Mini Posters

The overall lab I work in consists of about eight or ten different professors, each with their own individual research and students. All of the combined students in the overall lab work at cubicles in two big offices, which I think is a great way to "house" the grad students, allowing for both socialization and cross-pollination of ideas across labs.

But eight or ten professors all working on related, but still substantially different, projects in their own labs is hard to keep track of. So once a year we have a symposium. All the professors give high-level overview talks about their current projects and research direction, we usually have a couple guest speakers, and it's generally a chance for everyone to get together and align themselves about what in the world is going on across the hallway.

All students are required to submit posters for the symposium. This sounds like a great idea, and in theory it is. (Shoot, I don't know half of what students are working on at any given time... there are just too many! Plus I'm old and crotchety and don't socialize as much as I should.) But in practice, grad students don't particularly like taking time out of their research lives to create a poster for, essentially, an internal event. So we don't take it very seriously. In fact sometimes, we are known to submit posters on work that is over two years old (that wasn't me, oh no of course it wasn't...).

So there is much grumbling, but everyone has to do it, so there is mutual complaining around the water cooler and then we all buckle down and make the poster. 

There is prize money awarded, for 1st 2nd 3rd place, so there is some incentive. But there is a fatal flaw in the prize-dispensing system. Only people OUTSIDE the lab are allowed to vote - ostensibly to avoid biased voting. But because so few guest people come to this symposium, if you get two votes you are pretty much guaranteed to win something. So the voting doesn't mean much.

But the PRIDE (and the testosterone, in some cases...) is a powerful driver. And the BRAGGING RIGHTS. Those are forever, prize money or no. So my office takes much enjoyment in friendly trash-talking about whose poster is the best. This year one of the older students was so pleased with his design, that he printed out a mini-size and pinned it to the cubicle wall.

Not to be outdone, it wasn't long until others did the same - we all have to make a file to send out for full-size printing, so why not dash off an 8.5x11 as well?

Inspection. Very important.

So we found ourselves with a wall of mini-posters. And I tell you what, I learned more about other people's research from sitting around gossiping about these mini-posters, than I ever do at the actual symposium. Because nobody takes the time to stand and read every poster when there is an open bar, let's be realistic. But if you pass the same posters for a week in your office, you pay attention.

In the end, this mini-poster display in our office has been one of the most helpful things to make everyone aware of the research that's going on. We should just do THIS, and skip the symposium! :)

On second thought, there is the prize money, after all. Although of course nobody wins prize money for a poster that is based on work over two years old... oh no of course I didn't... Maybe let's keep the symposium!

Leadership Skills

I got my butt handed to me today. I'm organizing a conference, and I'm one of two co-leads. I thought I was doing a good job being a leader, but I had one of the team come to me today and say... hey, Miss Outlier, I was talking with a few other people on the team the other day, and I wanted to share the feedback they gave me.

Basically the feedback was that my team doesn't feel a supportive atmosphere, don't feel like they are contributing, or owning any part of the process - don't feel like it's any fun. Like they are just cogs in the machine, there to execute rather than to be a creative force in the organization process.

Bugger.

I was trying to correct what I felt was wrong in previous years - I always felt that things were disorganized, and as part of the team I didn't know what was going on. So this year as lead organizer I tried a few new things - I send out meeting minutes after each meeting, and I try to keep meetings shorter and more efficient. But I think in trying to make things more structured, I may have squashed some of the good elements in how the organization functioned.

So somehow I have gone too far in the other direction, and people don't feel like discussion and brainstorming is encouraged. The camaraderie has apparently been lost.

Part of this is exacerbated by the fact that we have a very young, new team this year - so the veterans aren't there to shout out ideas and demonstrate that contributions are encouraged. And part of this is because the meeting where we did the most brainstorming - the one where I felt like the ideas were really flowing - was one where only four people attended.

Actually I felt much more comfortable with just the four people - I know how to lead a conversation with a small group, and perhaps I just feel lost with 15 people staring at me while I lead the meeting.

What to do now, then? Well, this weekend is the annual retreat. This retreat is supposed to be a time for the team to bond, to review high-level ideas, to think about the bigger picture. And this is an excellent time and place to build atmosphere - camaraderie, if you will.

