December 22, 2004
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A: FROM MENTOR JOAN LUSK IN RI
There's quite a shortage of American students in SET fields, and the
way our country is behaving in the world (belligerence and making
visas harder to get) is discouraging foreign ones. What's "hard"
about the hard sciences is that there are demonstrably wrong answers.
You can't just write 10 pages of nonsense and get good grades - you
have to be able to use what you learn, quantitatively and in ways
that Nature decides are valid. In exchange you get to make your
material world do what you want it to - you have electricity,
machines, materials, heat, light, medicines, higher yields of food
and longer life expectancies. In people's spare time - because all
the advances of science create more efficient work and generate spare
time - they get the arts. Not a bad trade-off from hunter-gathering,
really.

Seriously, if Americans decide not to go into science we are in for
hard times indeed. The rest of the world will pass us by. Only a few
can win Nobel prizes, but many lesser scientist contribute to
progress and earn good livings doing it.

And from an individual point of view, a new graduate with a SET
degree will be far more sought-after than someone with a liberal arts
degree, because she's learned to do something useful. If she's
learned to write effectively she can compete with the non-scientists
for those jobs too. (Either will be more sought-after than an
uneducated person, of course.)

You may have noticed that I've written many e-mails in favor of a
broad liberal arts education for scientists, because it adds so much
depth and pleasure to life. There's competition for every sort of
job. Better compete for a stimulating job in a SET field than
compete for [insert your own worst nightmare here - there is dignity
in all work and I don't want to insult anyone.]