Comments on: The Sharp Knife of a Short Life

By: Curious Wavefunction

Curious Wavefunction — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:54:04 +0000

Of possible interest:
http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=92569BDA-A491-50C6-17ED3B1618AF3291

By: Lila

Lila — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:03:05 +0000

I just saw this post for the first time after the link from the Sceptical Chymist. It’s very well said.

I knew Jason Altom — he was the TF in Corey’s class when I took it — and I need to point out for the record that he was NOT a person that wasn’t “making the grade,” as Cooking mentions above. He was a spectacularly smart and hardworking person right on the verge of finishing his PhD. (I realize that Cooking probably was not referring to Jason, but I still feel the need to say this.)

Paul, you and I both know about the cultural differences between the Harvard and Caltech chemistry departments. I think one of them does it well, at least for the graduate experience. (Undergrad is a whole nother matter, but I think you and I have talked about that before.) Still, the superficial and short-lived responses of both departments to the tragedies on their own and others’ campuses are highly dismaying.

FWIW, I think the Chronicle of Higher Education did the best job covering the aftermath of Jason’s death and the chemistry department at Harvard — and this was before I even worked at the paper, so hopefully I’m not *too* biased: http://chronicle.com/article/Harvard-Faces-the-Aftermath-of/6469

By: The Sceptical Chymist: Speaking Frankly: Emotional honesty : The Sceptical Chymist

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:26:46 +0000

[...] reading a string of emotionally honest and unapologetic pieces from Athene Donald, Rita Tojeiro, Paul Bracher, and others. This outward display of emotion was refreshing to hear from scientists, especially the [...]

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:49:41 +0000

Both Mr. Gonzales and Cooking make excellent points about the culture of the chemistry department at Harvard. A complete analysis and list of recommendations for the department would make an interesting post.

By: cookingwithsolvents

cookingwithsolvents — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:26:42 +0000

I can’t comment on the graduate student experience but I was a postdoc at Harvard (about when Paul was finishing up) and found it to be a fairly welcoming place *when I went in search of new friends and colleagues*. I HAD to seek them out since they were, well, working. I had no trouble meeting graduate students and postdocs in other groups though it’s possible the whole thing self-selected for the more outgoing(?). I really only met them by leaving my laboratory and visiting other ones. No one came by ours to meet us(my group), nor would I expect them to; I was the new person. The social events were well-attended, people watched eurocup in the lounge, and generally were HARD WORKING people. Everyone is a gunner there so you aren’t going to generally find 10 grad students hanging out across the street drinking coffee in the student center (or downstairs), but so what?

The concrete stuff I worried about was how does the dept deal with people that aren’t making the grade, etc. and most of what I saw looked a lot like the place where I did my PhD. However, I don’t want to comment on the graduate experience, really.

The safety committee did their very best and certainly Harvard was on top of all safety matters when I was there.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:22:49 +0000

How about that one ?

http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i7/Materials-Scientist-Charged-Fraud.html

By: Friday chemical safety round-up | The Safety Zone

Friday chemical safety round-up | The Safety Zone — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 01:41:45 +0000

[...] reflected on the too-short lives of chemists Sheri Sangji and Jason Altom: “so long as we forgo meaningful changes in favor of [...]

By: Hap

Hap — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:47:22 +0000

In theory, something like Harran going up the river could affect things, if only because faculty fear for their orifices. In reality, though, there is nothing in law or in culture to prevent professors from treating their students as renewable and expendable resources. When professors don’t have any stake in the well-being of their students, then the consequences of lab accidents will just be viewed as an obstacle, with the brunt of the responsibility being offloaded onto the students and lab workers. Some advisors do care, at Harvard and elsewhere, but not caring seems to be an easy option at hand.

For me, CW’s quote from the story about Jason Altom is key. I didn’t know what I was getting into when I went to grad school, and didn’t cope with it well. There were resources to help me, but they didn’t help me all that much. Doing research as an undergrad would have helped but I don’t know what else would have been useful to do.

By: SpeedyGonzales

SpeedyGonzales — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:38:48 +0000

As a graduate student at Harvard, I can attest to the truth that both the article Lethal Chemistry at Harvard, and Paul’s current post hit the nail on the head (Paul was a student above me who I looked up to). As long as Harvard has the reputation as being the shit, then it will attract people who put up with a lot of shit to be here. The faculty are apathetic to the situation of the graduate students, but as long as decent students are attracted to the allure of the “Harvard Brand” the faculty will attach fresh meat and will have little impetus to change. Some (but not all) of the first year gradate students at Harvard contain some of the most arrogant specimens I have seen, but every year I have been here, it has been a lesson in Human nature to see how they are beaten down by the all knowing Faculty. I don’t really care to speculate what factors could cause a change for the better (I suspect some economic association with the graduate students’ well-being would help, as it comes down to the almighty dollar at Harvard). I do not know how things go at other “elite” grad schools. Please elaborate for me.

By: Carmen

Carmen — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:02:16 +0000

Thanks for this piece, Paul. I stumbled on “Lethal Chem at Harvard” the summer before my senior year, while doing research on grad schools. It really stuck with me.