So I am going to try my very hardest to let people know this weekend that their ideas are valuable and wanted, that everybody is part of the team, and that this is supposed to feel like a group of friends.

This conference has always been about the people, and the relationships formed - between the team members, and between the team and the international community. And maybe I've lost that in my quest to keep on top of the logistical details. Perhaps I have failed somewhat as a leader so far - but this I know: the real failure is only if I can't change and adapt. This is a chance for me to learn and to grow, and I will do my best.

I really appreciated that the team member who came to me was being honest with me, and that they shared the feelings of the team with me candidly. Because now I have a chance to make some adjustments.

But dammit, it hurts to know I've been trying my best and I'm still not doing the right thing. Being a leader is difficult - so many ways to screw it up!

Snow Leopard

Back earlier this summer - maybe June or so - I was sitting with my advisor in our weekly meeting, and he leaned over and asked, "So Miss Outlier, how is your computer running?"

Gently patting my original MacBook baby, I replied "She's still going strong - even though I got her way back in 2007 when I started grad school."

Well okay, fine, I didn't really say "she." But I do feel attached to my laptop. Not only was it a gift from my father at the start of my career as a grad student, but it's been pretty much fused to my fingertips for over 12 hours a day for the past four years.

I use it a lot.

"The reason I asked," continued my advisor, "is that my daughter also has a Mac, and it's been giving her problems - and I was wondering how much to sink into it before I get a new one."

I considered a moment, and told him that the hardware has always been excellent on every Mac I owned. "But," I said, "you know what's really starting to hold me back? Having an old operating system." I still was using the OS X version that the laptop came with (10.4), and enough new releases and time had gone by that the newest versions of the most of the software I use is no longer supported. And some software that I would LIKE to have, wasn't compatible. What I really wished I had was OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard.

Figure: Girl can dream, right?

"Oh, well that's easy!" said my advisor. "Buy yourself the upgraded OS X, and put it on the lab account. We can't have you held up over THAT."

Reason #863 I love my advisor.

Figure: So pretty....

So you see that picture right there? That beautiful, sexy picture? That's my desktop right now.

I have just upgraded to OSX 10.6, from 10.4. It's gorgeous. Snow leopard, I have arrived.

Last night I eagerly dove into installing the newest versions of all the software I need/want. I updated Microsoft Office to the latest version, and iTunes to the most recent release. I've installed Papers 2 (now I can reference media types other than just journal papers - like textbooks, patents, websites, etc.). And I've had my eye on EverNote for a while - now I have it!

But then I went to upgrade to the newest version of Safari - and it told me, "must have OSX 10.6.8 or 10.7."

Wait a minute - hold on. There's a 10.7? I could have sworn I got the latest OS. I mean, who bothers paying for an old version?

So I did some Googling, and guess what happened in July.

Figure: Ah, Jobs, we will miss you.

They announced OSX Lion, which is 10.7.

CLEARLY I have not been reading enough Mac fan sites. I did not realize this was coming - and if I had, I would have held off a few more weeks.

But you know what, I will take 10.6.8. It's a whole lot slicker than what I had, and of course, you never want to be too early of an adopter (right? work with me here). Because, you know, they haven't had a chance to work out all the bugs yet.

Yep. I did this on PURPOSE, I tell you. :)

Story of School IDs

I have always had a problem hanging onto my school IDs. I did three years of community college, at two separate colleges, and then I did three years at university, and now I'm in my fourth year in grad school. I've had a school ID in some permutation for many, many years.

And I've learned that my personal "burn rate" is about one a year. I have just come to accept that I will, at some point, misplace my ID every year. So instead of getting upset about it now, I just budget in the $15 replacement fee as part of my school expenses. :)

I don't know why I've always had problems with this - I know students who go their entire four years in undergrad and never misplace their ID. My theory is that it's because I use my ID as an access card to get into various labs and machine shops, as well as my office and my dorm. I don't want to carry my whole purse around while I go about my day, so I put the card in my pocket. Much easier to lose something from your pocket than from inside your wallet inside your purse.

