe dreaming, but I've found a vastly better fit writing code at startups than I ever did in grad school. I get to invent, experiment, learn, and at a vastly faster pace. I'm even working in the same field, solving similar problems to the ones I worked on in school.
- vkou 8y agoThis is great if the problems you want to solve have direct business applications with a turnaround time of tomorrow. There aren't very many startups funding basic research, though.
- WalterSear 8y agoI know. That's why I went back to grad school in the first place. Big mistake :)
- eli_gottlieb 8y agoWhat institution are you at? We've got plenty of weirdos here where I work. I'm one such person.
- SuperGent 8y agoBecause of the way that STEM is taught, free thinking is often discouraged, and the 'freaks' leave academia as soon as possible or become conformist. This is not a new thing, Einstein was mocked for his free thinking ideas.
- technobabble 8y agoIf that's the case, what is a non STEM bachelors degree that you would recommend for 'freaks'?
- indoorfish 8y agoPhilosophy.
- technobabble 8y agoWhy philosophy? Additionally, some notable ceo's (Peter Thiel, Sergio Marchionne) also pursued philosophy degrees. Are philosophy degrees prevalent in c-suite exectives, and if so, why?
- btrettel 8y agoI don't think there's such a clear link between nonconformity in the sense of having a "normal" lifestyle and nonconformity in research. Or at least I have never viewed people who don't drink as less creative in research than those who do (to use one of your examples). If anything, a conformist is more likely to drink given that most people do and that there is a lot of social pressure to drink. I think the problem comes more from uncritically accepting standard practices or beliefs, not from just doing something superficially different from others.
- indoorfish 8y agoI worked in an medium sized research lab while I was doing my graduate work in BioEngr. While I was doing research as an undergraduate I felt I had much more leniency to be free-thinking and out-there with my research/papers. Once in grad school the reality of winning grants in 6-12 month cycles meant that the most successful PhD's were really much better at marshaling undergrads and master's students to do their work for them, rather than being elite, creative scientists themselves. I saw a lot of time being wasted tweaking previous research into something 'novel' so we could cite ourselves as much as possible and still put up a good introduction about doing something to improve society. Ultimately, the lack of long-term vision coupled with a pretty unstable PI made me reconsider the academia route. As an aside, I was doing all of my advisor's "peer-review" of articles, reproducibility is a huge issue, I saw a ton of funky stuff submitted that I personally didn't have the time or budget to check, but couldn't in good faith outright reject, because I was also sending out papers to be reviewed.