Have you ever seen the Intel science fair? There really are some kids who do amazing science research in H.S. Although more and more of these top science fair projects are done when the students "interns" at a lab. And from what I hear the judges do sometimes telling have a hard time telling if the student is really doing the work, or just helping in the lab and writing the project up. It's one of the reason's they interview each student privately.
But the majority of these teens really do amazing work.
Er-- maybe.
I'm skeptical. I've known quite a few Howard Hughes fellows as undergrads, let's just say, and mentored a few of them, even. They're bright, all right. But they aren't independent researchers yet.
Nor are the INTEL kids. I dislike the obfuscation involved, that's all. Most of those kids are
not doing all of their own experimental design, etc. They lack the breadth of experience to do so, to put it very bluntly. So pretending that the mentor has had nothing to do with that aspect of the project is disingenuous at best.
I think that being more transparent about the
authentic accomplishments that these kids are actually doing
themselves is a better thing.
After all, we have no trouble celebrating a young musician or athlete, even if they have coaching to do what they do, and even if they are "using" a work composed by someone else, or choreographed by another person, or a method developed by a giant in the field. That all seems okay and takes nothing away from the accomplishment.
Most of the INTEL projects that I've seen feted in the media quite honestly don't pass the sniff test for me this way. The details are such that they look a lot more like dissertation work than a one-year internship completed by a high school student who, recall,
lacks an undergraduate degree in the subject, and can (at most) devote 20-30 hours a week to the endeavor. KWIM?