The funny thing is, I had a total of three IDs in undergrad (I was there three years, so just about right). I then moved to Boston to go to grad school. In my years here, I have slowly uncovered all three IDs. What was lost has now been found! One missing ID was tucked inside a pocket inside my tool bag I used to take back and forth to the undergrad machine shop. The other missing ID was in the hoodie pocket of a sweatshirt I used to wear to football games. No football games here, so that one took a while to uncover. But now I have my full set back!

Last week my current ID stopped working.

It's been over a year, so actually I was doing pretty well by not losing it - so I figured, well, that might just be my $15 fee for the year. So I went in to the card office.

"Hi," I said, "I'm here because my ID card has stopped working. My guess is that I have de-magnetized it, since I work with magnets in my lab." The friendly guy behind the counter said, "Sure, let me check that for you." He proceeded to swipe my card through the little testing slot, and he checked his screen - "Strange, it seems to be working here. What was the problem exactly?"

I explained that swiping my card wouldn't let me into the gym, and that swiping the card didn't register at the student center for lunch. But the RFID chip still worked, so I suspected it was demagnetized. "It's definitely not demagnetized," my helpful guy told me, "because if so I wouldn't be able to read it at all."

He peered closely at my ID, checking the little strip on the back. Understanding dawned on his face - "Ohhhh," he said, "There appears to be some, um, damage on the corners..." I looked where he was pointing, and yes indeed - at both edges of the magnetic strip, there were little divits in the card.

I realized quickly what had happened - I have a bad habit of chewing on things, like pens and pencils (not my nails, thank goodness). So sometimes if I'm holding my card, I bite on the corners. And if I have run out of hands, and need my ID (holding stacks of parts and going to the machine shop, or having gloved hands and accessing the clean room, for instance), then I'll just hold onto it in my mouth for convenience.

"Yep," said the guy, "there's enough... ah.. well, imperfections on the strip, that it no longer reads correctly." He quite obviously knew I was chewing on my ID, but he was trying to be nice to me and not point it out.

"Okay," I said, "Well can I get a new one?"

"Unfortunately, since the damage is not under normal wear and tear, I'll have to charge you for a new one. This one isn't even that old, you know."

Yeah, I know! But it's older than a year, don't I get credit for that? Ha!

"But just to make sure," he said, "let me ask my supervisor."

So the supervisor comes over - a little tiny Chinese woman. She inspects my ID, as the guy explains the situation. He ends up with, "So can we give her a new one without charging her?"

She looks up at me, waves the ID in front of me, and said, "No replace! You can SEE the TEETH MARKS!"

Laugh! No such subtlety ("er, appears to be some sort of damage...") from the small Asian lady - she was calling it like she saw it!

What they didn't know is that I also know the trick. I politely took my ID back, and then the next day I peeled up the corner of the laminate with my fingernail. So now the magnetic strip is peeling off the card. I took it back to the card office in a couple days, with a different helpful face behind the counter.

"My card is peeling," I said sweetly, "so the magnetic strip isn't working. Can I get a new one?"

"Of course!" was the reply, "So sorry about that." And because the problem was now the laminate, nobody even commented on the teeth marks (oh, sorry, imperfections...) And a few minutes later, I was in possession of a shiny new ID.

So what this really means, is I still haven't lost my ID or otherwise used up my $15 ID expense allotment for this year. Fingers crossed I can hang onto it!

Mass Exodus

The big drama around the office recently has been that three students, under the same advisor, have all quit in the last week.

It is inevitable that sometimes student/advisor relationships don't match up well. Graduate school is much different than undergrad, in that the professor you work for determines a huge amount of what your experience in grad school is going to be like. It's not so much that there are bad advisors and good advisors (although that certainly may be), but more like different people have different styles of management and methods of working.

The biggest piece of advice that I give incoming grad students, or those preparing to apply for grad school, is that you should absolutely find an advisor you enjoy working with. The school you go to matters a little bit (name recognition can be nice later in life), the specific project you work on matters a little bit (nice to work on something you enjoy, and if you plan on academia the research will be important), but the absolutely critical thing is the advisor. If you are applying to grad school, you already get excited about research in general, so surely you can find something in almost any project that is interesting to work on. Talk to students in potential labs - they will give you straight answers when you ask what life is like. Ask students you meet what the reputation of professors are, and they will dish on the department gossip.

