/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12727914
Yes, science sucks

2 years into engineering school I kinda "burned out" or just realized how mundane and boring it is, quit and neeted it up for a few years and now I study maths and enjoy it very much

you didn't "burn out" you have a mental illness

>>12727914
>made my parents think I was a prodigy
/thread
get your head out of your ass and don't do things you truly don't enjoy and you're not good at. I'm a physics phd student and when people here 'burn out', that means they're just tired of working 50 hours a week for a whole year. Nobody does shit like
>read about advanced math concepts I didn't fully understand
>supposed to be an engineer like my dad
>I am around engineers all day and their jobs seem so goddamn boring to me
You faggots need to stop worshiping STEM like it's some holy cow, because I'm tired of fags like you who go into STEM with no passion and deep appreciation of the subject, but rather because "it pays well" or "my dad did it, so I'll do it too". Fuck off, we're full and out budget is tight as it is.

>>12728013
>You faggots need to stop worshiping STEM like it's some holy cow, because I'm tired of fags like you who go into STEM with no passion and deep appreciation of the subject, but rather because "it pays well" or "my dad did it, so I'll do it too". Fuck off, we're full and out budget is tight as it is.

Exactly this. I'm also tired of newfags who get excited over popsci with no real passion behind the work that's required to truly understand, appreciate, or contribute to science. I'm equally tired of popsci figures and programs that underemphasize the mind-numbing hard work that's needed to become a good scientist.

i didn't know it was going to be 99.99% boredom and .01% actually achieving something remotely interesting.

most jobs are pretty boring anon, even I only went into STEM because it was the least amount of work

>>12728301
>>12728013
i bet you're both hideous to look at physically. don't reproduce (easy mode)

>>12728013
dangerously based

>>12728013
How do I deal with failing at what I was "supposed" to do though? Telling myself it doesnt matter, there is no destiny, no one is meant to do anything, etc doesn't work it always nags me and I can never be happy. Or deal with disappointingy family.

>>12728801
>How do I deal with failing at what I was "supposed" to do though?
Who the fuck tells you what you're supposed to do? Are you an adult? You know that you're responsible for structuring your own life, not your parents or anyone else, right?
>Telling myself it doesnt matter, there is no destiny, no one is meant to do anything, etc doesn't work it always nags me and I can never be happy.
You can read about existentialism or absurdism if you're so inclined. I personally disagree that there is no destiny, but I might just have a different definition of it than you do. And I also perceive this lack of objective meaning in the world as a great opportunity for freedom and forging one's own authentic meaning through life experience.

>>12728548
why would anyone want to reproduce, sounds like a pain in the ass

>>12727914
Carol Marcs wrote about this
It's usually not worth it to fetishize career like this

>>12728013
Have you tried living in the real-world? At least here in Canada, getting your foot in the door of decent/high paying jobs is a nightmare without some impressive credentials. I'm getting my PhD in physics, not even finished, and already have offers for 80 K starting, 100+K in just a two years. Not phenomenal, but good for someone who didn't go engineering or CompSci.

Even my buddies who went Eng or CompSci are either burnt out trying to make some razor sharp margin start-up stay alive, or completely ambivalent towards work in a corporate environment.

I'd say if the system is set-up such that you need PhD/MS/etc to do anything that isn't mindless, why wouldn't you try for it? I have no passion for my project, I'm not going out of my way to attend conferences, publish papers, or really integrate into that world. Just like any job/training, it's something to get through until the next best thing comes around.

I studied biotechnology
I barely have a job due to laziness but the underlying biological knowledge is priceless

>>12728013
extremely based
>>12728877
EXTREMELY BASED

>>12729318
Then what do I strive for? Working as little as possible? I'm trying to save for a very small house or trailer and doing as much as I can to avoid needing a car even, but that's separate.

All my high school friends went to top engineering colleges and got degrees and work in a decent sized city making at least 70k a year and they all seem happy. Does it not fulfill them?

