Being "Good" at Science

Note: This will be another deviation from my usual theme of TV shows; don’t worry, I’ll be posting on Scrubs next time. Also, I know this is super late. Dr. Majerus, I’m sorry.

Over the past few days, I’ve written several college applications for tech schools. Beyond the general common app and “talk more about yourself” questions, the “why this school” prompt always pops up. Of course, this requires I visit the school’s website to find programs and professors to mention - and, beneath the colorful squares and optimistic quotes on science’s ability to solve the world’s problems, there’s [often] an undercurrent of elitism. You can either handle our complex curriculum or not. You’re either made for science, or shouldn’t even bother. You haven’t participated in fifty billion competitions and won at least half? You’re not a match for our “culture.”

To a certain extent, I can’t really complain - I technically fit their requirements and fulfill the mold of science student. My activities aren’t competitions and advanced math classes, but I’ve had enough success exploring the field to be labeled as “good enough.” My question is why we choose to define skills that are only temporarily significative as most important. Or, more simply, why do we use stereotypes of young STEM geniuses to declare the apex of talent for science when, in fact, those stereotypical skills are only marginally useful.

I’ve had several conversations about this with my dad, a UIUC professor of computer science. He mentioned that there is a discoherence between the students who do well in high school and college and how they do in grad school. Once you reach grad school, doing fast calculations, grasping concepts quickly, and solving problems at lightning speed kind of loses importance. Thinking deeply, researching well, and having the guts to fail over and over again (and still come back to work) take precedence. Succinctly, the tortoise wins the race. Now, he obviously mentioned that the best of the best are good at both fast thinking and deep focus; however, most of us are not the top 0.00001% of the population, and I’m not sure why 80% of science students have to be on the “fast” side.

Like any good scientist, he used orthogonal lines to describe this. I took the liberty of finding a pic and labeling it. Thank me.

So I don’t know, I’m obviously not an admission official, and I can’t declare what ppl should be judged on when it comes to determining their potential for STEM. And I don’t want to knock people who are good STEM students and fast on their feet - that’s awesome and should be celebrated. I just can’t help but think of all the ppl I know who are actually really talented at understanding and explaining scientific concepts, but insist that they’re not good at science or math. We shouldn’t dismiss their abilities - even if they don’t fit in within the grading and value system we’ve created.

Note: Obviously, not every person interested in STEM goes on to grad school and does academic science. I’m using that example because I know that 1) they are typically the first example that comes to mind when we think of scientists, 2) it’s the example that I know most about, and 3) academic scientists do end up doing research with the most impact.