- #1
Modey3
- 135
- 1
Are Scientists Becoming Less "Hands on"
Hello,
I'm a graduate student who has been working in a surface analysis/modification lab (AES, XPS, SIMS, Ion Implantation) for the past three-years, and I have experience repairing, modifying, and operating equipment on top of doing my own research. My adviser is a very "old school" scientist who did a lot of instrument design/repair work in his day. Most other research groups in my department seemed to be focused on pure research: i.e. just running equipment. I find it astounding of the number of materials science graduate students who don't know how to use a multimeter or oscilloscope. It turns out that the only lab personnel who I can have a good electronics/vacuum-type discussion with are in the condensed matter physics labs in the building over.
What prompted me to write this post is that the lab-manager who ran my lab got an awesome job in industry. My adviser, who is the lab director, hired a replacement lab-manger who is a PhD in Materials Science, had 10+ publications, and several years of experience in industry/academia. The problem is that this guy had almost no practical skills with electronics and surface science instrumentation. Even after showing him, I still don't think he knows how to use our electronic analysis equipment for doing instrument repair. The only time when he will engage in instrument repair is when he has our electronics-shop technicians backing him up.
Have our fields of study become so compartmentalized that we losing the practical skills needed to do research on our own?
modey3
Hello,
I'm a graduate student who has been working in a surface analysis/modification lab (AES, XPS, SIMS, Ion Implantation) for the past three-years, and I have experience repairing, modifying, and operating equipment on top of doing my own research. My adviser is a very "old school" scientist who did a lot of instrument design/repair work in his day. Most other research groups in my department seemed to be focused on pure research: i.e. just running equipment. I find it astounding of the number of materials science graduate students who don't know how to use a multimeter or oscilloscope. It turns out that the only lab personnel who I can have a good electronics/vacuum-type discussion with are in the condensed matter physics labs in the building over.
What prompted me to write this post is that the lab-manager who ran my lab got an awesome job in industry. My adviser, who is the lab director, hired a replacement lab-manger who is a PhD in Materials Science, had 10+ publications, and several years of experience in industry/academia. The problem is that this guy had almost no practical skills with electronics and surface science instrumentation. Even after showing him, I still don't think he knows how to use our electronic analysis equipment for doing instrument repair. The only time when he will engage in instrument repair is when he has our electronics-shop technicians backing him up.
Have our fields of study become so compartmentalized that we losing the practical skills needed to do research on our own?
modey3