You may be just like me. I'm that terrified PhD student who feels too stupid, too unprepared, and mistakenly accepted into a program far above my capacity. I have to keep reminding myself that my brain is still making synapses (there's hope)!
"Why couldn't I think of that experiment?"
"How do they know so much? They're the same year as me!"
These were my thoughts and I am making this blog in part to pretend long enough that I do belong here and in part to help others who feel as inadequate as I do.
I think the main issue is that institutions teach science the wrong way. They teach to memorize and not to think. What this does is stifle creativity and frankly, makes science boring. Of course memorization plays a role but alone it just makes you a record player (and unless you have the equivalent of photographic memory for audio, a rather poor one).
So here I'll allow myself to question things I'm too scared to ask my labmates lest they think I'm stupid AND I'll even go so far as to try and find answers. Even if they're wrong initially (heck, even nature papers get retracted)!
Basically, I'm going to let myself ASK without fear of what others will think of my intelligence.
I hope to reignite my passion for science and scientific thought. To resurrect thought experiments.
The main goal here is to use the basic facts about science and apply them in a wider framework.
Feel free to leave me questions you would be interested in seeing answered.
Science doesn't need to look like this:
to be fun or thought provoking.
"Why couldn't I think of that experiment?"
"How do they know so much? They're the same year as me!"
These were my thoughts and I am making this blog in part to pretend long enough that I do belong here and in part to help others who feel as inadequate as I do.
I think the main issue is that institutions teach science the wrong way. They teach to memorize and not to think. What this does is stifle creativity and frankly, makes science boring. Of course memorization plays a role but alone it just makes you a record player (and unless you have the equivalent of photographic memory for audio, a rather poor one).
So here I'll allow myself to question things I'm too scared to ask my labmates lest they think I'm stupid AND I'll even go so far as to try and find answers. Even if they're wrong initially (heck, even nature papers get retracted)!
Basically, I'm going to let myself ASK without fear of what others will think of my intelligence.
I hope to reignite my passion for science and scientific thought. To resurrect thought experiments.
The main goal here is to use the basic facts about science and apply them in a wider framework.
Feel free to leave me questions you would be interested in seeing answered.
Science doesn't need to look like this:
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