>>12729386
>At least here in Canada, getting your foot in the door of decent/high paying jobs is a nightmare without some impressive credentials.
So just don't. Why are you Americans/Canadians so obsessed with salaries? I know that you can live in the states on 60k a year no problem. What are gonna do with that 6 figure salary, shove it up your ass? I'd rather do something I'm passionate about for lower pay.
>I have no passion for my project, I'm not going out of my way to attend conferences, publish papers, or really integrate into that world.
Then why the hell are you wasting your time on this? If you're actually interested in an industry job, your first thought should be "I need to get to know enough people who know enough influential people while I'm still in college" instead of "muh degree". A physics phd is a good thing for employers, but so is a BSc in engineering with some internships and connections here and there.

>>12729440
>What are gonna do with that 6 figure salary, shove it up your ass?
Well, if I want to live in buttfuck nowhere maybe I can be comfortable on 60K/year. But try to live in any metro area with that and see how far you get. You know that money can buy you the conveniences necessary for more free time to pursue your interests, right? I don't think 6 figures has the same power you think it does.

>A physics phd is a good thing for employers, but so is a BSc in engineering with some internships and connections here and there.
Lol okay, I'm sure the sheer number of engineering BSc wandering around taking up jobs wherever they're available is testament to how true this statement is.

>>12729412
ignore commies they're retarded

>>12729480
>But try to live in any metro area with that and see how far you get.
idk dude, I live in a state capital/college town, which is fairly large (200k population) and fairly rich. I'm doing ok living on 22k/year with my stipend. I have to be conservative about my spending, but it's nothing catastrophic. And I have enough money to spend on hobbies. Not every hobby costs thousands, you know. But you do you. If you want a soul-draining job that leaves you an exhausted lifeless husk for those sweet-sweet shekels then go ahead.
>I'm sure the sheer number of engineering BSc wandering around taking up jobs
nice cherry-picking. Now ask any engineering major with a job about how they got it and they'll tell you it was via nepotism.

>>12729412
Oh, you definitely need to work. Just don't fetishize your work- take it for what it is.

>>12729528
I think you got confused on the first point, the whole point of doing the PhD is to get a job that isn't soul-draining. Also, aspiring to make more than literal minimum wage doesn't make someone a shekel slut. I think you might be romanticizing academia a bit there bud.

>>12729550
what do you consider "not soul-draining"? Just curious.
>Also, aspiring to make more than literal minimum wage doesn't make someone a shekel slut.
It's not black-and-white. The median household income in North America is 60k. Minimum wage for 40hrs makes you about 16k. You want to make 100k. Huge fucking gaps in between.
>I think you might be romanticizing academia a bit there bud.
oh I'm outta this corrupt shithole once I'm done, don't worry. Won't ever bother with a postdoc.

>>12729564
>what do you consider "not soul-draining"?
Something where you can actually have a little creativity/initiative. The job I'm considering in the defence industry, where I have to solve different issues of what boils down to optimization. Some problems will be finance, others will be transport (travelling salesman type), and a pretty wide variety. Not just solving the same equations/running the same simulations/writing the same programs over and over again. What are you thinking after the escape from academia?

>Huge fucking gaps in between.
Ya, those huge fucking gaps are what's called comfort. Compare 5 years of life between 16K, 60K, and 100K. Towards 100K, you have more time to do what you actually want to do. No one is going to pay me shit to be bad at new hobbies over and over again.

>>12727914
Welcome to life.

>>12729622
>What are you thinking after the escape from academia?
literally no idea. I'm nowhere near finishing my dissertation, and so it's pointless thinking about these thing for me right now. All matter of shit can happen as 2020 showed us. I'm fine with a codemonkey job though, I enjoy writing code.

>>12729655
Ya, I mean if you can find a job that you're passionate about, great. But there isn't that magic job for everyone, the only job I ever liked was operating equipment in a mill. And that's because I got paid big to enjoy life outside of work.

>>12729709
>there isn't that magic job for everyone
hm, that's quite true actually. My dad was like that. Did tons of various jobs, but I don't think he enjoyed any of them. He was diligent, but not passionate. Maybe I'm biased, since I have autistically obsessive interests in life.

>>12727914
>There is a girl here who went to s too engineering school
>went to s too

>>12729792
* a top
Sorry, was phone posting from work.

I just don't know if I should go back to college. I hate my current job. But despite having done programming and stem projects in the past I feel no passion for it anymore. What I keep telling myself: if I was worth going back to college for something real, I'd be doing it myself already, like I do with all my other hobbies and interests. But I don't. And my other interests will never make me more than maybe a few hundred dollars.

