<p>Good points 2boysima, cloverdale and Blossom.
And folks, remember, Intel is not the Nobel prize. Nobel prize winners have not yet cured cancer. Although I hope someone does before too long. Unlike the Intel competition, I have a personal stake in this.</p>
<p>This discussion about whether Intel finalists are in some other way damaged, poorly socialized, nerdy, etc. reminds me of the reaction one sometimes gets when it emerges that one's kid got accepted to HYP. It's "oh, but do they spend all their time studying?", which is another way of suggesting that they may be smart, but they're probably a social loser. I guess the kids that Blossom describes: "All of them strike me as absurdly smart and motivated and well-read.... but quite normal in their interactions with other people. ... none of them seem to have suffered from a childhood of parental pushing and angst", just doesn't make people feel as comfortable as the picture of the nerdy, brainy, social outcast.</p>
<p>Donemom,
I would venture a guess that a very high percentage of the posters on this board are graduates of HYPS and have kids at these institutions (and I'll venture another guess that an even higher percentage are posting on this thread). I don't think most of us really think Intel finalists are damaged, socially backward ot nerdy. Some of us feel sorry that society seems to demand that kids to become mini-adults instead of just being kids. This is regardless of IQ, talent, desire, and drive. What I'm seeing on this thread is support for a new kind of childhood: one that includes personal training in kindergarten and working in genome projects while in high school. Because that's what the kids really want to do...if they are smart and motivated.
I'll share another story. I know a family of geniuses. Real ones...Mom, Dad, two boys and a girl. Mom worked her tail off to accelerate her boys, drive them to enrichment classes, enter them in competitions, and keep them achieving higher and higher goals. The boys got into Harvard. The girl is the brightest of all. Mom has now taken a break...I asked her "why?" and she said...'it just doesn't make any difference...they will become what they become no matter what I do...and my boys say they would have liked to play more as kids. I'm letting my daughter play. And I'm taking more time for myself."<br>
Marite
Best of luck....we're all hoping for a cure as soon as possible.</p>
<p>Symphonymom:</p>
<p>I still don't get what you mean by kids being kids. There are kids for whom the idea of fun is to solve some complicated problems, There are kids whose idea of fun is to emulate a baseball or tennis champion. One way of spending one's childhood is not any better than others. There are parents who keep their kids' noses to the grindstone; there are parents who try to live their sports dreams through their kids. </p>
<p>I don't see where in the writ-eups on Intel finalists it is said that the kids excelled because they were pressured to do so. The kids who are pushed are generally the above average kids, not those who already have the inner drive. Knowing some real high achievers, I suspect that some parents have to put the brakes on them, tell them "enough is enough" rather than push them.</p>
<p>I don't even KNOW how one could push a kid to do the kind of work Intel requires. My two boys now are at Brown and Vassar, and they did not do Intel. Had I wanted to PUSH them into it, it would have been, quite frankly, impossible. It wasn't something they were interested in. </p>
<p>I agree that winning the mentored, 21st century Intel does not make one a genius: But hats off to the hard work and dedication. I cannot believe the colleges do not see it for what it is --something very impressive, but mentored, as it should be if the students are to learn. </p>
<p>If you people know high school students who can be pushed into something like this, I don't know what to say ....We must travel in different crowds. I know a lot of very smart, high-achieving kids. None that I know would agree to be pushed into something like this, especially JUST to get into college. </p>
<p>I believe these students needed innate enthusiasm and interest to see their projects through. Not every kid is into sports --some love theater, and some do love science.</p>
<p>My son's mentor in h.s. has a son who was a classmate (and friend). This boy worked in his Dad's lab every summer to make money. Despite what Dad might have wanted, he wasn't interested in doing his own project. He's a great kid, but no amount of connections and parental desire made a difference. His interests were/are simply elsewhere.</p>
<p>Contrasting story: spoke to my son last night as he was leaving the lab at around 9pm. His research is frustrating, tedious; not going as hoped; not sure why/what's gone wrong. His response: thinking of continuing the work during the school year. Moral: this stuff is either in your blood or it's not. You can't manufacture a passion.</p>
<p>my point about the garage, is at least in a CONTEST it would be their own work</p>
<p>we have all been to science fairs and it si SOOOO obvious when it is not the childs work, everyone rolls their eyes, the student gets a big blue ribbon and then the next year, MORE parents, think, gosh, to WIN, which is the objective of INTEL,is it not, we need to step it up with regards to equipment, etc</p>
<p>if it was truely just about the learning, then why have big ole prizes, why al; the news coverage, why all the talk about New discoveries etc, </p>
