How to perform a perfect stoppie?

Is it wrong to perform scientific outreach with high school students in part because I want to strengthen my NSF Graduate Research Fellowship application in the future?

• The impetus for asking this question comes from 's comment on my question which I believe implies that it is morally objectionable to do so and I would like some additional opinions about the morality of doing so. I am currently of the opinion that it is not morally incorrect because of the following reasoning: Consider these three scenarios. 1. I want to perform scientific outreach to high school students but it takes a prohibitive amount of time. I take no action. 2. I want to perform scientific outreach to high school students. I do so. 3. I want to perform scientific outreach to high school students. Also, I am aware that doing so may help my NSF Graduate Research Fellowship application in the future. I put in more effort than I do in situation 2. Since I put in more effort, I have a greater positive effect on my students. It seems rational to me to that situation 3 is the best situation out of the three. Moreover, I am not aware of any outstanding issues of morality in this situation. Would it be wrong to not explicitly mention to students that I could personally profit from my volunteered outreach in the future? If the moral issue here is being disingenuous, if I disclosed that I could personally profit from my volunteered outreach in the future (I wouldn't mind telling them), then does that remove the moral objection to my actions? I would be very interested in alternative viewpoints, as it is possible that I am wrong in my analysis of the situation and I would not want to inadvertently do something wrong. I genuinely *do* want to perform STEM outreach to students from my old high school and I would greatly enjoy working with talented students. However, initially, I wasn't quite sure if I should do so, because I could spend that time working towards research or maintaining a higher GPA through a greater amount of studying. However, now that I am aware that this may have a substantive effect in the future upon my NSF Graduate Research Fellowship application, I am more seriously considering the idea of holding seminars, being a "guest lecturer", etc. It seems that my new awareness has potentially resulted in definitive profit for all parties involved.

• Answer:

  No, it's not wrong. My comment was that NSF should not be your main goal for volunteering. If it was truly morally objectionable to have any secondary non-altruistic motives, then we should just ban all high school clubs, since they're all basically designed to improve the members' chances of getting into the college of their choice. You probably shouldn't publicly proclaim that as your goal though. People may misunderstand you and think that NSF is your main goal, whereas you claim that it is not.