>>12728487
>i didn't know it was going to be 99.99% boredom and .01% actually achieving something remotely interesting.

Hmm, the R&D scientists here are all interested in what they do. We also enjoy cooperatively helping other groups in the corporation solve their problems as time permits.

As for people who are "lazy", we try not to hire such people. I mean, really, who wants lazy people around? They drag the group down. They can make projects late if you depend on those people. They add risk to a project. And one of the worst features of lazy people is that they can cut mental evaluation corners without even realizing it, and thus the project may have a critical flaw in it that results in litigation later on.

As for making money, the USA is heading down the social welfare hole where future debt is going to become a crushing factor. So you will need to have a lot more money than simply accounting for inflation. Money will be worth a lot less in the future due to "printing more of it" to pay off the deficit spending.

>>12728548
Why would I? Having kids would get in the way of developing my craft. I probably won't even marry.

>>12728013
I'm in STEM because there's no other realistic options
Tell me another well paying field that rewards competence and intelligence and hasn't been hijacked by leftists and postmodernists

>>12730803
>hasn't been hijacked by leftists and postmodernists
are you retarded? My physics department is full of "progressive" social clubs and posters about muh whamen and niggers in science. It's almost like these WOKE idiots truly think that women and blacks have no agency to achieve success in STEM on their own.

>>12730813
>almost
heh

>>12727914
Don't worry about it. You failed at engineering, no big deal.

At least you're not yet another girl biologist who wants to save something from extinction. You've found your place, so good work. Use that paycheck and be the consumer you were always meant to be. Embrace the machine.

>>12730905
Yeah my "place" is as subhuman trash. I'd rather domerip and probably will in a few years when I turn 30 as a virgin.

More evidence that engineers are utter brainlets and autists overall

>>12727914
>Didn't understand material
>Flunked classes
You can't be a burn out if you never shined in the first place. This post is pure, legitimate schizophrenia. Delusions of grandeur, incoherent babbling, narcissistic ideations. You need to be medicated.

>>12727914
>It's another episode of /sci/entist is mentally ill but doesnt know it

Currently a fourth year also minoring in mathematics as well. I wanted to Kms after taking my first signals class and at that point really thought this engineering shit wasn't for me. I fell into a pretty deep existential crisis fueled depression because I knew i didn't have the balls to drop out while hating every moment of school. Then I took my first real power systems class and now I get an erection any time I see power triangle or three phase power problem. Basically I think all of engineering sucks until you find one single thing you like and you finish school because of it. I literally cannot tel lyou how I got through signals and systems and control systems with my wrists unslit but desu that ONE thing makes school worth it.

>>12731943
In what way am I mentally ill?

>>12727914
Got a song for you OP, I hope it helps (this is not a joke)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rJz-tazK4I&ab_channel=MiltonNascimento-Topic

>>12727914
Just try to find something that you truly enjoy and spend your free time on that. Stop it immediately with these grandiose dreams about being "supposed" to be some great STEM prodigy - also stop blaming girls

>>12727914
Society way overvalues STEM, so it's really one of the most mainstream career choices. If you value success you can just try to find something like a niche hobby and excel there, or you can switch to a more niche career. There are also within STEM certain non-reddit fields such as meteorology and geology, maybe some specializations of chemistry as well. You can easily become a great geologist and have a solid, stable career within that field, and you'll get the STEM prestige but without the horde of people that swarm to physics, math, cs

>>12727914
Just study and become and engineer or fuck off and do something else

>>12727914
STEM is just one career of many. If it's not your passion, go do something else. It's in vogue like parachute pants were at one time. Eventually, we'll come around to "who wants and uncaring, data-only world if it leads to a soul-less life, art and literature give us warm fuzzy feeling and an exercise in creativity, something that is so core to being human, and the reason we improve technology in the first place is to make life easier/better for us to do these sorts of things".
I have a PhD. If I could do it again, I would have skipped it and gone straight into industry, where my true passion is in this particular space I'm in. I have a friend who has a masters and he has PhD envy (He left to go into his career early), but my god I would trade places with him in a heartbeat. It's like wanting a camaro or something, you just want the PhD to have PhD next to your name; you don't actually care about the work it takes to get it.
It's not worth it. It burned out my soul to get this PhD, and I've never been happier than when I left to go into industry, where it really doesn't matter that much if I have a PhD. I don't get a feeling of pride or anything when I look at my degree. I just feel a sort of disdain.
Academia is horseshit and peddles itself as holier-than-thou while relying on slave labor worse than Apple does.
They've done many, many studies on happiness and careers. It's an almost strictly US phenomena that we equate career with who you are. I have buddies from Sweden who have been good friends for years, and we were talking and they literally didn't know what each other did for work, since work is just a means to actual living in other places. Happiness studies show that you should find a career that makes money without a huge work investment and save your real passions for your hobbies outside of work. My experience lines up with that.

