CLOSE-UP

CLOSE-UP

(The Scientist, Vol:5, #4, pg.8, February 18, 1991) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)

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When George Bodner was an undergraduate majoring in chemistry, the thing he resented most was the lab requirement.

"Nothing I did in my lab courses seemed valuable, because people told me how to do it," remembers Bodner, now a professor of education and chemistry at Purdue University. "It was the same as watching Julia Child: all cookbook."

Bodner had switched his major from history because he thought he would earn more money when he graduated. But he discovered that he wasn't so crazy about science, either, and he remained a C student.

"Then, when I was a junior," he recalls, "somebody let me into a real research lab, and I said, `This is fun. I may not be very good at it, but I enjoy it.' That's when I became a scientist and...