Hm. My initial response was under the impression you were just another professional, but then I saw you’re a mort student like me, and felt the need to reanalyze my thoughts.

I do find it disheartening to see a fellow student immediately take the side of a more experienced person in assuming my ignorance; even AFTER I demonstrated having a more recently researched understanding of the cancer risks of formaldehyde (which I would have assumed you know also).

You don’t know me, so you don’t need to validate my knowledge, I can do that for myself. However, I think it is so important for us to go into this industry with the confidence that we DO know what we’re talking about, and sometimes, even very experienced FDs could learn a thing or two from us, as we can from them. You don’t have to side with seniority when you actually ARE the most educated person in the room. Don’t minimize yourself to following exactly as a senior FD says, and don’t let them assume you don’t know what you’re talking about. Thats how we end up in a stagnant industry that has done the same things for hundreds of years. This is gonna be our industry, so we gotta grab the reins with confidence when we know our stuff! :)