On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 08:19:04PM -0600, Ruhlen, Rachel Louise (UMC-Student) wrote: > The short answer is I'm involved in her education and she's involved in my > work. She's got an awesome women scientist role-model: myself. :) Great! > experiments on mice in space. (I secretly hope she'll go into physics > because I loved physics in college and nearly changed my major from biology I have this idea that physics is the ideal "undecided" major, and that at an least partial physics major is ideal background for anyone. As a major, you've got enough math to move up into a math major if you suddenly want to, and more math than everyone else -- so you can barge into another field without being intimidated by their math techniques, and may even get to tell them what they're doing wrong. And unlike the math majors you do get the training in experiment and scientific method, plus tying the math to fundamental real world stuff to help put other science in a framework. I don't have scientific evidence to back this up :) just gut prejudice and anecdotes. I went from physics to geology to planetary science, but at Caltech, where everyone _does_ get the equivalent of a partial physics major. And then some of the Caltech bio types I knew went to grad school elsewhere and would show horror at the bad statistical techniques there. I heard of some environmental scientists, maybe? who'd been a physicist first, and made a lot of progress simply in being more mathematical and rigorous in his models than his predecessors. And the geology department at Caltech seemed to prefer taking grad students who'd been physics or chemistry majors elsewhere, because they thought it was easier to bring those people up to speed in geology than to take other school's rockhounds and make up for their lack of math and physics. I admit there's a part of me that regrets not having a 'real' sounding major. Planetary science, and I'm in grad school for computer and cognitive science. If it has to call itself a science is it really science? :) It's not _just_ physics; my ideal core curriculum would include introductions to cell and evolutionary biology and to astronomy and geology. And Caltech's core has actually moved that way since I left. But the math and physics grounding feels essential to me, somehow. Of course, my life has been such that I got to view calculus as basic math, properly possessed by anyone around me. Yes, this attitude leads to problems as I meet more people... > and she's really good at math. She likes to show me her science experiments Make sure later school doesn't change that! One thing to look out for in a couple of years is whether the school's going too slow. Nothing like covering arithmetic from 1st to 5th grade to squelch an interest in higher math. -xx- Damien X-)