If you work best when left alone to pursue your ideas, find a professor who prefers self-directed students. If you like lots of feedback on your work, find a professor who will meet with you once a week, and has a lab that encourages collaboration between students. If you don't plan on academia, you would rather find a professor who graduates students quickly, than one who pushes students to stay and amass a larger publication record. If you DO plan on academia, you want to find a professor who is a rockstar in your field, and might let you help write grants if you so desire.

Each student has different needs, and every advisor has different expectations and styles of managing their students. It's worth spending the time to find a good fit. Much ink has been spilled on the internet blogs on this topic, so I'll leave it at that.

So now, pondering the situation where several students decide to quit the same lab and switch advisors at once. The general mood was that the students did a good thing, and were looking out for themselves, and obviously the advisor was terrible.

But I'm not so sure. I feel bad for the advisor, honestly - he's a new guy, without tenure, got a rockstar amount of funding, and is growing his lab like crazy. That's got to be a tough situation, with a lot of pressure, and having several of your students leave at once is a pretty harsh critique of your mentoring techniques.

I have no idea what the issues were between the advisor and students, and I have no idea how/if attempts were made to change the situation before it got to the point it did. I just know for myself, I would have tried everything I could to work things out with my professor before leaving. But if I thought there was no chance to make things better, is it better to leave after one year, and basically start over in another lab, or to tough it out for a Master's degree and then switch to a new lab for a PhD? Oh, such tough choices. No wonder those three students have been walking around twitchy for a couple weeks now, pre- and post- leaving.

Hopefully the advisor also learned something from this experience, and can make adjustments in how he deals with students, and can find more students for the fall.

Mostly, the whole thing just makes me very grateful for the advisor I have, who I get along with fantastically. I am very blessed to be in a good situation - I like my advisor, my labmates, the work I'm doing (or trying to do), the department I'm in, and the school I'm at. I may stress myself out about trying to graduate next June - but the reality is, even if I don't graduate next June, the question is just whether it will be August or December next year. Neither option is the end of the world, and life is pretty good while I'm here.

Saudi Arabian High school program

My university has a brand-new partnership with a university in Saudi Arabia, and part of the agreement is that there will be outreach to girls and women in Saudi Arabia (including specifying a certain amount of women be enrolled in the joint exchange student program). As another outreach effort, a two week summer camp was designed for high school girls. So ten Saudi high schoolers interested in math and science are currently here in Boston, learning about engineering.

World's Best School already hosts a LOT of summer camps. (See: hordes of small bodies clogging up the student center at lunch these days...). And in particular, it hosts a well-established high school girl's summer technology program, which runs for four weeks. I was involved in helping plan the two week program for the Saudi girls, and we collaborated with the existing four week program managers to draw from their experience (and class materials!). As additional collaboration, the Saudi girls will join the existing program for the final capstone project. The final capstone project requires materials and lab space for building things, and it's easier logistically to just add ten girls and supplies to an established program with sixty girls, then to come up with something from scratch. Especially since the timing overlaps so well, and this is the first year we've tried this program for the Saudi girls.

We also tried to include some extra-curricular items for the girls. There are a couple field trips to local engineering and technology companies. There's a trip to the beach for the annual national sand-castle building competition (we checked to make sure the beach was appropriate, and it was - although obviously they will not be wearing bikinis..), and a shopping trip.

And last night, there was a social event that I was in charge of. For all of these girls, this is the first time they have been in America, and for some of them, the first time being exposed to Western culture in general. Their high school teachers are women (as are all the teachers in this two-week program, by the way), but they may never have had a chance to meet female role models in the engineering/science fields.

