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noname123today at 6:58 PM4 repliesview on HN

This is a very romantic view of life sciences.

Speaking as a guy who made the pivot to research in life sciences (as a "data scientist") from "full stack software engineer", yes the data and mission is very sexy to a nerdy guy like myself, applying deep learning algorithms to spatial or epigenetic sequencing data of cancer cells to figure out the secret markers or mechanism of cancer cell mestasis or human immune response.

The realistic or unromantic view is you are a cog in the life science industrial complex where you are underpaid and under-appreciated; research often takes years and unclear if you are making progress or scamming the taxpayers like a humanities professor in women's studies (yes even STEM sometimes feels like that); and in computing, unlike tech, you are not the center of attention, most wet lab scientists treat you more like a resource, a grad student they need to make their pvalue or figure panel pop nicely versus a "full stack software engineer" - And if you don't like it, hundreds of thousands of post-doc's or grad students are waiting to take your place for their shot - not in pursing their passion but for a visa in America.

The real value I learned from my pivot from pivoting away from tech and pivoting into Biology is ironically how to gamble. I joined a Discord/Slack sub-channel for #options-trading, #sports-betting and #poker during my studies for a Masters in data science with other degenerate students who loved gambling, and how to identify, automate and size +EV plays in gambling or derivatives trading. I make more than 2-3x what I make in W-2 from my capital gains and W2-G than my W-2 for past the 6 years. But that is not put shade on biological sciences and rather giving credit to Biology for teaching me how to analyze data and gamble.


Replies

le-marktoday at 8:04 PM

> The real value I learned from my pivot from pivoting away from tech and pivoting into Biology is ironically how to gamble

Lol that took a turn, I was expecting a link to a how to course at the end; or some nfl week one picks!

stanford_labrattoday at 8:27 PM

hilarious. i also made a pivot to life sciences from a hard math field and my experience was the exact same.

i make more money trading options and have way more fun! in a way - it is "real" science in a way whereas the modern Life Science Industrial Complex is anything but that.

mettamagetoday at 8:06 PM

Where can I learn what you learn to make +EV plays? I did some poker back in the day, it was fun :)

One of my favorite books was The Mathematics of Poker

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doctorpanglosstoday at 7:07 PM

> or scamming the taxpayers like a humanities professor in women's studies (yes even STEM sometimes feels like that);

one thing's for sure, there are certain spaces for people who lack people skills, and that seems to be associated with "STEM" skills

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