I really need some advice on finding my path in science.

[Schwobar]

First off, hello League of Reason!

I'm having a great deal of trouble choosing a major and I'm not sure I can work through this myself. I'm 20 and I've got one year of University behind me. Well, sort of a year because I got frustrated, dropped out just before finals, and took a year off to figure out what I want in life. It was a dumb decision but I did achieve my goal of gaining perspective so I count myself as no worse for the ware. I now know I want a career in academia/research and I'm enrolled in an excellent school for September. I am, however, torn between two possible career paths and its driving me crazy.

My main interest lies in physics. Specifically astrophysics and planetary geology, but I'm fascinated with the entire field itself. The harder I study, the more interested I become. Second to physics my interest is in biological/paleo anthropology. It seems logical to choose physics, the field I enjoy the most, but the problem gets a bit more complicated than that. I find the idea of doing bio/paleo anthropology a million times more exciting than actually doing physics work. Again, I like physics more, but the idea of spending my field time outdoors adventuring in Africa making discoveries, observing primates, and doing digs makes me downright giddy. To me, it beats the hell out of working in a lab. (As an aside, I know lots of students don't end up with a career in research but for the sake of this discussion lets assume I'm capable of making it that far).

So, League of Reason, which do you think is more important? Pursuing your greatest intellectual fascination or forgoing it for your secondary fascination because the field work really appeals to you?

Also, if AronRa, Tf00t or AW read this: The three of you have done a lot to spark my interest in, as well as my deep respect for, the endeavor of science. Thanks a lot for the work you do!

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

They are completly different endeavours and the selection is particularly strange. However I can tell you this, whatever you want to do, keep in mind that you will be doing that for the the majority of the rest of your life, not that it will make much difference since we tend to adapt and like the circunstances we find ourselfs in. The Zoology research is not only limited to field work, it also needs labs work dissecting and cataloging species, searching the literature for previous findings. And given that you are aiming for research then if you achieve researcher status you will most likely be a teacher/researcher (on an academic funding in exchange for teaching students).
Physics is also cool, but I guarantee you to be much more dificult then you imagin it to be right now and that your opinion about it will change (for better or ofr worst is uncertain), you will not necessarily be stuck in a lab but you will mostly spend your time planing experiments, depending of the field of study the "field work" will be almost null (because the world is not instrumented, and instruments are a fundamental part of any physicist). But if you like it more then everything else then it would seam strange to chose anything else.

Thi is not really a matter for us to say that you should do this or that, you are the one that knows what you want to do and that should be your decision alone.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

As a biological anthropologist about to graduate this May I have to say that anthropology is THE BEST. I have done archaeological digs in Hawaii and I am going to another dig in Spain this summer, which has early sapiens and Neanderthals. I am also looking into graduate school for paleoecology.
The thing is that bones and fossils were my passion since I was a kid. That is why it is such a dream for me to be able to do what I am doing. In addition, you can always work in the field and the lab (paleoecology is usually done in the lab).
I would have to say that you would never be bored doing biological anthropology, there is always something new and interesting to discover. However, you should stick to what you love. If physics is your passion, than go with it. there is no point in wasting the next three years of your life studying something that you feel you do not really like, and wishing you had chosen what you love to do from the start.
You can always major in one and minor in the other as well.

 

[Schwobar]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

As a biological anthropologist about to graduate this May I have to say that anthropology is THE BEST. I have done archaeological digs in Hawaii and I am going to another dig in Spain this summer, which has early sapiens and Neanderthals. I am also looking into graduate school for paleoecology.
The thing is that bones and fossils were my passion since I was a kid. That is why it is such a dream for me to be able to do what I am doing. In addition, you can always work in the field and the lab (paleoecology is usually done in the lab).
I would have to say that you would never be bored doing biological anthropology, there is always something new and interesting to discover. However, you should stick to what you love. If physics is your passion, than go with it. there is no point in wasting the next three years of your life studying something that you feel you do not really like, and wishing you had chosen what you love to do from the start.
You can always major in one and minor in the other as well.

Sometimes when I think about paleoanthropology I get the impression that there really isn't much to discover anymore until we start looking at a more recent fossil record. Like, if we're studying hominids from several million years ago it seems like we usually get a relatively sparse archaeological record of some very small bone fragments (aren't larger remains like a whole skull pretty rare?), teeth, maybe some stone chips and a tool or two, etc. Am I wrong to think that there really isn't a whole lot more we can learn from this record? I hope I am because I find the idea kinda depressing. (Don't get me wrong, I do understand very hard work and good science goes into creating what we know about really ancient hominids).