So I invited four other women grad students that I know (all from varying majors), and we had dinner and dessert with the high school girls. It was just an informal thing (I had some puzzles/games to break the ice if necessary), and the purpose was basically to prove that people like me and my friends exist. There are, indeed, women who make a career out of math and science. I thought about inviting undergrad women, but they are mostly gone for the summer, and I thought about inviting a couple of the female faculty, but their schedules are more difficult, and I thought grad students were a little younger and more relatable anyway.

So last evening, I got to be privy to a pretty amazing thing. I have always felt that World's Best School is an incredibly humbling place - no matter how smart I think I am, there is always somebody smarter. No matter how organized, how creative, how disciplined I am - always, there is someone further than I on the spectrum. For a lot of incoming students here, knowing you aren't the best is a jarring realization that can completely kneecap their personal identity. I've tried to look at it as inspiring, but mostly it's just humbling.

But humble comes in many forms. As well as academic and intellectual humility, it is also humbling to meet people like these girls - people who have come from families, circumstances, even entire cultures that set up roadblocks in their way. I've always had support and encouragement, mentors and role models along the way, and I am very blessed to be where I am today. To witness girls who have not had the chances and opportunities I have, and yet have the determined spirit to overcome obstacles and succeed in following their passions - that, dear readers, is humbling.

I was instructed to set up that event for the purpose of inspiring these high school girls and showing them what's possible - but in the end, it had the result of inspiring ME. If these girls are here, possibilities are endless.

Taking the Admin to Lunch

My research group recently got a new administrative assistant, and while we miss the old admin, it's sure much better now than the no-admin situation we had going for a few months. This is now the third admin that has been here during my years as a grad student - which makes me feel either older, or high maintenance! Truly I don't know why the turnover has been quite so high... I swear I'm nice to the admins...

There's been some discussion at Candid Engineer and at Dr. Isis's blog recently on treating the staff well, and I thought it's an appropriate time to mention a nice tradition in my lab.

When the last admin joined our group a couple years ago, I thought it would be a welcoming gesture to organize a lunch outing for her with the students. I'm sure the professors welcomed her as well, but I hoped it would be helpful for her to meet and say hi to all the students that she would have to be fielding requests from. The idea was well received, and the lunch went well. (We paid for her, of course, even engineering grad students can pick up on some etiquette...)

When this most recent admin joined the group, I did the same thing. First I conferred with all the students who would be working with her to see what days would be good for lunch, and not surprisingly the answer was "pretty much any day." Man I love grad school! Then I went to say hi to the new admin, introduced myself and made small talk, and offered that the students would love to take her out to lunch if she had a free day.

The lunch again went very well, and we discovered that actually she is not only a secretary, but a technical writing editor. Perhaps maybe, just maybe, if we are especially nice to her, she might critique our papers for publication? Worth a shot in the future! :) I feel like the outing was a success (even if six people did pay with credit cards - really people? You don't carry $12 cash?), and I think it makes a nice tradition.

In business-speak, this is "on-boarding." Leave it to the business folks to make up a term and a procedure for common sense... Actually it's popular here to do the same thing when an advisor gets a new student - the current students of that advisor will take the new one out for coffee (or a beer, depending on the lab group). Gossip, small talk, and there you have it. It's a bonding thing, and it helps people become more comfortable and feel like valued parts of the group.

Between the welcome lunches and the bread and vanilla I make for the staff, I think the moral is that my way of being nice to people is to feed them... there are worse ways to show appreciation, I think!

Do you do anything to "on-board" new staff, or members of the lab group?

Respect the Hoodie

Most people, and particularly nerds, and definitely me, have an environment that is particularly conducive to being productive. It's important to have things arranged properly around me, so that my mind isn't worried about anything else but the task at hand. I would like to direct your attention to the following passage, which conveys the concept beautifully:

What is your nerd’s hoodie? I write better when I’m wearing a hoodie. There’s something warm and cave-like about having my head surrounded — it gives me permission to ignore the world. Over time, those around me know that interrupting hoodie-writing is a capital offense. They know when I reach to pull the hoodie over my head that I’ve successfully discarded all distractions on the Planet Earth and am currently communing with the pure essence of whatever I’m working on.

It’s irrational and it’s delicious.

