An open letter

… to the elder Free-Ride offspring’s trumpet teacher.
While I am generally accepting of your choices as far as the pieces you are having my child learn how to play, I have a small bone to pick with you this evening.

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Pack your bags: assessing young scientists’ commitment to science.

DrugMonkey has a poll up asking for reader reports of the science career advice they have gotten firsthand. Here’s the framing of the poll:

It boils down to what I see as traditional scientific career counselling to the effect that there is something wrong or inadvisable about staying in the same geographical location or University when a scientist move across the training stages. From undergrad to grad, grad to postdoc or postdoc to faculty.

First, if you’ve gotten advice on your scientific career, go respond to the poll. Then, come back and we’ll chat.

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Friday Sprog Blogging: first contact with extraterrestrial life.

FirstContact-EO-detail.jpg
Despite the crush of the closing weeks of the semester, I found a little time to follow the conversation about whether Earthicans ought to welcome a meeting with whatever extraterrestrial life might be out there to meet us, or whether we’d be better off hiding under the bed.
Although the Free-Ride offspring have not followed the point and counterpoint on the best alien life action plan, they’re generally more enthusiastic futurists than I am. So, I asked them to dig deep into their imaginations and give us their visions of first contact.
It should surprise no one that the elder and younger Free-Ride offspring have very different visions of this event.
Before they started drawing, they brainstormed a bit about what forms extraterrestrial life might take. Maybe you’d find your classic Star Trek humanoids, or comic book little green men. But why couldn’t alien life be mostly plants, or fungi?
Maybe we’ll be negotiating intergalactic treaties with microbes? (I’m thinking people might be less cavalier about skipping vaccinations if that’s how things play out.)
In any case, here are the pictures of first contact they came up with.

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The corresponding question for the science PIs: graduate student work hours.

From the last poll you probably guessed that this one was coming.

I expect my graduate students to be working:Market Research

I’ll be interested to see whether there’s any correspondence between the hours demanded by PIs who read this blog and the hours demanded of graduate students who read this blog.
Once again, feel free to discuss the issue of appropriate student workload and/or humane management of graduate students in the comments.