Also, for reasons I would probably have trouble articulating I sort of feel like the field of paleoanthropology is "dying" relative to other fields of inquiry in the sense that we're fast approaching the limit to the knowledge that the archaeological record and primatology can provide in terms of understanding our earliest ancestors. In contrast, I get the feeling the field of physics is on the verge of a boon, especially if we as a society begin to explore space more. Thoughts?

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

There are many things to look for in paleoanthropology still. As I said, I want to study paleoecology, which is just starting to open up in paleoanthropology. Reconstructing past habitats can tell us a lot about the fossils we are studying. Furthermore, one does not have to find new fossils to study this subject, one can work with the fossils we have.
We still have not found the last common ancestor between chimps and us. We still do not have a good picture of the transition between early Homo and the Australopiths. There are many new things to discover in the field of hominin evolution besides these things.
In addition, you do not have to study hominin evolution. There is still general primate evolution. You can study the emergence of primates in the Paleocene (maybe even the Cretaceous if the genetic clock is right). You can study ape evolution from the Miocene. There are always more fossils to be found.
Furthermore, anthropology has a new field as well; it is called Human Evolutionary Ecology (HEE). There are many new findings coming out studying hunter/gatherers and other primates in the field.
I am not going to argue that the boom in anthropology is as big as the boom in astrophysics, but it is still going strong. It is not a field of study that is dying.
Again, please choose the field of science you find the most interesting. Just because I think anthropology is the best thing under the sun, does not mean you think it is. I would say take the introductory courses for both astrophysics and anthropology to see which one you feel like you love the most. I assume that you need to take course requirements (my university had that). Fill them up with entry-level anthropology and astrophysics classes and see which one you like the most.

 

[JustBusiness17]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

I can tell you on a social level, anthropology will make for much more interesting table conversations than advanced physics. I have a good friend pursuing his masters in anthro and we've sat around for hours upon hours discussing the most intriguing subjects. Thats not to say that physics conversations aren't as interesting and can actually far surpass anthro on certain levels, but many of the concepts tend to be out of reach for the average person.

I would personally pursue an education to study modern culture myself because I think it will become increasing relevant to society as globalization continues to merge foreign societies with interesting outcomes. As a marketing marketing student, I can tell you that knowledge regarding psychographic market segments are becoming increasingly valuable to the business world. I'm not sure how many anthropologists work as consultants to major businesses, but there is certainly a need for that type of expertise. Marketing is also highly useful in politics which means there could be opportunities there as well -in addition to determining government policy decisions.

Of course, I can't help but make a pitch for marketing which is a science in itself. Don't confuse it with arts and crafts like many of the students in my program have. Marketing is the application of knowledge gained through the fields of psychology, anthro/sociology, and economics. Product design is also heavily influenced by marketing decisions which ties it to engineering. Marketing itself is a very new and rapidly evolving field of study which makes things extremely interesting. Its also notoriously used for unethical purposes so it needs people with noble intentions to dilute the madness. Here is an amazing documentary series covering the brief history of this area:


This is a 4 part series that should be watched in order. Use the wikipedia page as a reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self



I hope that helped...

 

[Case]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

Thought experiments like these don't really lead to great predictions about reality.
1) Email some physicists asking them if they'd mind letting you follow them around for a while so you got to see what they're doing all day
2) Email some anthropologists asking the same question
3) Evaluate

Instead of following around, which may be hard to do, you could go for a simple interview. Ask them if they can spare an hour, invite them for coffee and there you go.
That's what I'd do.

keep in mind that you will be doing that for the the majority of the rest of your life

I disagree, if you have a scientific degree, you are actually less restricted in what you can do with your education later. And you can always become a taxi driver.

 

[JustBusiness17]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

Thought experiments like these don't really lead to great predictions about reality.
1) Email some physicists asking them if they'd mind letting you follow them around for a while so you got to see what they're doing all day
2) Email some anthropologists asking the same question
3) Evaluate

Instead of following around, which may be hard to do, you could go for a simple interview. Ask them if they can spare an hour, invite them for coffee and there you go.
That's what I'd do.

The infamous Informational Interview! I spent about a week doing these by phone to help me pick the right school. It was also a second confirmation that I was going into the right career path. The first confirmation was a 2 week long career exploration program. Learned a lot about myself with all the testing. I tried to do it as unbiased as possible because its easy to subconsciously skew the results of aptitude tests. Even with a little bias, 6 unique comprehensive tests are hard to cheat... Especially the psychological ones.

