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Start of my junior year in chemistry at Alabama, went in to talk to my adviser (his fifth year teaching there). He was sweating over paperwork, said it was the
by billwear 8y ago
Start of my junior year in chemistry at Alabama, went in to talk to my adviser (his fifth year teaching there). He was sweating over paperwork, said it was the first time he made enough to file a tax return. I said, "Excuse me, I've got to go change my major." And I did. Never looked back.
- syedkarim 8y agoThat doesn't make sense. I thought the IRS required tax returns to be filed for any amount of income over $600.
- minkzilla 8y agoI believe if you make under ~5,000 a year you can claim exempt from federal taxes and then there is no point in filing a return because you never payed any federal taxes. But I’m not really sure on that.
- rayiner 8y agoNope. It’s $12,000 for 2018.
- billwear 8y agoIt was actually pretty close to that at that time; at one point I thought it was like $16,000, but I'm not sure.
- yesenadam 8y agoWell sure, better to do a subject you care something about, chemistry evidently meant nothing to you. ..So why did you choose it in the first place?
- billwear 8y agoNope,chemistry was my thing. Went all the way to the International Science Fair (high school) and won big there. Then got a National Merit, had choices of Hopkins, Stanford, etc., but stayed at Bama for family reasons (sick mom). To be fair, I also cared a lot about radio & computing, so switching to EE wasn't a big shock, but better career prospects w/o having to do a PhD.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoCould just be indicative of your adviser being in a poorly paid role in academia?