chemical education

Like Natalie Imbruglia’s One Hit Wonder, I’m Torn

So it’s been a while since my last entry, but grad school has eaten me up. But over the past several months, I have been getting seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. No, I’m not talking about industry, I’m talking about another entity entirely.. the world of intellectual property law.

OMGWTFBBQ? That’s probably your response right now, but as someone who has been rather myopic in my career path due to academe being the only thing I know, (and me not really feeling like a perfect fit in industry), the seductive path of law school is in the way.

One of the things I have learned through informational interviews with my local alumni is that law schools LOVE technical backgrounds and patent law is one of the hottest and fastest growing fields at the moment. Of course, things are cyclical which means it might not be great later, but the past 5 years has seen tremendous growth.

There are lots of other scientists going to the other side, but here’s my dilemma…

There are firms that offer patent agent programs to seduce scientists to law. What is this patent agent program? You work at a firm (with zero to little experience in law) and get trained as you work. You get paid a great salary (think average 2.5 to 4 times the highest grad student stipend depending on where you go), with amazing benefits (401k plan, full medical/dental/vision benefits, etc), get to work in a fancy office, feel like a real world adult, get to dress up in fancy clothes and get trained. After a year, you’re probably ready for the patent agent exam, and if you pass, said firm will offer tuition reimbursement if you attend law school.

Yes, they’ll pay for expensive law school. Then you go back to the firm as a full J.D/(M.S. or PhD) as well, get promoted and commit for a few years, then you can go around to other firms as well!

So what’s a chemist to do? I do love research and academe, but my pragmatic side is telling me to join the dark side.

I know I’m not the first to be seduced, and I definitely won’t be the last! Intellectual property law, when it concerns chemistry, is actually quite fascinating. It’s like being a grad student with all the reading, researching and writing you have to do, but you get paid way more and you’re not inhaling chemical fumes. It’s another career path available out there for grad students in chemistry, and I know I hadnt considered it before and just recently learned about it, so I’m throwing it out there, so like me, perhaps your blinders can be taken off and you might consider more options post PhD!

That’s all! I’ll let y’all know what I do in the coming months! For now I have lots of thinking to do.

By •September 1, 2009 •7 comments •chemical education, opinion

Maz Goes Politician

Ever since the budget crisis began here in California, Mitch and I have debated how we would fix the problem if we were in positions of power. While we had some pretty great, and pretty terrible ideas, we soon stopped wondering what we would do in hypothetical situations and began to wonder how we could actually make a difference. Well, we decided to begin stepping into the world of politics; hoping to influence policy decisions that affect scientists and chemists for a start.

Enter ACR 88, a bill introduced by assembly members Torlakson (D-Martinez) and Furutani (D-Carson) in California.

The bill creates the California Task Force on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education (Task Force) to promote the improvement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education across the state. The task force would generate discussion on policy that would improve the teaching of those subject areas for California’s K-12 students. It has no fiscal impact (the task force members are not paid).

You see, currently a full third of the 4th graders and a fifth of the 8th graders in the nation can’t preform basic computational math, and US high school seniors recently tested below the international average (out of 21 countries) in math and science.

Out of this poor group, take the fact that California ranked 46th (against other states) in math proficiency and 42nd in science proficiency on recent 8th grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests.

And it still gets better. More than 50 percent of California 4th and 8th grade students scored below the basic level in science and 40% ranked below basic in math as determined by NAEP.

Given these statistics, it becomes obvious that California needs to drastically rethink it’s teaching methods and policies for K-12 math and science. As energy production, global warming, water purification and other scientific issues become more common to the 10 o’clock news, and therefore more salient in the public mind, we need to also focus on preparing the coming generations for the problems we are going to leave them. Also, the United States Department of Labor has recently shown that math or science preparation will be crucial to successfully competing for a job in 15/20 of the fastest growing occupations right now.

The President is also focusing national attention on scientific research, innovation, and math and science education. In a speech at the National Academies on April 27th, President Obama promised to make U.S. students the international benchmarks in the next decade by doubling budgets at certain science and technology agencies, policy change to enhance math and science education, and beginning to allot more than 3% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to research and development. Obama said he wants to involve everyone from governors to parents to students to help increase support for science and technology and the quality of teaching. Supposedly 5 billion dollars is available in federal funds to help states improve their math and science teaching.

This is well and good, but throwing money aimlessly at the issue won’t solve anything. Bills like ACR 88, creating task forces to investigate effective policy change and inform the legislators, are the correct first step to tackling science and math education reform.

If any of you readers live in California, I urge you to write to your assemblyperson telling them that you believe we need science and math education reform and that you want them to support ACR 88. For any of you that are ACS members, they made it supremely easy for you. Simply go to http://www.act4chemistry.org/action/STEMtaskforceca/ and enter the relevant information. They will automatically send it to the correct representative for your district depending on your address. In fact, they even wrote the letter for you too!

Comments PLEASE. As a California public school survivor for my entire academic life, I have been through (and seen the failings) of the system first hand. I have some ideas on how to fix the issue, but I want to hear from ppl not in California too. Leave your two cents on what needs to be done to improve K-12 science and math education. Move calculus to required at 10th grade? do away with optional general physical sciences and the like? make everybody take biology followed by chemistry and then physics? in that order? what about elementary school? when to start teaching the scientific method? If 5th graders get sex. ed., should they also get newton ed.?

Lets see your ideas.

By •August 25, 2009 •8 comments •chemical education, science policy
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