 

[borrofburi]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

Personally, I always figure out by what I'll regret more. If I try something and it fails, will I be happy knowing that I couldn't have known better? If I don't try something will I always wonder what could have been, even if not-trying turned out fine? In your case: if you go physics, even if you're happy, will you always wonder if your life could have been more awesome with bio? If you go bio, and it fails miserably, will you be ok with that, knowing that you had to try for curiosity's sake?

1) Email some physicists asking them if they'd mind letting you follow them around for a while so you got to see what they're doing all day
2) Email some anthropologists asking the same question
3) Evaluate

People really like to talk about themselves, even from cold calls.

and took a year off to figure out what I want in life. It was a dumb decision

Not necessarily. I took a year off, one of the best choices I've ever made.

So, League of Reason, which do you think is more important? Pursuing your greatest intellectual fascination or forgoing it for your secondary fascination because the field work really appeals to you?

Not certain, but I worry that if you go with bio you'll end up in deep procrastination. If you can avoid deep procrastination, as Cal Newport notes, it almost doesn't matter what you do, because you'll start to like it once you're good at it, and getting good at it simply requires practice and being on the edge of your competence level.

 

[Womble]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

Geology sounds like it might be the way to go for now. From a straight geology background you could go off into the planetary geology direction or you could go off into palaeo stuff. Not got time for much more at the moment as i'm busy but please PM me and i'll instill you with what words of wisdom i might have padded out with a bit of waffle However i'm onw of the sites resident geologists and i'm hoping to take myself planetary science wards with an MSc that i've just started.

 

[borrofburi]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

Geology sounds like it might be the way to go for now. From a straight geology background you could go off into the planetary geology direction or you could go off into palaeo stuff. Not got time for much more at the moment as i'm busy but please PM me and i'll instill you with what words of wisdom i might have padded out with a bit of waffle However i'm onw of the sites resident geologists and i'm hoping to take myself planetary science wards with an MSc that i've just started.

I did this sort of "splits the difference" thing. I wouldn't recommend it. But maybe I just had a bad experience.

 

[Schwobar]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

I think I've reached a decision. I think it would be silly for me to pursue anything other than physics. I think about physics constantly and while I like paleoanthropology (or even just paleontology in general) I think its mostly because I have some romantic notion of the great adventure that is field work. No, I don't think of Indiana Jones but I think I developed this point of view reading Greg Laden's Congo Memoirs. I've been reading paleoanthropology papers lately and they just don't grab my attention like I think they should. I was in it for the adventure, not for love of the subject.

Remember in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" when he writes about needing to pick something and stick with it to avoid seriously overthinking a decision? I'm a lot like that too. Thanks for the help everyone gave in this thread.

 

[borrofburi]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

Remember in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"

You've read everything in the compilation, right? Not just "surely you're joking"? All of them are fantastic:
http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Character/dp/0393061329/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273417655&sr=8-1

 

[Schwobar]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

Remember in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"

You've read everything in the compilation, right? Not just "surely you're joking"? All of them are fantastic:
http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Character/dp/0393061329/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273417655&sr=8-1

Thanks, I'll be sure to check those out! Right now I'm torrenting 7 of his physics lectures. Other than Stephen Jay Gould, I don't know anyone who conveys such excitement and thrill when discussing their field.

 

[Womble]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

Geology sounds like it might be the way to go for now. From a straight geology background you could go off into the planetary geology direction or you could go off into palaeo stuff. Not got time for much more at the moment as i'm busy but please PM me and i'll instill you with what words of wisdom i might have padded out with a bit of waffle However i'm onw of the sites resident geologists and i'm hoping to take myself planetary science wards with an MSc that i've just started.

I did this sort of "splits the difference" thing. I wouldn't recommend it. But maybe I just had a bad experience.

What on earth do you mean by 'splits the difference'??? Are you implying that i don't know the avenues for further study that are available to someone with a degree in geology? Granted given the topics i favoured i'd be strugling to go palaeo of any type but then whilst i like the idea of know about that stuff it bores me. However i'm more than equipted for going planetary sciences.

 

[borrofburi]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

What on earth do you mean by 'splits the difference'??? Are you implying that i don't know the avenues for further study that are available to someone with a degree in geology?

