Scientists of KATG

[allfalldown]

I'm getting a Bachelor of Science with a major in Animal Biology. I'm on my way to a Veterinary career...hopefully. I was thinking of switching my major to Biophysics, because biology is really boring right now, but I think as the go on it will get more interesting for me. It's weird though, most of my friends are arts students, and I did alot of theatre in highschool (which I miss), but I would get so bored with social science.

[garrym13]

I have a B.S. in Forensic Chemistry.

[shoogbear63]

Originally Posted by Rock 'n' Rye

I'm doing a degree in computer science at the moment, though it's probably not what you're talking about.

That makes two of us... I've done a degree in computer science.

[PoorGradStudent]

I have a B.S. in Marine Biology and am currently working on my Ph.D. in Zoology at the University of Hawaii. Any marine biology questions, I'm your girl.

[Forbin]

Originally Posted by Chespirito

snip

Alright so the first thing that I noticed is that you're only a Sophomore at the minute. Especially in America, where they teach sweet FA in high school, I'm guessing that you've barely scratched the surface and you're still in culture shock at just how frighteningly hard physics can be. To use a KATG style analogy, the first time they stop teaching physics as a vague set of conceptual ideas and ask you to actually do some physics is a bit like getting punched in the face for the first time. The good news is that if you work at it, you can raise your game and learn to think the right way to be good at it.

I remember when I started my A-levels back in Britain (if you don't know what an A-level is, google it). I was 16 and up until then, I'd done combined science at GCSE level, I hadn't so much as written an equation and used it in anger until then. All of a sudden, I was asked to derive an equation for escape velocity from first principles and work out the angle that a plane should bank to balance the forces when flying in a circle. I had no idea what to do with myself and was convinced that I'd made a terrible mistake. Now, on occasion I have to teach those simple problems and I have trouble understanding why they find it so hard when it seems like child's play to me now. That is, until I think back to how I reacted to seeing rigorous physics for the first time. Like I said, it's a culture shock.

Having said that Physics is hard. If I can be permitted to ramble, this kind of reflects the discussion in the IQ thread, as to whether intelligence is innate or not. Personally, based purely on my own anecdotal experience and my studies of Neuroscience, I think that intelligence in an individual isn't fixed. Although genetics plays a part, you can make yourself smarter by challenging your brain. As an aside, I think early environmental enrichment, like before you're 3, is at least a big part of how easy it will be for people to raise their intelligence later in life. This is the problem I have with IQ as a measure, I don't think it's getting at the underlying characteristic, and I suspect that there is no underlying characteristic to measure. Of course the above is my academic opinion and certainly not any kind of currently accepted scientific truth.

Enough of that. Tell me, what area of physics do you see yourself going into. If you're more specific I can give you more specific advise.

[MrTwitchy]

Currently working on my final dissertation for a Bsc in Biological Sciences with honours in Physiology at Edinburgh Eniversity, Scotland and looking at PhD projects to apply for next year. Academics is definately the life for me. Having had some real research experience this year I could never imagine going back to any kind of job where there WASNT a possibility of seeing something nobody has ever discovered before.

Mr Twitchy
(Hopedully Dr Twitchy some day har har har)

[Zim]

I'm a nuclear physicist and lover of the atom.

[Forbin]

Originally Posted by Zim

I'm a nuclear physicist and lover of the atom.

pervert.

Seriously though, where are you at?

[Zim]

Originally Posted by Forbin

pervert.

Seriously though, where are you at?

Usually I'm in Michigan. Right now I'm at an undisclosed location near a navy yard, doing some knowledge dumping on hapless Pollywogs.

[marina]

I think that the state of science education in America is sort of a crap shoot. I always loved science in middle school but when I got to high school I had to take the same science course I took in 6th grade, just drawn out over three separate years. So boring I actually wrote "I refuse to do busy work" over several of my biology assignments and still got an A. I took the same course again in college. It was only until second semester Chemistry I that I started to do the things I had covered in 7th grade and I needed a tutor because I had become so retarded about it that I was failing. I made a good science tutor because I had taken the basic shit so much it was pretty much ingrained.