Good ole boys

Last week I had the privileged and honor of going to lunch with 4 levels of hierarchy above me at work. I was the only woman at lunch and the only one under the age of 55 too. I also had the unique privilege of listening to all that is wrong with young students and scientist today. Apparently the youth of today is not as prepared or a smart as the youth of 30 years ago. Graphing calculators and computers have made all young scientist stupid, not more efficient but stupid. Also the innovation and wide use of field effect transistor has destroyed the young scientist’s ability to recognize analog on and off switches. Side note here; Who uses analog circuitry anymore? Come on people it is the 21^st century. They claimed that we (because I am a young scientist) do not even know how to turn dials, which is totally not true.

I am here to launch an unofficially response to all the good ole boys in science who think they were much smarter in their youth then the youth of today. I will start by saying, YOU ARE NOT THAT SMART. You struggled with concepts and probably simple calculus when you were young. If the youth of today are not prepared for your class it is because they had bad teachers and mentors. The youth population is not getting collectively dumber.

This summer I had a student that was so motivated and dedicated it was frightening and he was only 16. He did not know anything about basic electronics, but he knew a lot more than I did about software and computer languages and a WHOLE lot more than the good ole boys. It is fair to say that the knowledge base of today’s young scientists is different from 30 years ago, not better, not worse just different. However it is better, in that they are more competent to deal with today’s technologies, so there!