Randy Schekman's advice for undergraduates

Nobel Laureate Randy Schekman answers the question 'What's your advice for undergraduates wanting a career in science?'

Dr Schekman visited Maryland, United States, as part of the Nobel Prize Inspiration Initiative. He offered advice to young scientists, discussed his influential discoveries and explained his views on scientific publishing.

[rksmiths]

Well, as an undergrad and a masters student you mostly work as a lab assitant. But now increasingly PhDs and Post-docs also work as research assistants. This happens very often in biology and biomedical sciences, I am not aware if this too is the case for other specialities. What basically happens is that you are part of a large group, you perform some experiments and do some analysis, and your name is on a paper with 15 to 20 other people, and then this paper is published in a reputed journal like nature or science. No independent thinking or creativity allowed, but hey you get your name on a high impact journal.

Many professors do not publish in minor journals as they would not get grants, and hence even if a PhD student or a post-doc comes up with an original idea then his or her work is completely rejected and thrown down the drain. Academia has become a corporation, these are old school scientists from golden age of molecular biology. Today we have politicians instead of scientists doing science.

We need to dismatle the system, end peer review allow open access, allow freelance scientists and independent institutions to be set up. However, we are in the decline of the west phase, and such a prospect does not look very bright.

[vinayseth]

So was Einstein an outlier when he was going it all alone since the very beginning? Or was Science done very differently back then?