Caltech Letters | Viewpoints

We Do Our Homework: Caltech Graduate Students and Postdocs Should Form a Union

Unionization will strengthen our ability to do the research we love.

Dungeons & Dragons & Batteries: Rethinking our approach to science outreach

A relationship-centered view of science outreach can foster stronger connections between scientists and their communities

9 minute read Skyler Ware

Study, Eat, Burnout, Repeat

The Caltech undergrad experience can put students at risk of burnout.

12 minute read Jadzia Livingston

In Defense of Basic Science

Curiosity is humanity’s most valuable compass. We must protect it, if we hope to protect our future.

11 minute read Kian Faizi

Non-Utilitarian Scientific Ethics

A non-utilitarian ethic requires reckoning with past harm done.

21 minute read Lev Tsypin

No More Dirty Money for Green Science

Scientific funding from fossil fuel polluters won’t solve the climate crisis.

15 minute read Cora Went

Femininity, Foreignness, and Flowers: How culture shapes scientific discovery

The highly stratified, imperialistic society of Victorian England may be to blame for Charles Darwin’s inability to understand the reproductive strategies of the bee orchid Ophrys.

13 minute read Fayth Tan

Taking Science Education Virtual

During the pandemic, many teachers turned to new virtual tools out of necessity, but even as many students return to the classroom, interactive and engaging virtual worlds could continue to be a valuable resource for teaching.

15 minute read Shannon Esswein

In Memory of Cassidy Yang, Class of 2016

Jiseon Min remembers her friend and Caltech alumna Cassidy Yang.

10 minute read Jiseon Min

Meritocracy and Me

Meritocracy tries to brush the effects of privilege, struggles, and luck under the rug, asserting instead that success and failure are based on personal merit alone. In this personal essay, Elise attempts to dismantle the myth of meritocracy in her own story.

14 minute read Elise Tookmanian

How the Model Minority Myth Harms Us All

The stereotype that Asians are good at math may seem harmless on the surface, but is damaging to Asian Americans and other minorities. Let's investigate the origins of this stereotype and the diversity of Asian America it obscures.

27 minute read Renée Wang

Geologists and the Earth: Building a Better Symbiosis

Geologists travel to field sites all around the globe, relying on “objective” scientific methods to understand Earth’s history. But this “objectivity” divorces us from the social and political implications of our work.

15 minute read Sarah Zeichner

What the GRE Selects For: My Experience in Graduate School Applications

Standardized testing does not select the best graduate students. It acts as a barrier to higher education for less privileged talent.

13 minute read Porfirio Quintero

Drop Millikan: Repudiating the Racism in Caltech’s Foundation

Caltech must reckon with its racist legacy

15 minute read Sophia Charan

Mental Health, Graduate School, and Why We Need to Talk About It

Scientists are trained to draw conclusions from data, but the data about mental health are often ignored. Let’s talk about it

19 minute read Olivia Harper Wilkins

Where Science Stops

How far can science really take us?

16 minute read Samuel Clamons

All the World’s a Stage: Bridging My Experiences in Science and Music

Attending a music conservatory and getting a PhD are really not all that different

12 minute read Hannah Dion-Kirschner

Feynman, Harassment, and the Culture of Science

What we remember—and what we forget—about the icons of the past tells us a great deal about our present

14 minute read Aida Behmard

Graduate Student Parents Need Better Support

For most graduate students, research is their biggest challenge. But adding a child into the mix makes for an unprecedented experiment

15 minute read Riley Galton