Your nerd has a hoodie. It’s a visual cue to stay away as they chase their Highs and your job is both identification and enforcement. I don’t know your nerds, so I don’t know what you’ll discover, but I am confident that these hoodie-like obsessions will often make no sense to you - even if you ask. Yes, there will always Mountain Dew nearby. Of course, we will never be without square pink Post-its.

h/t Rands in Repose

For me, I have to have the following things in place to really get in a groove:

1) Desk clean and tidy
2) Dual monitors up and running all the applications I will need
3) Headphones in, Pandora or Grooveshark playing
4) Shoes off
5) Legs crossed up on the chair
6) In the morning, coffee at hand. In the afternoon - water or sometimes a diet soda.

In that manner I can knock out three hours of work, and only look up because I have to take a bathroom break. (See: coffee or soda at hand.) These past couple days, I've been spending a good amount of hours in the groove. It feels good, like I'm really making some progress. And if people interrupt me while I working, it really irritates me. This morning I snapped at a coworker - then immediately apologized, of course. But he said - "Wow! I finally found how to make you irritated! I didn't think it was possible..."

Yeah, man, you've got to respect the hoodie... :)

What environment do you need to help you focus?

Cohort

I was homeschooled from first grade all the way through high school, so I wasn't part of a high school class year. I went to community college next, and there aren't really defined class years in that situation either. It wasn't until I transfered from community college to a university that I really had a set of friends progressing through school WITH me. A cohort, if you will.

It was in university that I first realized how valuable it is to actually have peers. Growing up, most of my friends were either older or younger than me - I was used to interacting with adults and children, and people my own age tended to confuse me. (Or, you know, it was just the fact that I'm an ENGINEER... not known for socializing well...) But if you have a set of people going through the same things with you, you can commiserate, and compare notes, and provide encouragement, and celebrate accomplishments together.

In fact, the best situation is probably where you have a mix to interact with - a cohort of peers, plus some older mentors, and some newer that are learning from you.

Hey wait a minute - that sounds a lot like grad school!

I wanted to address today the "cohort" part of that ideal grad school mix. In my office with about 20 students in it, three of us are at the same point in our PhDs. We are also the three most senior students in the office... must mean I'm getting old! Of course I also have friends at the same point in their PhD in other labs, but I am closest with my friends in my office.

So myself and two other guys are all aiming to graduate about the same time - June 2012, fingers crossed and lab gremlins willing. I passed qualifying exams first (because I somewhat stupidly decided to take qualifying exams the same semester I graduated with my Master's degree). The second guy passed quals the semester after me, doing things the normal-speed way. The third guy passed quals the next semester after that, but the reason he was slower was because he came in with a Master's degree from another university, and it takes a little longer to come up to speed in that case.

But now we're all about on the same page. We all started writing the PhD proposal about the same time. I finished mine a few weeks ago, and the other two are putting the final touches on theirs. I have my committee together, and I have scheduled a meeting for Friday the 18th. The other two can shop around their proposal and get a committee together as soon as they finish writing, and have a meeting as soon after that as they can schedule one. But I suspect that the other two may be a month or so behind me in getting a meeting.

So here's the thing about having a cohort of peers - you compare yourself to them. Sometimes I think I'm going really slow through the PhD process (I started writing the proposal a YEAR ago, for crying out loud, and I passed quals waaaaaay back in May 2009). I mean, what have I done in the past year? Then I waffle and think, man, I am doing pretty darn well. I did quals first, finished my proposal first, got a committee first, and now will have a meeting first. Score!

The reality is that I land (as is usually the case) somewhere in the middle. There is a huge standard deviation in the PhD experience, and I think overall I'm doing just about right. The important thing is that I am confident that I can progress forward from here with a clear goal in sight.

Then the question becomes - how do you find a balance between competition and companionship? On one hand, it's good to compare yourself to your peers to make sure you are keeping on track (motivation, anyone?). And competition is healthy when it keeps you on your toes and constantly pushing the cutting edge. But it's NOT healthy to be arrogant about your success. And it's not good to get a case of Imposter Syndrome and think that maybe you aren't good enough when in reality, well, you are.

