Training and Deploying STEM Professionals in Panem
Was just about to post a comment to kawuli's great post on District 9, which is chock full of details about modern agriculture and her headcanon, when I realized that I had a long digression that I should probably put somewhere I can find again.
kawuli noted, "Which means that District 9 probably has a few scattered crop-production centers with something like 10 people responsible for growing hundreds of square miles/kilometers of row crops, probably with zones for various (rotations of) cereals/legume field crops and some seed-production and research areas (with visiting scientists/geneticists from 3)." I definitely agree with the idea that there are some scientists from Three who get to travel occasionally as a part of their work, and think this can actually have some funny wrinkles in culture among D3's scientist class.
In my hc, I figure that all higher education in Panem takes place at the University of Panem, because all other colleges and universities were subsumed into the state university or shut down when the Capitol came to power, in the aftermath of the Dark Days, if not before. The UofP has satellite campuses around the Capitol and in certain of the inner districts. All students in Three identified in testing the 'alpha' strata (generally, the top 2-3%) are tracked for training at the Three campus of the UofP (commonly referred to as the National Science Academy).
I figure that, like a lot of the industries we see in Panem, STEM research and manufacture are controlled by the Capitol. They pick which firms get contracts (probably with plenty of within-Capitol graft), what to manufacture, and what areas of research (pure and practical) should be funded. There's very little independent industry left in Three (the Capitol can't risk Three becoming an economic power in its own right).
Because of these limitations there's limited opportunity for even the best and brightest, so when you show up for your first day at the academy, your classmates are also your competition for the plum firms and assignments. I think, to the degree that a student wants to see what lies beyond Three's fenced-in city, the student should think carefully about what specialty s/he wants to try for. Some of this is out of the student's control; there are a certain number of geopetrolium engineers that are going to be needed, and it doesn't matter that you don't want to be sent to freeze your *#$% off in Five for a few weeks in the dead of winter. But working hard to be at the top of your class in, say, computer engineering, lessens the likelihood of that happening.
As with a lot of other things in Panem, I think the Capitol privileges control over efficiency in the matter of Threes working outside of their district, and so visits are probably much less frequent than they should be, which ends up with a lot of frustrated scientists and engineers not being allowed to know all of the context of a problem that they're working on, as well as frustrated factory workers, miners, etc. who have to make do with what arrives from Three, even if it's not optimally suited to their needs, or wasn't sufficiently empirically tested before it was deployed. There are also security issues with travel, so scientists whose rebellious leanings are exposed, or have family members who commit serious offenses are not going to be allowed to travel at all.
Not really related to kawuli's post but, while I'm yapping: I think all of the students the academy do significant cross-disciplinary training. Higher ed is usually about ever-greater specialization in certain narrow lines of research, but, if after the cataclysms, the wars, and the Dark Days, etc., there's a greatly depleted population, limited access to natural resources and a certain degree of lost research and technology, I suspect the Capitol (and perhaps even Three, before the Dark Days) thinks it's important for scientists to get used to working in interdisciplinary teams, where biologists, chemists, engineers, physicists, etc look at a problem from multiple perspectives. There are a limited number of individuals in Panem with the capacity to do scientific research and technological development (and probably, a limited number of positions the Capitol wants to fund, compared with the number of people they need to do the grunt work in factories--think number of Apple employees in Silicon Valley verses number of employees in parts manufacturing/assembly of Apple devices in China), and even fewer that one would regard as extraordinary/geniuses (the normal distribution of 'genius' as we're able to measure it--fourth standard deviation above the mean?--is something like .15%; I'm guessing that the academy will train all of the merely 'gifted' as well, which I think is around 2%). There also probably isn't a lot of time/money that is allowed to be devoted to pure research (and so those positions are coveted appointments that probably cap a lifetime of work). Working together and knowing more than one narrow area of science is probably critical.
So, in my hc, I have each student at the academy taking a range of 'foundational' courses, then being tracked into two general areas of study, based on interest, aptitude and the anticipated needs of the nation. For example, Beetee was tracked in computer engineering and electrical engineering, while Wiress was tracked in physics and mechanical engineering.1 There's a heavy emphasis on tracking students into at least one engineering discipline, because of the practicalities of applied research and development.
In addition to individual tracking, students at the academy are assigned to one of seven teams, which include students across the range of specialties, and work on projects together throughout the year. The approach is intended to get students used to working on cross-disciplinary issues straight off the bat, working with people at different developmental levels, and working in teams, generally, rather than holing up and working only on your own interests/assignments (strangely, there are a lot of alpha strata Threes with terrible social skills, who need structure to help them cope with the demands of teamwork. Shocking, I know!). The teams also wind up serving as the academy's own version of Hogwarts houses, with students living in their team dorm and tending to develop closer social relations with their teammates. They know, intellectually, that the differences are manufactured and artificial, but the system still works somehow, which is convenient but a little frightening.2
1Lumina was biology and genetic engineering. Eibhlin was chemistry and chemical engineering.