<p>If it was truely about experiences, then why all that $$, why all the bragging from the schools...of course its about some learning, but it is sooo much more, and when you make it soooo competive, ie, big time sports, college sports, high school sports, where we see all kinds of "help" well, once you bring money and competition into it, the learning for many is secondary</p>
<p>that is why a kid building are car alone that goes 2 miles per hour is more impressive than a kid that built a car in a million dollar lab with all kinds of help that goes 80mph to me is more impressive</p>
<p>Doing science in the 21st century:<br>
From the Harvard website</p>
<p>
[quote]
How Darwin's finches got their beaks
A gene's-eye view of evolution
....</p>
<p>Abzhanov, Tabin, and their colleagues at Harvard, Princeton, and the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, Austria, published the result of their finch research in the Aug. 3 issue of the journal Nature.
[/quote]
<p>Putting Intel in the garage would make it JUST a contest without any value-added whatsoever. You would be taking something of value and making it a joke. Intel done in the garage belongs in the trash bin. </p>
<p>The POINT is that, as a mentor-driven program, we are actually starting to teach young people about how science is done. Science in the 21st century is not done in the garage.</p>
<p>Putting it in the garage and making it merely a contest would be to cater to the basest and lowest aspect of a program like Intel, which can TRANSCEND that impulse precisely because it is elevated by mentors.</p>
<p>The POINT is to make it about the journey of exploration, which is neverending --not to make it about the prize. When you make it ONLY a contest and thus ONLY about the prize you take away everything of value and you teach NOTHING about science. It is like taking a fruit and removing the vitamins and nutrients. Your idea would render Intel useless as a means of training our young people in the process of science. All that would be left is the very thing people are objecting to --winning instead of learning as the goal. </p>
<p>I don't mean to be rude, but do you know how scientists work, how scientists are trained in grad school, or anything about the way science is done in 2006? This is not about building a car, and it should not be about an end product or a prize. It should be about training young scientists and teaching the process.</p>
<p>If you leave only the competition and take away the training you have removed the best of Intel and left the worst.</p>
<p>Hm..are kids allowed to post in here? If not, feel free to delete this. </p>
<p>I'm a rising senior, and have been working on mentored science research project that I originally wanted to submit to Intel, but now, I don't know if it will have a real culmulative point. But thats not the point, the article, IMHO, is a pretty accurate portrayal of how most high school research gets done. Mine is in physics, so if my mentor and post docs weren't there to guide me, teach me, and help me figure this stuff out I would be nowhere.</p>
<p>I don't think there's any truth to the generalization that these projects are not as good or whatever just cause the mentor/post docs do a great deal of it. The student involved in the research isn't jsut the one with lots of connections. The kids usually work hard, and have a desire to learn about whatever it is that they don't know. Seriously, if you were a mentor and the student didn't even bother putting the work, would you still mentor them? </p>
<p>And all the kids who do win Intel do deserve it. It's not like any self-respecting mentor will do all the work and tack some kid's name on the project. The students did put in time and effort.</p>
<p>And IMHO, there should be something like Intel. So what if its the prize money, prestige, college admissions, or w/e bullcrap that attracts students to want to research? I still think that it lets more kids (Yes, I agree not everyone gets the opportunity etc.) who do have hte opportunity to go and see what it's like. Sometimes they go in for the wrong reason and come out seeing that research is fun for the sake of researching. I originally wanted something for intel in my project, and although I realized I won't even submit probably before this summer, I still stuck around because I'm starting to really like learning about physics I still don't really get.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The POINT is to make it about the journey of exploration
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, but a journey doesn't begin a few steps from the finish line. THe kids who didn't use their own creativity to come up with their projects are like a marathon runner who has somebody else run the first 25 miles and then steps in for the finish line crossing.</p>
<p>I really think saying that Intel done in the garage "belongs in the trash bin" completely misses the point and spirit of the competition. Tinkering in the garage & exploring nature is exactly where scientific ability & curiosity are appropriately nurtured & will flourish.</p>
<p>TabuLaRasa...I'm glad you are liking the research and thanks for the honest post. If the article reveals how research gets done, I guess I have a problem with Intel. If you want to spend a summer doing research because you are liking learning about physics, that is great...I'd rather admit you to college than someone who goes into Intel for the wrong reasons and comes out with research provided by their mentors.
