It’s the New Year and thus given Day 1 in the blog rotation I sense a need to offer some life advice for the our padawans. Let them know there is a purpose to what they are doing beyond the next assignment. I take this responsibility with great fear and loathing, but if your wakeup bell hasn’t been rung yet allow me. And if I offend any sensibilities along the way so be it.

You might be worried about a job. You’ve already got one. You’re a citizen of Earth and here to make this a better place then when you arrived. So how are you going to do that?

By pursuing some esoteric path of N-dimensional fantasy theory of everything? Trying to find an Earth clone 100,000 light years away we can’t learn from? Higgs Boson? A better cherry-flavor cola substitute?

I got life advice once. I was your age working the summer at Fermilab, thinking I would do real (e.g. particle) physics when if I grew up. The lab manager took me aside one day and said, “you seem like a smart kid, get out of this field it’s a dead end.” He was right. The grad students were in their late 20s, the PDFs in their 40s and, truth be known, the science was really not relevant to things that matter like hunger or disease. I was soon gone to Alaska to become an atmospheric scientist.

Dave Kendall from the Canadian Space Agency was down here last month talking to the students and challenged them to take risks. That’s an excellent way to put it. Staying in school and studying something with no goal to make this Planet a better place to live is safe and easy and Wrong. If you have a passion or an idea run with it. Believe in yourself. Visionaries like Frank Zappa, Larry Page, Steve Schneider, Ken Kesey, Steve Jobs, etc. did not sit on their fannies and wait for someone to tell them what they wanted to do was “OK”.

Don’t turn your back on Gaia now. There is a war on out there with battles being fought on the fronts of climate, health, social justice, to name a few. You can name more. Pick one that burns in your belly and fight it.

Don’t

• go to grad school just to go.
• make the purpose of your education education. Empower yourself for a fight and jump into it. Kill cancer. Fix the mess on Reserves. Clean the air.
• buy into the BS that knowledge for knowledge’s sake is important and will pay off down the line. We are in deep stuff right now and need your talents now. Focus.

Do

• Fight the “good fight”
• remember, if you compromise now you’ll live you life on your knees.
• Your permanent record won’t follow you for the rest of your life. Be free.

I’m not trying to be an irrational doomsayer here but if we look farther than our FirstWorldProblems to the big picture there is much work to be done to make our home a better place. I am not a gear in an Economic Engine and don’t encourage you to be either.

One person can make a difference, and it starts today with you. We at P&A will do our best to prepare you to succeed at whatever challenges you dare.

Happy New Year.