TO: Daniel B. Watkins
FROM: John Janovy, Jr.
School of Biological Sciences
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, NE 68588-0118
jjanovy at unLinfo.unL.edu
RE: Your son's education
Dear Daniel Watkins:
What a wonderful question! [Would you out there who have been through
the system
recommend an approach to his education?] I'm guessing you'll get a
LOT of
answers, depending on the particular system(s) your responders have
"been
through." I've given grades to about 13,000 students in the past 30
years. They
range (now) from faculty members at major universities, executives in
industry, highly
successful entrepeneurs, to the lower end of the socio-economic scale.
So my
comments come from the perspective of one who sees a rather
substantial sample
of human resources come into the university system equipped with all
kinds of
advice, then sees that same sample processed by a system that offers
massive
opportunities but sometimes focuses more on money and prestige than on
the role
of truly talented people in a complex society such as ours.
Put simply, my advice about your son's interest in microbiology (or
any other kind of
biology or any other kind of science) is: don't worry about it. He
will never lack for
opportunities to eventually do research, take challenging courses,
make his mark as
a scientist. Almost any large university, and many small ones, can
produce a
productive scientist. The value of a university education can be
multiplied many
times over by a student simply taking the time to talk to faculty
members who will
listen, seek and find an opportunity to do research early in his/her
career, interact
with graduate students, teach labs (many of our undergrads do all
these things), etc.
The best education is one in which a young person learns early on how
to decide
what he or she personally wants to study, learns how to gather the
resources
necessary to pursue the work, and learns that biological material is
not always
cooperative.
On the other hand, I see a large number of scientists, thrust into
positions of major
responsibility by the momentum of their careers, who have absolutely
no sense
whatsoever of how to interact meaningfully with their fellow humans.
If your son is
truly as talented as he appears to be right now, then 30 years hence
(assuming we
still have a civilized and reasonably stable world) he has an
excellent chance of
finding himself in such a position.
My advice for a middle school scientist? Learn to love art,
literature, music; learn to
get along with your colleagues, but most of all learn to manage human
resources in a
productive, dignified, way. The best lessons now, in my opinion, are
those taught by
the humanities--the history of success and failure, the interactions
between
technology and the wielding of power, the rise and fall of nations,
the brutally honest
lessons of evolution, demography, and the geographic distribution of
resources.
Don't sweat the microbiology. That's the easiest part of a
scientist's career. And
quite frankly, (here comes the wrath of some microbiologists!!)
prokaryotes are in
many ways infinitely more cooperative than some eukaryotes. The
hardest part of
that career will come when, as a successful scientist, your son finds
himself in the
company of arrogant fragile egos unwilling to confer intellectual
citizenship on
anyone who doesn't think exactly like they do. And, there's an
excellent chance he'll
find himself in a position where he's forced to work with those people
to achieve a
common goal.
Good luck.
I'd start with Ernst Mayr's GROWTH OF BIOLOGICAL THOUGHT.
JJ
(PS Sorry about the above format; for some reason it didn't transfer
as well as it normally does!)
