Young Scientists Voice Hopes and Fears for the Future

摘要

For many budding scientists, the fast-approaching 21 st century—in which they will spend most of their working lives—is filled with both promise and anxiety. It holds the promise of fulfilling their dreams of productive research careers, of being able to—as one young scientist put it—"find out how things work." But it also holds worrisome prospects of hard-to-find jobs, hard-to-get grants, and hard-to-sustain careers. Science interviewed 26 young scientists referred to us by professors around the country as particularly promising students. We wanted to get a preview of the hopes and dreams of people today who may be at the heart and helm of the U.S. scientific community tomorrow. Most of the young scientists we talked to feel they have a reasonable chance of ending up where they want to be: in a university doing research. Despite a great deal of discussion these days of overly narrow Ph.D. programs (see p. 128), only one person in this group, Karen Topp, who hopes to get her Ph.D. in solid-state physics from Cornell University next year, seemed disillusioned with academia. Says Topp: "I used to think I wanted to be a professor, but that changed after seeing faculty here who spend enormous amounts of time trying to raise money." Many in this group have seen equally gifted peers, discouraged by the lengthy training and uncertain future, drop out to go into professions such as finance or patent law. Still, most seem determined to stay the course. Says physicist Ted Liu, who is doing a postdoc at Princeton University: "It depends on what's the most important thing in your life. To me, it's doing what you want to do and getting paid for it, even if it's not that much."