A former chemist talks about key lessons for young people

Interviewer: Do you have any pieces of advice for young people today?

Stephen: What I found useful is knowing how to find information that is of significance to something that you're doing. In fact, I think that was the key lesson I learned as a graduate student.

It happened to be that I was working in chemistry, but the whole notion of, “Where do you look for information?”

Now, of course, this has changed drastically with the introduction of computers on the internet. But it also is important to know how to judge whether information is reliable. And that is a skill that takes a lot of practice to get down to where you're willing to rely on your judgment.

I think that that is very important, and it is incidentally in our current political situation, a skill that far too many people in this country lack.

And in fact, politicians take advantage of the fact that people don't know how to judge information, and they're doing it far too well for the good of this country.

Otherwise, I think, develop some skills, for a profession or a calling of some sort. My grandson, for example, is an electrician and very successful at such. And also for your mental health—for things to entertain yourself, to keep busy, to interact with other people. It is good to have methods to get along.