'Hell Week' for U.S. Teen Scientists

'Hell Week' for U.S. Teen Scientists(businessweek.com)

12 points by altay 17 years ago | 11 comments

henning 17 years ago |

> 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 17 years ago | |

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 17 years ago | | |

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.

dominik 17 years ago | |

> What part of being a child prodigy or going through "hell week" summer schools makes you entrepeneurial?

The working your ass off part. I can speak from my own RSI hell week experience, as well as that of the two RSIs at which I was on staff. Hell week is intense. That sort of intensity isn't sustainable, but is necessary in bursts both for research and startups.

While the research is necessarily academic, the passion and focus can translate to any other field. And I know for me, a Midwestern boy at the tender age of 16, coming to MIT and meeting 70+ students from around the world who all were smart and intense was both eye opening and inspiring. Tyle's comment makes perfect sense to me, and he doesn't mean it in a demeaning or superior way. It's just that for many students, including myself, RSI was the first time we met people our own age who clicked with his on an intellectual level. And for nerds like me, that's a closer sort of connection.

You're correct that there isn't a direct causation here, but the spirit can translate easily into entrepreneurship. For example, RSI alums Ben Rahn and Matt DeBergalis started ActBlue back in 2004, and they've seen incredible success with it since.

sysop073 17 years ago |

"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"

ph0rque 17 years ago |

> 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?

timr 17 years ago | |

Because he's exaggerating. The work may be of graduate-quality, but that's because these kids' are usually coddled by the scientists who take them into the lab.

There's a world of difference between doing good science when you're being doted-upon by a professor and post-doc, versus doing it on your own as a graduate student. These kids are smart and motivated, but they're still living a privileged life.

jrockway 17 years ago | |

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

sealedidentity 17 years ago | | |

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

sbt 17 years ago |

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.

dominik 17 years ago |

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