>>12732953
>There are also within STEM certain non-reddit fields such as meteorology and geology
How hard would it be to get a job in these fields? What would the job look like? They sound genuinely interesting.

>>12733455
I assume most positions would be some kind of office job; meteorological number crunching (modeling stuff like air quality, storms, spread of pollution etc), or even developing software (geographical information systems).
Geologist positions can be a mix of field and office work which can be nice especially if you have ADHD.
You could also be personnel out at observation stations. In that case I don't know exactly what you would do, but I assume you would have a lot of time for vidya, anime, etc. unless some unexpected misfortune happens

>>12727914
You sound a normal person into science who is just depressed

>>12734034
Both sound great honestly, I'll have to look further into them, thanks.

>>12727914
I went through the same path anon.
Every time I mobilized the energy required to pierce through all of this and actually stay on track, every time I just ended up decelerating in the end as the facade of things I thought I wanted but didn't really want shattered.

It took me a while to realize this but the problem wasn't actually me. It was everything around me. You have in you an inbuilt mechanism to self-sabotage and even literally shut down forever in some cases if the thing you just did crosses the tribe's culture and taboos. This comes from social group selection and you can google "voodoo death" if you're interested. This involves many things in your life, even the fear of flirting with girls stems from it, triggering a self-sabotage of severe anxiety so that you do not upset the monogamous structure of the tribe and therefor get stoned to death.

However, this goes both ways as well - if that tribe is a hostile one that aggressively crosses YOUR culture then you enter in a state of perpetual dissidence where you will never gather the energy to contribute to it as contribution is a literal act of hostility against yourself. Humans contribute to society only when they feel that their contribution has a positive impact. If the cancer charity you just contributed to ends up being a high-level scam set up by an adversary state on the other side of the world to fund its own nukes against you, you will not continue contributing to it. You will probably ask your government to hang all of them.

What you perceive right now in this society, for whatever reason it may be, is precisely this. The ones in power, and their banks, and their corporations, are hostile to you. You think that contributing a taxable income to this system, whether you consciously realize this or not, will end up hurting you by allowing them to double down.

The answer here is obvious - you're not meant to contribute to this society with the values you currently have.

>>12732897
Thanks anon, I will listen to it.

>>12732963
How? Is there any stem field I can self study for and get somewhere? >>12733062
>Eventually, we'll come around to "who wants and uncaring, data-only world if it leads to a soul-less life, art and literature give us warm fuzzy feeling
There are already too many books and too much art. That's why it's so hard to make money with that stuff.

>>12734656
You're 100 percent right unfortunately. I'm even tempted to call you glownigger for it. I'll search voodoo death it sounds interesting and I think I get the idea.

>>12734036
Maybe. I have no energy and I don't understand why. I'm on my feet all day. I hike and ski. I mostly eat well. I'm not obese. I sleep shittily but this was going on long before that. I feel guilyt I disappointed my mother. She just wanted the best for me and for me to be successful in something.

>>12727914
That's just what happens when you're around smart people too much.
The opposite exists too. Feeling like a genius for knowing how to calculate the area of a 2D surface. There is something special about you, because you are higher than the animals that cannot do this.

>>12734656
This is the most interesting post I've heard in YEARS.

>>12736192
Have you tried speaking to a doctor about this?

I experienced this a bit as an undergrad. Rote learning tons of stuff and trying to commit so much detail to memory to regurgitate in tests was not fun and did not feel useful. But then I had my Master's research and that changed everything. Real eye opener.

>>12737137
No because I don't want to take antidepressants. Then I would be a slave to muh health insurance forever.

