

'Hell Week' for U.S. Teen Scientists - altay
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2008/tc2008085_116154.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

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henning
> They're the people who will succeed or fail in launching successors to
> Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Amgen (AMGN), and Genetech (DNA).

What part of being a child prodigy or going through "hell week" summer schools
makes you entrepeneurial? What they're going through grooms them for careers
in academia, which has relatively little to do with building products and
companies.

> Tyle says he feels a much closer connection with his fellow young scientists
> than with his high school classmates.

This is setting him up to be out of touch with what people like, what they
want, and how they respond to new ideas. How is that helpful?

~~~
mlinsey
Agreed with your first point but couldn't disagree more about your second. I
can't see why you would think that talented, driven kids getting to know like-
minded people who are passionate about their field would be a bad thing. I'm
sure they have experience enough dealing with ordinary people for the other 48
weeks of their year.

~~~
henning
Yeah, you're right. What I was referring to would only occur if he didn't have
much interaction with ordinary people the rest of the time.

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sysop073
"Although fears are widespread that science education in the U.S. is far
behind that of China and India, Tyle and his friends are doing their best to
prove that belief wrong."

I don't think when people say "science education" they're referring to "some
of the best and brightest U.S. high school students" taking summer classes at
MIT; they're talking about regular high schoolers taking regular classes at
regular schools.

This program is cool, but it doesn't do much to say "Look at the US, it's good
at science education after all"

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ph0rque
> Andrew Yeager, a professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine,
> has been judging the ISEF for nine years and the Intel Science Talent Search
> for more than 20. "The level of sophistication in these projects is in many
> cases beyond the level of graduate school and doctoral research," Yeager
> says.

So why not award them graduate school degrees?

~~~
jrockway
Incidentally, this says more about the low quality of grad school research
than the high quality of these kids' research.

~~~
sealedidentity
Certainly, from what I've seen, you can easily get away with little work at
grad school.

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sbt
You know how FOX tells you that your dentist is dealing drugs to your kids.
This is the same, only target at worried middle class parents convinced by the
idea that academic success equals success in life.

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dominik
Yay for RSI :-) Any other RSI alums read HN? RSI '00 here.

