Submitted by iCons Admin on
How does one get hooked by integrative science, you ask? I'm not sure there is any singular or optimal pathway, but I can share with you how I got here. For me, the key has always been being blind to barriers.
My story is given below. In case you are interested, here's another story, the story of Eric Lander, a Mathematical Geneticist at MIT.
Eric Lander:
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/01/02/science/100000001255558/eric-l...
Scott Auerbach:
I started as a guy who loved football, math, and science. I was the only honors student on my high school football team. Instead of feeling lonesome in this singular endeavor, I felt surrounded by friends on both sides of this chasm. It was the first time I experienced such "bridge building", and I liked it.
Then off to college as a pre-med chemistry major with interests in biochemistry and math. My first real summer job was working in the Neuro-surgery Research Lab of Dr. Wise Young at NYU Med Center in NYC. I was their token chemist and again was tasked with building a bridge between the calcium-phosphate world of the Central Nervous System, and its pathology viz. stroke. I was again blind to the barrier I was crossing, but happily engaged in a cool project. Although the work was fascinating and we did make a breakthrough in our understanding of the neurochemistry of stroke, having to "sac" a rat and scoop its brain each day was gross, so I eventually dropped out of the pre-med track and focused on the nexus of chemistry and math.
That led me to grad school at Berkeley where I went full steam into the rabbit hole of quantum chemistry. Though fascinating, I remember vividly a phone call with my mom (who is non-technical) who asked me what I was working on. After I answered, she asked me what it's good for. I couldn't find a satisfying answer, and at that moment I decided to move towards engineering applications of quantum chemistry, which I've been doing my whole career.
It is that bridge between theory and application that eventually got me interested in integrative science. But iCons is more than just integrative science, it's also about student-driven learning -- where did that come from?
One day while dropping off my son at his Montessori pre-school, I asked the teacher what she was planning to cover that day. For those of you who know the Montessori method, you know that is a faux pas. Montessori education is all about student-driven learning, matching guided inquiry with the various "phases" that young students go through. I was immediately struck by the brilliance of this approach, to latch on to students' passion and let this fuel their learning. I wondered if we could pull this off at the college level.
And voila, iCons is born.
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