dennymayo replied to your post: The American Association for the Advancement of…

The hard part is convincing these kids to stick with it and either be an actual scientist or a general practitioner if they become an MD.

Absolutely. My advice was not to worry about specialization as an undergrad—once you’re through grad school, nobody cares about your B.Sc. anyhow—and to make sure to get a broad enough education to leave some options for graduate studies. What you think you want to do as a high school student and what you fall in love with as a university student could very easily be two different things. Locking yourself into one path before you really know what you want to do is a great way to chase yourself out of the field.

 ailanthusaltissima replied to your post: The American Association for the Advancement of…

I am going to their conference next year! My friend/labmate is there now. It’s awesome.

I had two “So we’ll see you in Boston next year?” comments from AJAS types. I’d love to go, but I’m not sure the lab budget will allow it. It does seem to be a great meeting—I’m reading tweets from colleagues about sessions in science communication and the like that sound amazing.

I hope your friend’s able to get out and see the city. The schedule seems to be pretty unforgiving (though one of the students I met has apparently managed to have dinner at two of the best restaurants in town, including the one at which my wife surprised me for my fortieth, which I find astounding given that I’ve never managed that sort of thing while attending a conference).