Speaking as a guy who made the pivot to research in life sciences (as a "data scientist") from "full stack software engineer", yes the data and mission is very sexy to a nerdy guy like myself, applying deep learning algorithms to spatial or epigenetic sequencing data of cancer cells to figure out the secret markers or mechanism of cancer cell mestasis or human immune response.
The realistic or unromantic view is you are a cog in the life science industrial complex where you are underpaid and under-appreciated; research often takes years and unclear if you are making progress or scamming the taxpayers like a humanities professor in women's studies (yes even STEM sometimes feels like that); and in computing, unlike tech, you are not the center of attention, most wet lab scientists treat you more like a resource, a grad student they need to make their pvalue or figure panel pop nicely versus a "full stack software engineer" - And if you don't like it, hundreds of thousands of post-doc's or grad students are waiting to take your place for their shot - not in pursing their passion but for a visa in America.
The real value I learned from my pivot from pivoting away from tech and pivoting into Biology is ironically how to gamble. I joined a Discord/Slack sub-channel for #options-trading, #sports-betting and #poker during my studies for a Masters in data science with other degenerate students who loved gambling, and how to identify, automate and size +EV plays in gambling or derivatives trading. I make more than 2-3x what I make in W-2 from my capital gains and W2-G than my W-2 for past the 6 years. But that is not put shade on biological sciences and rather giving credit to Biology for teaching me how to analyze data and gamble.
one thing's for sure, there are certain spaces for people who lack people skills, and that seems to be associated with "STEM" skills
This applies just as well to biology.
RE: your political point, I submit to you many institutions are very left-leaning and "Woke-1" was defeated by its emphasis on shaming tactics and identity politics - which ironically brought upon the identity politics of the right and the current "regimen's" backlash on defunding DEI initiatives. And I welcome actually "Woke-2.0" where DSA is actually focused on kitchen table issues such as grocery and health insurance cost; and anticipate that our political pendulum will swing to the left at the next cycle.
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=I%20should%20have%20loved%20bi...
Other than that, I don't mind it, but I still prefer silicon.
The history of physics and the theory of it is great. A Brief History of Time is an awesome read.
Studying physics is not like that. Studying formulas, applying them to situations, and of course very math heavy.
One thing I regret is the experiments as well. In physics and chemistry they were kind of a blur. Just following instructions and sometimes they didn’t work out and no one knew why. I never learned the most important thing: how to design an experiment. Following a long recipe then reading the result is much less useful than observing a thing, forming a testable, falsifiable hypothesis about that thing, and then testing it.
Last thing I’ll say is you probably aren’t going to get the “wonder” of science from a science class. Those classes are there to tell you the answers, but the most interesting part is discovering the answers yourself which is not possible in a one semester survey course.
Most of my courses were very "Point A" to "Point B". You're given a set of formulae, then a problem, then you use some combinations of those formulae to solve the problem. Most labs were the same way: you're given an exact script to follow without any explanation of the experiment design. It felt like both were optimized for easy instruction / grading and not for learning new skills or concepts.
Only two of the courses I took were substantially different. One was an upper division lab that actually was more open-ended, where we were given a goal and some equipment and had to figure out how to use the equipment to meet the goal. Another was a more conceptual course where we explored how to approach broad problems to come up with rough estimates for a wide variety of questions. Both were much more engaging, but I saw many students good at the typical course type struggle with how open ended these courses were.
Well, a lot of places would penalize you if your data is incorrect, so most of the focus ends up on execution rather than the why. If you were angling for a high GPA for whatever reason, you cannot afford to experiment too much during lab work. It's another case entirely of course if you are conducting research.
Exactly right. School teaches you that the point of running an experiment is to try and get the same result as the teacher, while performing a ritual with steps called "hypothesis" and "method".
When I became an adult, I gravitated to computers because there is so much to learn about them. My focus has been infrastructure, but I've picked up software development, assembly, kernel hacking, data science, and a dozen other things along the way (mostly at amateur levels, but I'm always happy to learn).
I have have other interests (economics, homebrewing, astronomy, sociology, making music), but in each of those cases I learned what I wanted to after a few years & moved away. When covid hit, I picked up natural history through iNaturalist -- and that has so far been very very different, much more the same kind of endless opportunity for discovery that computers felt like.
There is so much weirdness in biology. Parasitic wasps with genes that came from viruses that suppress caterpillar immune systems, male spiders that have appendages (pedipalps) that look like boxing gloves, the many kinds of bumble bees around me, introduced species, nests, microorganisms -- it's insane. It's higher up the stack than the stuff the author is describing, but no less wonderfully complex and fascinating.
The quote from Lewis Thomas really hit home for me: "People ought to be walking around all day, all through their waking hours calling to each other in endless wonderment, talking of nothing except that" [cell|insect|weird relationship|phenology|behaviour]. Kudos to the author for putting this all into words so well, and for adding a dozen books to my must-read list.
You can argue that about any subject. People want to take physics and learn stuff about black holes but instead the intro courses are about balls rolling down inclined planes and other such "boring" things. But you have to know the basics before you can understand the "cool" stuff!
previous discussions:
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25136422
I used to be inquisitive but coming from a poor neighborhood, I had no access in the olden days.
This type of article should persist.
I see this book referenced all the time (HN, tech CEOs, misc. articles, etc), especially from folks who got into AI early. Is it really that amazing? Or is this some kind of signaling folks like to do to prove their smarts? Or both?
Being that it's more of a Gen Xer pop-sci book, it's not to "prove smarts", but to share a vibe. It belongs on someone's shelf next to their copies of The Naked Lunch and Aja. Maybe even a signed copy of A New Kind of Science?
I'm not trying to be dismissive. It's just true. Nobody is even ashamed of it, nor should be. It's an interesting and still relevant perspective, but because there's no resolution to this line of thinking, many find it underwhelming. There's no "aha" moment to be found in any of this. Just lots of introspection.
You gotta take the good with the bad though. The tall grass is an easy place to hide.
But then I took the second required biology course. And rather than be about memorizing the krebs cycle, it was macrobiology. Ecology, evolution, and everything I hadn't realized I wanted to learn about the world around me. I instantly fell in love and 99'd the class. I changed my major to Biology, went pretty heavy into biology and chemistry, and didn't take more than a few Java classes in Comp Sci. I graduated with a B.S. in Biology.
I'm still a software developer, mind you, but I wouldn't trade the Biology degree for anything. Learning statistics, experimental design and experimentation, and just having the opportunity to deep dive into the physical world from the biggest to the smallest details, it was life-changing.
I still ended up learning data models, algorithms, and probably would be a better engineer if I had dug in deep on comp sci, but I like to think the biology degree helped me be a better developer for different reasons.