I am going to try to enjoy having a cohort to learn and grow with during my PhD, and try to avoid the pitfalls on either side. For instance, if it takes me longer than June 2012 to graduate, I will be irritated but not heartbroken. On the other hand, I am afraid the the other two students would be upset if I graduate significantly before they do. But I can't base my life on what other people think, so I'm just going to proceed with my life as best I can - cohort or not! I'm an outlier, anyway, right? :)

Do you have coworkers, or fellow students, or professors on the same track that you relate to and commiserate with?

Full Time Researcher

This is the first semester I haven't had any classes. Ever. Since I was five. No, wait - four. (I went to preschool). That's a lot of years I've spent taking classes, and now I don't have any except Ground School, which I'm taking for fun.

It's an odd, surreal feeling.

On the one hand, I absolutely love it. It is a glorious, glorious realization that there is life after classes - to go home and realize that you don't have to be working on a problem set.

No finals? Be still, my beating heart.

Even though during grad school I have only been taking two classes each semester, which isn't a full load, it still mentally splits you. If you have the overachiever bug and only two classes, it's very easy to spend WAY more time than you need to on the homework, making it perfect. Even though in grad school it's not hard to get an A, internally you still push yourself.

So even though two classes is not physically much time spent in class, and although homework for two classes doesn't take too much time from your week, it FEELS disproportionally distracting. Especially if the class is a project class, where you have to mentally deal with the project plus group dynamics.

So not having the distraction of classes really frees you up to focus on your research, and the productivity of experiments goes way up. Right?

Yeah, theoretically right.

But on the other hand, I'm having trouble adjusting to no classes. Whereas I used to wish - "man, if I just had a whole morning free, I could really get something done". Or, "if only I had an entire afternoon with nothing scheduled." Now, I find that although my evenings are still scheduled (exercise classes, RA meetings, basketball, occasional dinners with friends, meetings on conference organization), my days are fairly free.

Do you know how hard it is to get up in the morning, when the first thing on your schedule for the day is simply lunch? Especially when I do my best work at night? What ends up happening is that I stay up later and later, and sleep in later and later, until I have shifted myself completely around backwards. Not the ideal way to go about your life, being out-of-sync, even if technically there's nothing wrong with it.

World's Best School has an academic calendar that gives the whole month of January off, and classes begin in February. So all of Jan, I was sort of treating it like vacation - it's Christmas break, right? But now I'm coming to grips with the fact that my whole YEAR is going to be like this, with no classes. So at some point I have to get out of vacation mode - this is how I will be WORKING.

My advisor is also not the sort that micromanages, he stays hands off unless I ask for help. I love that about my advisor, but it exacerbates the motivation problem because he doesn't apply pressure. (I know, I know, I have terrible problems.... :P)

I have always had trouble keeping track of the date - who keeps track of whether it's the sixth, or the seventeenth? - but I could usually at least remember what day of the week it was. But now, the weekend is pretty much the same as the weekday. I can go in to work and do experiments on Sunday, and I can stay home on Tuesday (um, blizzard days are good candidates for working at home...). A lot of my work is on the computer, and really there's no need for me to be in the office for that if I don't want to. But it's turning out that perhaps I SHOULD be in the office, necessary or not, so that I force myself to be productive and not to get distracted.

Because what I am finding is that NO routine means it's hard to stay motivated, even though in general I'm really good at being self-motivated.

So this coming week, my goal is to establish some boundaries - a routine, artificial though it may be. I would like to get into the office at a reasonable hour (9:30, maybe? 10? Anything's better than 11 or later), make my coffee, check email, write a quick blog post, and then get to work. Because if I have a whole morning free, and I get nothing done, whose fault is that? If I'm checking Facebook in the afternoon that I have nothing scheduled, I have only myself to blame when my weekly meeting with my advisor comes around and I don't have results to show.

I have flexible, focused days available to me. I plan to use them.

How do you schedule your days without classes to plan around? How do you apply external motivators?

Total Paper Domination

It started, as so many large undertakings do, with a simple problem. I wanted to look up an experimental parameter, and I knew I had seen a paper doing exactly the experiment I wanted to copy.

