<p>You are completely misinterpreting what I said. The OP was a bit frustrated feeling that she wasn’t didn’t have much support. The boy you mentioned has an awful lot of support and I think saying to the OP, look at this guy, he did this all on his own, is rather misleading and could be quite discouraging to the OP who doesn’t seem to have the kinds of support and encouragement that he does. You could as well say to a struggling student cellist, look you can do it all on your own, you don’t need an instructor–look, Yo Yo Ma’s kid did it on his own. Would that be perceived as encouraging?</p>
<p>I’m not sure why you think I am uninformed. I’m not. </p>
<p>Think also about this. The boy had a good idea. It wasn’t all that novel though–there was already quite a bit of precedent in the literature (other people had already been able to detect other cancers using antibodies bound to nanotubes). But that’s actually good for a student project because it shows it should be do-able. Yet 200 people turned him down. Why do you suppose that happened? The fact is, if you don’t want your centrifuges exploding all the time, (or worse–people can die) it takes an awful lot of supervision and training and money and space to take someone on, even a part-time student, and most people don’t feel a high school student knows enough and will contribute enough for it all to be worthwhile. Of course I’m glad that someone was willing to support this boy.</p>
<p>Even if a student just walks in and is handed a project, that can be a great experience, to learn firsthand what it is like to work in a research lab. But I think there is a difference between that experience and what most people think of when you say independent research. That’s all I was saying.</p>