‘Tis the season to receive a wave of applications for the Amgen undergrad scholars programme. Ever since ChatGPT, most of the ones I receive are clones of each other, drawing from text in my academic institutional webpages. Clones. Each applicant of course doesn’t know that the other applicants are sending near-identical letters; they may even feel they’ve given it their most, making a smooth, beautiful letter.

Makes the choice all that much easier for me: if you write an original letter, even if in half-broken English, you’ll have a better chance. Nobody likes slop. And more: if you use AI instead of using your brain, frankly, there’s no need for you to join my lab, or any lab. Don’t think of us as a future line in your CV. Join in to grow as a scientist instead.

#academia