It honestly feels like public science is collapsing within America. I expected cuts to atmospheric and oceanic science given that the Heritage Foundation (creators of Project 2025) said they were going to break up NOAA due to our “climate change alarmism”. However, I didn’t expect that nearly every field of science would also get defunded this year, especially medical research. Anti-intellectualism is destroying the United States :/

Professors in STEM often need a PhD and postdoctoral degree to get a teaching job at a university. And those jobs were difficult to get before the federal government’s cuts in higher education.

This person is unfortunately correct. One of the most educated and skilled employees within my group at NOAA was rejected from a job in France. Apparently, the board in charge of that scientific organization rejected her because they didn’t want to hire an American :/

That’s a good idea! And if I get rejected, at least I’ll know which new skills to focus on. In the meantime, I’ll try to figure out what other career besides tech would fit my education and skill set.

I have a master’s of science in atmospheric and oceanic science, which unfortunately is a very niche field. I made a miscalculation that my field would grow due to the increase in severe weather and negative affects from climate change.

Thanks for your advice :)

Yes, I’m a contractor for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Atmospheric and Oceanic science has been heavily defunded this year. A quarter of my program at NOAA has been laid off this year.

If I lost my science job, I was planning on going into tech. Now where do I go??? It feels like the walls are closing in.

I should have gone to a trade school instead :/ STEM was a bad choice.

I’m sorry that you lost your father so long ago :/ However, you do make a solid point. Watching your parents slowly lose their minds might be ultimately more painful in the long run. My parents were always abusive white trash, but now I don’t even recognize them anymore. I guess decades of alcoholism and hatred will do that do to a person…

It’s a cult. My parents became super religious out of nowhere in 2016 began worshiping Trump like he’s a demigod. I regrettedly visited them with a few months ago and now they’re prepping for civil war with “people from the cities”. When mental illness reaches this point of criticality, there’s no point of return. They simply live in a different reality. Voting republican is an existential crisis to them within their Qanon-based media bubble.

It’s definitely infuriating. Anything is “true” in their land of make believe…

Well at least your dad hated everyone equally ;)

I have MAGA family. The first thing they always mention about SNAP is how “welfare queens” are gaming the system, even though they were all on food stamps at one point. It’s purely all about racism and punching down. They don’t like the idea of black and brown people eating on “their” taxdollars. However, when my brother was on food stamps, it was out of “necessity” because he relied on SNAP to feed his step children.