Marite,
I'm not sure how to describe childhood...It doesn't mean that kids can't solve complex problems if they want to....as long as that's not all they do all day long, seven days a week...because then they need a psych evaluation. I do think it means playing ball with your sister instead of your personal trainer when you are five...even if you want to be Barry Bonds when you grow up...oops, poor example....
Donemom...you have a researcher on your hands...no doubt about it. But all Intel finalists aren't all like your son... Intel should reward kids like your son, not the ones in the NYT article. I think there is a difference.</p>
<p>symphonymom:</p>
<p>Are you a child psychologist? </p>
<p>You can't describe childhood because there is any single way to have a "normal" childhood.</p>
<p>How do you know that any of these finalists are maladjusted? If it makes you feel better thinking that kids who are passionate about what they are doing are freaks, go ahead. I find this attitude distasteful in the extreme. I'm through arguing with you.</p>
<p>Stickershock, I disagree. The world has changed. You cannot participate in science today on a meaningful level as you describe. What you are talking about is a "science project" as in days of old. I think that YOU are missing the nature and spirit of modern science ...its modus operandi and process. By viewing Intel first and foremost as a competition you are truly cheapening it. I believe that Intel as changed to reflect the world as it now is, and that the change is appropriate.</p>
<p>Telling budding young scientists to "tinker in a garage" is about as useful and relevant to the real world as telling your tennis star to play with a wooden racket or your musician to to write songs by hand instead of using the computer to help.</p>
<p>luckystar, I know beans about tennis. I still have my Chris Everett wooden racket & dragged it out last summer to play. I don't think a graphite/titanium/super-dooper new composite model would make a difference in my game.</p>
<p>I do know that anyone who is truly musical should be adept at handwriting their compositions. Unfortunately, some kids have skipped this step. They compose on keyboards and let the computer do the work. They are not able to compose without the computer, and that's a shame. It's like someone who doesn't understand a standard deviation plugging the numbers into a calculator. You will get an answer, but a true understanding escapes you.</p>
<p>I assure you that some biomed advances are developed as prototyopes in modelshops that are just bigger versions of your backyard garage workshop bench. Engineers still get inspiration while picking up household hardware at the Home Depot. I would classify this as the advancement of science. Perhaps you and I have a different definition.</p>
<p>Actually, despite my recent posts, I do have a major problem with the way Stony Brook runs its programs. If there were no Intel competition, I guarantee you Stony Brook professors would not take nearly as many students. That in itself is a huge warning sign. If high school kids are so great to work with, why does it take a national science competition looming over everyone's head to get a professor to work with one? </p>
<p>There's a reason people on Long Island call it an Intel factory..professors look at high school winners as investments, and the more they get now, the more likely they are to get more high schoolers in the future. The students are given eight-week projects that are designed to "win" rather than actually further science (not saying that the two are mutually exclusive, just that everyone's good would be better served if high schoolers had projects more realistic and long-term). </p>
<p>A project designed with "win" in mind is very different than one designed with "let's investigate so-and-so" in mind. It's more "shocking," more polished, more "neat," more short-term..really more surface than substance. Built to be impressive to judges but somewhat isolated in the long-run. The article mentioned how kids are often given far-out projects because the more experienced grad students don't deign to waste their time with them! There's a reason for that, no? Why not give high schoolers work that grad students don't thumb their noses at?</p>
<p>I worked at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center for three summers before coming to Yale, and Intel was the furthest thing on my mind when I started. I knew it was likely that I wouldn't get good (read: competition-winning) results, and I was fine with that. I refused to be in one of those high-school science programs where they hand you something that basically cannot fail. There's no future in that..you go for one summer and aren't welcome the next after you've completed your goal (winning). They're looking for new Intel-potential after that. How on earth could I go to a place that I would "outgrow" after one summer? Where's the learning experience in that? </p>
