Idle in Copenhagen

[jesr]

Hello everybody

I've been reading through Jacobs book/site and more recently this forum. I'm blown away by the quality of the discussion and thought I would introduce myself.

I'm a 31 year old physicist trying to figure out what work to pursue after realizing that my talents where not sufficient for a career in academia.
I've never been the frugal type, but because I value time and flexibility very much, the ERE-stategy resonates with me. I'm still not sure where I will land on the ERE-spectrum, but think mine will be more of an intermittent work strategy. The first step is to convince my girlfriend that we shouldn't do the lifestyle inflation thing

Thank you for all the great material!

Best regards,
Jes

[jacob]

Well, there's always investment banking or management consulting

Going by how my math/phys class turned out ...
1/3+ became HS teachers. You'd need 1/2-1 yr of "paedagogikum" on top of your cand.scient.
1/3 became software developers, sysadmins or "software consultants/salesmen".
A few became industry scientists, e.g. "senior scientist" in charge of "expensive equipment" doing consulting, etc.
Slightly fewer became industry scientist managers. Typically those with more people skills than technical skills. You know the exact same guys who always asked you if they could copy your homework ;-P
The smartest guys in the class became postdocs or asst profs by now; except that one guy who started some kind of cult on the internet ;-P (To be fair, I was probably only the third-smartest.)

Seeing that you're here though ... if you're anything like me, I've found it to be more interesting to learn new things (not just intellectual, but also technical, manual, social...) and apply them for a few years until I get bored with them than pursue a 30+ year career doing roughly the same thing. However, I did make enough money in physics before I retired from it so I've been more at liberty in terms of doing that.

[jesr]

Jacob, thanks for the pointers! I will rule out starting a online cult straight away, as I don't think I have the magnetic charisma required:-)

Slightly fewer became industry scientist managers. Typically those with more people skills than technical skills. You know the exact same guys who always asked you if they could copy your homework ;-P"

Haha! thats spot on:-)

I have taught HS math and physics - its fun, but the student level is ultimately frustratingly low.
Lately I have been working in the national statistics bureau - sampling, statistical programming and a lot of bureaucracy;-) I think I will try pursuing something along this line(not the bureaucracy, though) in a smaller organisation. And then switch "career" every 2-3 years, to mix it up. I really enjoy geeking out, so to speak! The problem is that doing this within an organisation really limits your time and the ability to do other projects. Of course once you're FI, this is no longer a problem:-P

Inspired by all the DIY'ers in here, I'll also try to get into more practical things, that might someday provide an income.
Right now my DIY-skills are limited to changing the tires on a bike, sigh!

[jacob]

I have taught HS math and physics - its fun, but the student level is ultimately frustratingly low.

If it's any consolation, it's the same problem in institutions of high^H^H^H^Hlonger learning. The combination of politicians believing that education is a product that flows out of a hose and that more equals better; and the increased focus on testing has been deadly to fundamental understanding.

[jesr]

I partly agree with the negative effects of testing when it comes to HS. I think testing is a necessary evil in a subject as math, as most students will not be able to see the inherent benefit of understanding the material. I think the problem mostly lie in the method of testing. Multiple choice and math-problems that are standardized(follow recipe a, b or c) are obviously not a good way test. Oral exams and larger open ended assignments are better. Unfortunately they are also much more expensive and therefore less common.

In my opinion the main problem in HS science education is that the the students are not encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning(cliche i know!). I wonder how the following system would work:

Instead of having 10 weekly hours of typical teaching - one teacher explains a topic to 30 students - each student would have 10/30=1/3 hour with the teacher per week. They could use this time as they wanted. They could save it and use 1 hour every 3rd week. They could pool it together among the students, if more than one student has the same problem. They could take the teacher drinking, ect...
The students would have a curriculum(that is a reading/problem plan) and be tested in a new subject once a month.

I think this would benefit the top 75 pct. of the students, but the bottom 25 pct. would be lost.