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Cake day: June 27th, 2025

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  • Not unless you want to be halfway competent at both, rather than well-qualified and hireable for either. Genetic engineering in particular is a rapidly evolving field, and if you take tons of extra time to complete your degree (or finish and then work as an electrician or something else for 5 years) what you learned at the beginning probably won’t be more relevant than any other wet science experience. As the first response said, what’s important is that you demonstrate that you can self-motivate and learn. Any biology related bachelor degree should help you get your foot in the door of any biological or even chemical science job–you’ll have to sell yourself to a greater or lesser degree, but you have to do that for a job interview anyway.

    All that a second qualification, whether that’s electrician, plumber, stenographer, etc. would do for you is make it more likely that your lifetime career will be that secondary qualification. If that’s what you want then why bother with genetic engineering, and if it’s not then fast-track genetic engineering and know that if you need a bridge job it’ll be at a lower salary, but that you’ll be getting your main job earlier in life so it’ll even out.








  • It depends heavily on the area, with the rural mountains and coast distorting the average. But in a city in the central Piedmont (where most people are moving) $3k for a 3 bed 2+ bath is probably a good median. However, our schools are in the bottom third of the country, our waterways are routinely contaminated as in this article, and our public transit basically doesn’t exist outside of very small areas of downtowns. Ohio has better public libraries, schools, and arts institutions, and was way cheaper to live in, though maybe they have higher property tax rate there even if the absolute value of a similar home is less. NJ does have wicked taxes, but you also have some of the best schools and pretty good infrastructure, so I’d take it.



  • I see two big things that others have touched on. One, you wll not believe how much of a difference a real road bike makes in your speed once you have a chance to try one, and the average speeds you’re seeing are almost definitely on road bikes. I don’t think you need to go out and get one now or anything, get comfortable with what you have first, but also know that if/when you try one your average speed will probably jump at least 5km/h.

    Second, cycling takes a lot of time to get used to. Anecdotally, when I first started I was a competitive distance runner and would occasionally win smaller races, and I started riding with a bunch of older relatively out of shape guys who had been cycling for decades. On about one sprint or hill a ride I could beat them, but they would kick my butt on the rest of the ride for more than a year before my conditioning caught up and I started to be able to keep up consistently.