I was close to finishing my molecular biology degree. I always had a nice quaint job in some lab doing basic stuff in mind - an ok paycheck, no big ambitions.
In the last 2 years i realized how big the “socializing” part of this whole gig is. The first years i was getting by learning on my own (i’ve always been good at that). The amount of seminars and group work where working alone was not an option anymore was suffocating for me (i was able to deal with presenting stuff as long as i could work on it on my own, but cooperation over a longer timeframe with random people was insane stress for me), and in combination with my mental issues made me drop out in the phase of choosing a project (I even already had decided on a bioinformatics project) and seeking a mentor for finishing my degree.
The amount of social competency STEM needs is very underemphasized - i am pretty sure this extends into all of STEM.
I was close to finishing my molecular biology degree. I always had a nice quaint job in some lab doing basic stuff in mind - an ok paycheck, no big ambitions.
In the last 2 years i realized how big the “socializing” part of this whole gig is. The first years i was getting by learning on my own (i’ve always been good at that). The amount of seminars and group work where working alone was not an option anymore was suffocating for me (i was able to deal with presenting stuff as long as i could work on it on my own, but cooperation over a longer timeframe with random people was insane stress for me), and in combination with my mental issues made me drop out in the phase of choosing a project (I even already had decided on a bioinformatics project) and seeking a mentor for finishing my degree.
The amount of social competency STEM needs is very underemphasized - i am pretty sure this extends into all of STEM.