2 Lumina was indigo, Beetee was yellow, Wiress was orange and Eibhlin was blue (Yes, it's ROYGBIV)
kawuli noted, "Which means that District 9 probably has a few scattered crop-production centers with something like 10 people responsible for growing hundreds of square miles/kilometers of row crops, probably with zones for various (rotations of) cereals/legume field crops and some seed-production and research areas (with visiting scientists/geneticists from 3)." I definitely agree with the idea that there are some scientists from Three who get to travel occasionally as a part of their work, and think this can actually have some funny wrinkles in culture among D3's scientist class.
In my hc, I figure that all higher education in Panem takes place at the University of Panem, because all other colleges and universities were subsumed into the state university or shut down when the Capitol came to power, in the aftermath of the Dark Days, if not before. The UofP has satellite campuses around the Capitol and in certain of the inner districts. All students in Three identified in testing the 'alpha' strata (generally, the top 2-3%) are tracked for training at the Three campus of the UofP (commonly referred to as the National Science Academy).
I figure that, like a lot of the industries we see in Panem, STEM research and manufacture are controlled by the Capitol. They pick which firms get contracts (probably with plenty of within-Capitol graft), what to manufacture, and what areas of research (pure and practical) should be funded. There's very little independent industry left in Three (the Capitol can't risk Three becoming an economic power in its own right).
Because of these limitations there's limited opportunity for even the best and brightest, so when you show up for your first day at the academy, your classmates are also your competition for the plum firms and assignments. I think, to the degree that a student wants to see what lies beyond Three's fenced-in city, the student should think carefully about what specialty s/he wants to try for. Some of this is out of the student's control; there are a certain number of geopetrolium engineers that are going to be needed, and it doesn't matter that you don't want to be sent to freeze your *#$% off in Five for a few weeks in the dead of winter. But working hard to be at the top of your class in, say, computer engineering, lessens the likelihood of that happening.
As with a lot of other things in Panem, I think the Capitol privileges control over efficiency in the matter of Threes working outside of their district, and so visits are probably much less frequent than they should be, which ends up with a lot of frustrated scientists and engineers not being allowed to know all of the context of a problem that they're working on, as well as frustrated factory workers, miners, etc. who have to make do with what arrives from Three, even if it's not optimally suited to their needs, or wasn't sufficiently empirically tested before it was deployed. There are also security issues with travel, so scientists whose rebellious leanings are exposed, or have family members who commit serious offenses are not going to be allowed to travel at all.
Not really related to kawuli's post but, while I'm yapping: I think all of the students the academy do significant cross-disciplinary training. Higher ed is usually about ever-greater specialization in certain narrow lines of research, but, if after the cataclysms, the wars, and the Dark Days, etc., there's a greatly depleted population, limited access to natural resources and a certain degree of lost research and technology, I suspect the Capitol (and perhaps even Three, before the Dark Days) thinks it's important for scientists to get used to working in interdisciplinary teams, where biologists, chemists, engineers, physicists, etc look at a problem from multiple perspectives. There are a limited number of individuals in Panem with the capacity to do scientific research and technological development (and probably, a limited number of positions the Capitol wants to fund, compared with the number of people they need to do the grunt work in factories--think number of Apple employees in Silicon Valley verses number of employees in parts manufacturing/assembly of Apple devices in China), and even fewer that one would regard as extraordinary/geniuses (the normal distribution of 'genius' as we're able to measure it--fourth standard deviation above the mean?--is something like .15%; I'm guessing that the academy will train all of the merely 'gifted' as well, which I think is around 2%). There also probably isn't a lot of time/money that is allowed to be devoted to pure research (and so those positions are coveted appointments that probably cap a lifetime of work). Working together and knowing more than one narrow area of science is probably critical.
So, in my hc, I have each student at the academy taking a range of 'foundational' courses, then being tracked into two general areas of study, based on interest, aptitude and the anticipated needs of the nation. For example, Beetee was tracked in computer engineering and electrical engineering, while Wiress was tracked in physics and mechanical engineering.1 There's a heavy emphasis on tracking students into at least one engineering discipline, because of the practicalities of applied research and development.
In addition to individual tracking, students at the academy are assigned to one of seven teams, which include students across the range of specialties, and work on projects together throughout the year. The approach is intended to get students used to working on cross-disciplinary issues straight off the bat, working with people at different developmental levels, and working in teams, generally, rather than holing up and working only on your own interests/assignments (strangely, there are a lot of alpha strata Threes with terrible social skills, who need structure to help them cope with the demands of teamwork. Shocking, I know!). The teams also wind up serving as the academy's own version of Hogwarts houses, with students living in their team dorm and tending to develop closer social relations with their teammates. They know, intellectually, that the differences are manufactured and artificial, but the system still works somehow, which is convenient but a little frightening.2
1Lumina was biology and genetic engineering. Eibhlin was chemistry and chemical engineering.
2 Lumina was indigo, Beetee was yellow, Wiress was orange and Eibhlin was blue (Yes, it's ROYGBIV)