>>12737167
How did it change? Because you were on your own? I keep telling myself if I really cares I'd be grinding through college textbooks right now. Or teaching myself something else to have a real career. At best I do basic audio engineering for the music I write and I am trying to learn more about it. I briefly got into programming again just so I could learn how to write and read from files. But there is no passion in me for anything anymore.

>>12734656
Elaborate glowie, I looked up voodoo death and am too low IQ to put what you're saying together. I keep reading about brown people dying in their sleep cause a witch doctor said "da bad mojo cumin"

>>12727914
Yeah I did, mainly since I realized I would get people killed from my ADHD behavior as a scientist. Chem lab accidents tend to cause that sort of realization. Programming at least worst cases breaks a computer, not a human.

>>12729480
> He wants to live in the metro area
ngmi, have fun with (((them)))

>>12727914
anon did you post here before? I feel like I remember the graphic calculator story. Hope you're doing ok.

>>12737862
if you enjoy audio engineering I think you should pursue it, and eventually ones you get to learn it better your passion for it might increase. for me at least I had a real hard time deciding on what I was going to study and couldn't decide, but then I watched Moneyball and figured statistics could be interesting, so I did one semester and found my grove, now I'm about to be done with my statistics bsc, started when I was 24. do you, king!

>>12727914
fuck your parents. They should have gotten you out of your misery. You need to do this on your own. You yourself are the best person to take care of that.

Fantasise about what you would want to be and carve out a crude plan how to get into that direction. THen slowly start going that way. You're in a good position, you are flexible and can take your time, have nothing to loose.

Its a bit JBP cucking but when I was in a similar situation selfauthoring.com helped me. Especially if you like writing dong this program will be powerful

>>12727914
>wanted to become a science or engineering major to better society
>graduate high school top of class, continue well into college
>watch it become politically popular to be completely insufferably progressive
>realize my taxes are going to go towards reparations, amnesty for criminal aliens, praise of trannies and dregs like george floyd
>completely lose drive to help a society insistent on killing itself
I have done a complete 180 from doing it for society to doing it for myself (essentially money). This society will get what it deserves and I don't want to be a part of it

>>12727914
>Then I made the mistake of trying to get girls and failed and gave up on life as a result
The only mistake you made is that you gave up.

>t. burnout """prodigy kid"""
>mommy issues and insecurities lead me to hyperfocus my life on getting girls
>fail miserably
>try again repeatedly because somehow I stumbled upon Nietzsche and the philosophy had an enormous effect on my mental strength
>start doing drugs with gopnik friends and eventually start kinda sucking at getting girls but at least I'm getting laid sometimes
>burnout from drugs, go back to college, fall in love with serious mathematics
>study even harder now that I actually *understand* the concepts I'm learning
>become the best in my class and get enrolled for an internship
>get job right out of college
>move out of shitty family apartment
>still smoke weed sometimes with ex-gf when she comes over to fuck

>>12738211
>still smoke weed sometimes with ex-gf when she comes over to fuck
gross

>>12738445
>still smoke weed sometimes with ex-gf when she comes over to fuck

based

>>12727914
>Went into STEM field without actually caring about STEM
>Got erectile dysfunction from porn addiction
yeah this is a real story.

>>12737862
>What changed
You realise that real science isn't about repeating a load of gay facts in a book. It's about finding interesting questions, designing (time and resource efficient) ways to explore said questions, and then finding even MORE new questions to pursue. Sadly a little further on you realise academia is a cesspit and then you enter the private corp world and spend your time trying to game people into handing over the money you need for your increasingly esoteric experiments.

>>12727914
Jesuits need to be sterilized

>>12739103
>No.12734656
Oops I meant:
>>still smoke weed sometimes with ex-gf when she comes over to fuck
>gross

based

>>12730259
>the ultimate bugman
Values his bugman skill over family

>>12739265
Why?

>>12738016
Life is no different, I thought having a job would give me the routine I needed to finally start doing stuff but instead I am too tired after work to focus anymore.

>>12740231
>dedicating his life to somebody else instead
the ultimate cuck

>>12739203
I did care. I just lost interest after building much of my identity around it. I never went to college for it. And I do have erection issues but it's less pron more death grip and lack of sleep