• Question: do you think the young scientists are being trained up to the right standards to become a good scientist?

    Asked by 368xygg26 to Gavin, Karen, Mark, Michel, Roisin on 10 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Mark Kennedy

      Mark Kennedy answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      I think most of us are, but there are exceptions

      There’s a very competitive nature in science right now. You have to get your results and publish them very fast, so that you can get a job. Which means some scientists skip corners and don’t go a good enough job, just so they can publish their paper first and get credit.

      Science needs a bit of a overhaul to combat this problem. We should all be working together to make sure our results are right, rather than working against each other just to be first. And I don’t think this is being taught as well as it should be.

    • Photo: Michel Destrade

      Michel Destrade answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      Do you mean the young scientists in secondary school? Yes absolutely, I find the standards are pretty high in secondary school and the students are well trained when they arrive in University. However, I’ve spoken about maths in primary schools and the pupils are always asking questions, but when I speak in secondary schools, no-one asks questions. What’s that about? Makes me think that there might be too much pressure on the JC or LC and no time for questions. That’s a pity because you need to be curious and question everything to be good at science.

    • Photo: Karen

      Karen answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      I think we have a very good standard of education in Ireland. My only issue with the young scientists that come to work with me is that they leave school/ college and think they know it all. I would say I learned about 10% of what I know about haematology in college and the rest is all experience. So my advise to all young scientists is listen to the people you work with or who work in the field. Experience and experimentation are the best teachers.

    • Photo: Roisin Jones

      Roisin Jones answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      For the most part, I think yes, scientific training (and education in general) is done to a high standard in Ireland. I think that Mark has a good point about people cutting corners to get results though, and I think another major issue with the way the education system works is that is emphasises rote learning (i.e. learning off by heart) over critical thinking, we means that sometimes we have an issue where people are able to follow instructions and learn them off by heart, but they don’t understand the underlying principles or why they’re doing what they’re doing. I think this is something that seriously needs to be addressed, both at secondary school level and at college level.

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