I think you may be overreacting, or at the very least significantly misunderstanding me, I only meant that I picked a major that I didn't necessarily like that much because of the things it would allow me to pursue in the future with that degree (because I didn't know for certain what I wanted to do just yet); but it turned out I hated that degree, even if it did let me do anything I might want when I graduate, I hated the degree itself. I was only saying that picking a degree because it allows you to do either of your possible "real passions" when graduate, especially if that degree itself is not appealing to you, is a bad idea; I was not at all commenting on possible future specializations or uses.

 

[Womble]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

What on earth do you mean by 'splits the difference'??? Are you implying that i don't know the avenues for further study that are available to someone with a degree in geology?

I think you may be overreacting, or at the very least significantly misunderstanding me, I only meant that I picked a major that I didn't necessarily like that much because of the things it would allow me to pursue in the future with that degree (because I didn't know for certain what I wanted to do just yet); but it turned out I hated that degree, even if it did let me do anything I might want when I graduate, I hated the degree itself. I was only saying that picking a degree because it allows you to do either of your possible "real passions" when graduate, especially if that degree itself is not appealing to you, is a bad idea; I was not at all commenting on possible future specializations or uses.

......i'd be very interested to know how you think that you could gauge my reaction level via the interwebs. I offered a very short bit of advice as my time was short with an invite to PM for more detail, whilst i might promote geology i'm not going to talk someone into doing the subject if they don't want to do it. I had no idea what level of interest the OP had but i picked on the mention of geology and it's connection to palaeo stuffs.

If there has been a misunderstanding i think i'd say that it was in the ambiguous nature of your first post to me as your intentions were not clear.

 

[AndroidAR]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

I have a similar problem, however, the decision is still a few years away, though I have made 2 career path changes already.

Early on, my plans were to look into architecture or law. Come application time, I scrapped both of those and started majoring in Electrical Engineering. After my first year, I became distraught by the amount of math (which, for an electrical engineering student, it is not good to suck at math), and I started looking for options. I had become enamored by the field of biomedical engineering, and I informed my advisor that I might transfer to a school that offered it (seeing as I had lost all my scholarships), but, to my surprise, my school is starting up their own biomedical engineering program. So, a year after that, the present day, I am transitioning from EE to BE.

My big career decision is pertinent what comes after undergrad, and like yours, they are related to what I am good at, and what I want to do.

My first choice is to go into law. Throughout high school, I excelled at writing and government-related courses. I am very good, it seems, at understanding and using written language, as well as studying the finer points of the legal system. On this path, I could use my biomedical engineering degree to get into patent law, which I have looked into.

On the other hand, I want to go into prosthetics. Further down the line, I want to get into neuroprosthetics and possibly even biorobotics and the like. And while it may be a pipe-dream, I would like to create a ghost-in-the-shell scenario, unite mind and machine, etc. Only problem is: I suck horribly at math.

While I would be better at law, so far my mind is set on doing the second choice, not because there is money in it (law and medicine are both lucrative fields, so I'd be fine financially in either), but because it is what I would enjoy doing.

While I won't decide for you, I will say this: someone once told me that, "When picking a career choice, pick the one you'd be happier doing for the rest of your life."

 

[borrofburi]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

I think you may be overreacting, or at the very least significantly misunderstanding me, I only meant that I picked a major that I didn't necessarily like that much because of the things it would allow me to pursue in the future with that degree (because I didn't know for certain what I wanted to do just yet); but it turned out I hated that degree, even if it did let me do anything I might want when I graduate, I hated the degree itself. I was only saying that picking a degree because it allows you to do either of your possible "real passions" when graduate, especially if that degree itself is not appealing to you, is a bad idea; I was not at all commenting on possible future specializations or uses.

......i'd be very interested to know how you think that you could gauge my reaction level via the interwebs. I offered a very short bit of advice as my time was short with an invite to PM for more detail, whilst i might promote geology i'm not going to talk someone into doing the subject if they don't want to do it. I had no idea what level of interest the OP had but i picked on the mention of geology and it's connection to palaeo stuffs.

If there has been a misunderstanding i think i'd say that it was in the ambiguous nature of your first post to me as your intentions were not clear.

Then I guess we had a misunderstanding; I apologize for the failure to communicate clearly. Though I will note that my first post was not to you, but rather a comment on your post directed toward the OP, meaning to say that I tried the sort of thing you were recommending (keeping both doors open) and it worked out poorly for me.

 

[eric8476]

Re: I really need some advice on finding my path in science

both can get tedious i say go with what you think your best at.