<p>It was only after my second summer there (and I firmly believe that no one can accomplish anything real in one summer..first eight weeks are just learning techniques, second eight weeks are applying them) that I got some results that were good enough for a real science paper, let alone Intel. And that is why I entered. The Stony Brook kids seem to have the process backward, doing research to win a competition, rather than entering a competition AFTER you find you have some good research. </p>
<p>To me, it seemed ridiculous to devote so much time and energy on a competition that I had slim odds of winning. Maybe for Stony Brook kids it's different, because it's not those same slim odds. When professors design their projects, there is "Intel" written all over them. It's as though there's a mental checklist each project must go through..is it innovative, can I put in little time and get maximum results, are the results "shocking" or unexpected, etc. This to me is a problem because it emphasizes results-driven research rather than a science process that can and usually fails. </p>
<p>You guys are arguing over whether the "garage scenario" is relevant to the real world; well, the Stony Brook factory scenario isn't really either. The kids walk into a lab for eight weeks and come out with a working project. Once a project wins, the student cannot even follow it up at the same lab because they have outgrown the program! This is alien to me because my mentor didn't even know I was going to enter Intel until I gave him the form to complete. </p>
<p>Any research designed with the ultimate goal of winning a contest rather than advancing science is suspicious to me. Sure, some good science may come out of it, but imagine the better science that could if it didn't have to be that way.</p>
<p>Luckystar:</p>
<p>I think yours is the best critique of the Stony Brook program I've read and by extension, some of the Intel projects. Thanks for posting.</p>
<p>I wonder, though about the utility of small, self-contained projects. Sure, they cannot be followed up because they are self-contained. But do these projects totally lack in utility? Not being a scientist, I could imagine that a large, long-term project could have many such small, self-contained projects, either as extensions or as part of the larger project. Am I off-base?</p>
<p>Thanks marite! In high school, the whole Stony Brook issue bothered me for a few years, but it was just one of those things no one ever said anything about because hey, it gets the kids in the labs, if only more to wet their feet and give them good exposure than to accomplish anything truly meaningful.</p>
<p>And yes, self-contained projects are useful, if they are all pre-orchestrated to reach a certain goal in a longer-term project. In Stony Brook this is not the case. There is nothing longer-term than January, when the Intel results come out. </p>
<p>I'm sure they can be of use to future scientists in some way, so it's not a complete waste. But I think it's a shame to spend so much time and energy and talent on this type of thing when there is certainly no dearth of projects that serve the scientific good better. If anything, science needs MORE hands right now, but sadly those hands are being tied by the fervent desire to win high school competitions.</p>
<p>Luckystar:</p>
<p>Thanks again. A follow-up question, one which you may not be able to answer. Does one know how many of these Intel finalists go on to do cutting edge research in college?</p>
<p>Setting aside the competition aspect and the accolades, would you say that a self-contained project where a student can see the results in a short-time frame is a great way to motivate a student to pursue further research on longer-term projects? Granted, such long term projects may be more useful to science, but as a way to motivate bright high schoolers, don't short-term project serve the purpose better? </p>
<p>It may what the designers of the Intel competition had in mind, after all, and Stony Brook understood that better than other research places and was more willing to go along--giving an "unfair" advantage to those students with access to its resources. That is, it hoped that by whetting students appetite for doing science, it was training a new generation of scientists rather than contributing to science more directly through the competition.</p>