This is a very romantic view of life sciences.
Speaking as a guy who made the pivot to research in life sciences (as a "data scientist") from "full stack software engineer", yes the data and mission is very sexy to a nerdy guy like myself, applying deep learning algorithms to spatial or epigenetic sequencing data of cancer cells to figure out the secret markers or mechanism of cancer cell mestasis or human immune response.
The realistic or unromantic view is you are a cog in the life science industrial complex where you are underpaid and under-appreciated; research often takes years and unclear if you are making progress or scamming the taxpayers like a humanities professor in women's studies (yes even STEM sometimes feels like that); and in computing, unlike tech, you are not the center of attention, most wet lab scientists treat you more like a resource, a grad student they need to make their pvalue or figure panel pop nicely versus a "full stack software engineer" - And if you don't like it, hundreds of thousands of post-doc's or grad students are waiting to take your place for their shot - not in pursing their passion but for a visa in America.
The real value I learned from my pivot from pivoting away from tech and pivoting into Biology is ironically how to gamble. I joined a Discord/Slack sub-channel for #options-trading, #sports-betting and #poker during my studies for a Masters in data science with other degenerate students who loved gambling, and how to identify, automate and size +EV plays in gambling or derivatives trading. I make more than 2-3x what I make in W-2 from my capital gains and W2-G than my W-2 for past the 6 years. But that is not put shade on biological sciences and rather giving credit to Biology for teaching me how to analyze data and gamble.
> The real value I learned from my pivot from pivoting away from tech and pivoting into Biology is ironically how to gamble
Lol that took a turn, I was expecting a link to a how to course at the end; or some nfl week one picks!
Where can I learn what you learn to make +EV plays? I did some poker back in the day, it was fun :)
One of my favorite books was The Mathematics of Poker
You should buy my ebook on how to get rich quick by selling ebooks, it has excellent EV and guarantees returns that beats the market.
hilarious. i also made a pivot to life sciences from a hard math field and my experience was the exact same.
i make more money trading options and have way more fun! in a way - it is "real" science in a way whereas the modern Life Science Industrial Complex is anything but that.
> or scamming the taxpayers like a humanities professor in women's studies (yes even STEM sometimes feels like that);
one thing's for sure, there are certain spaces for people who lack people skills, and that seems to be associated with "STEM" skills
I suspect that the money taxpayers used to spend on humanities professors in women's studies is a pittance compared to the money they're now wasting because grab-em-by-the-***** regime never took one of those classes. Ignoring half of your population comes at the price of social unrest, which it turns out is very expensive.
This applies just as well to biology.
My original point is to make a point that biology or academia in general is very romantic to outsiders - but it's not a very +EV play unless (1) you are already very independently wealth, or (2) you are really really into the subject and know what you're signing up for (the long odds, hours and politics). 99% of the people will take this as a pessimistic view and stop there but 1% will actually pursue option (2).
RE: your political point, I submit to you many institutions are very left-leaning and "Woke-1" was defeated by its emphasis on shaming tactics and identity politics - which ironically brought upon the identity politics of the right and the current "regimen's" backlash on defunding DEI initiatives, which hurts ironically the sciences most due to its outsized reliance from NIH/NSF/DARPA etc. And I welcome actually "Woke-2.0" where DSA is actually focused on kitchen table issues such as grocery and health insurance cost; and anticipate that our political pendulum will swing to the left at the next cycle.
> which ironically brought upon the identity politics of the right
Identity politics was on the right all along. They are not reaction to the left.
Woke 1 correctly identified what right and conaervatives are. And they then lashed to the threat. But, most of what woke 1 said was exactly correct assement of situation and people.
It is just that "center" was determined to pretend far right threat dont exist. And somehow whole conservative organizations dedicated to bullying were less of threat than some students protesting.
> DSA is actually focused on kitchen table issues such as grocery and health insurance cost
Democrats focused on that and lost to identity politics, shaming and hate from right. If DSA wants to win, they must not do the same mistake.
Focusing on those kitchen issues means loosing again. And it means being tepid enablers to far right like centrists and democratic establishement are. It lost.
Yes for me, it's mutually beneficial and gives me a quick way to polarize, filter out people I don't want waste time associating with (and vice versa too - people who are institutionalist, professional managerial class (PMCs); thank you for making my point!)
Just nitpicking but I'd like to point out "professional-managerial class" means the class consisting of both people who are college educated professionals (i.e. most people on Hacker News reading this) _lumped together_ with people whose career is management, not just career management alone. Putting down the PMC is putting down ourselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional%E2%80%93manageria...
everyone's a genius in a bull market