Could I find that paper? Of course not.

Could I remember that detail? Can Miss Outlier EVER remember a detail?

Clearly there was a problem. I looked for a printed copy of the paper, no luck. In an email? Not so much. Somewhere buried in a folder on my hard drive? Probably.

Before I knew it, I was rounding up ALL the papers I have on my computer - stashed in various folders, "Remember This For PhD," "Related to Useful Experiments," "PhD Exploration" - that have since lost their meaning. I also have a stash of old papers, sort of a lab historical file, that was given to me in a huge zip file from the most senior grad student when I joined the lab. I've always meant to see what was in there, because it would look terribly bad if I forgot to cite one of my own lab's papers. (I did find the paper I was looking for, by the way, it happened to be on my desktop. But at this stage, that was entirely beside the point.)

And then the project got even more involved - because you see, I've always meant to get everything organized in a proper bibliography management software. For my Master's thesis, my strategy was pretty much to find all the papers I could, print them out in a binder, and then refer to them as I wrote Chapter 1: Introduction and Background. I put all the citations for the papers in a BibTeX file, so I could reference them as I wrote the thesis in LaTeX with a Lyx overlay. (If you don't know what that means, it couldn't possibly interest you anyway, don't worry.) So now that I was rounding up all my papers, it was the perfect time to choose a reference software and do things RIGHT.

This, by the way, is classic nerd behavior. I adore Rands in Repose - if you are a nerd, or must deal with one on a daily basis, he is a must read. I'd like to share an excerpt which is relevant in this case:

Chasing the Two Highs

The First High: When the nerd sees a knot, they want to unravel it. After each Christmas, someone screws up the Christmas tree lights. They remove the lights from the tree and carefully fold the lights as they lay them in the box. Mysteriously, somewhere between last year’s folding and this year’s Joy of Finding the Lights, these lights become a knotted mess.

The process of unknotting the lights is a seemingly haphazard one — you sit on the floor swearing and slowly pulling a single green cable through a mess of wires and lights and feeling like you’re making no progress — until you do. There’s a magical moment when the knot feels solved. There’s still a knot in front of you, but it’s collapsing on itself and unencumbered wire is just spilling out of it.

This mental achievement is the first nerd high. It’s the liberating moment when we suddenly understand the problem, but right behind that that solution is something greater. It’s….

The Second High: Complete knot domination. The world is full of knots and untying each has its own unique high. Your nerd spends a good portion of their day busily untying these knots, whether it’s that subtle tweak to a mail filter that allows them to parse their mail faster, or the 30 seconds they spend tweaking the font size in their favorite editor to achieve perfect readability. This constant removal of friction is satisfying, but eventually they’ll ask, “What’s with all the fucking knots?” and attack.

A switch flips when your nerd drops into this mode. They’re no longer trying to unravel the knot, they want to understand why all knots exist. They have a razor focus on a complete understanding of the system that is currently pissing them off and they use this understanding to build a completely knot-free product - this is the Second High.

Finding the paper on the desktop was the First High. But I was on to the Second High - complete paper domination.

I was going to need a system. I had a choice - what software to use? Actually I already had a software, because as I said, I've always meant to organize things. I use Papers - which you have to pay a small amount for, but you get a student price and it is AMAZING. There are a bunch of other options, of course. Here at World's Best School they like you to use RefWorks or EndNote, and a lot of people do just fine with those. Zotero is also useful, and has nice browser plug-ins, and JabRef is used by the open-source crowd.

But I've always felt that what I really want the software to do is keep track of the actual .pdf FILES, not so much the citations. I only need to cite things occasionally when I write articles, but I'd like to have all the information in those .pdfs available for me to easily find on a regular basis. The software Papers does just that - it's first and foremost an organization for your files. (I've been told Mendeley works much the same way, and is free.) It acts like iTunes, where you have all your files in the main library, and then you can make "Playlists," sort of, where you group the papers. So I have a bunch of playlists, for things like People Doing Manufacturing, and People Who Did Cool Stuff But Only Once, and Same Material As Me, and Same Process As Me. And any single journal article can be in as many playlists as you want, without making a physical copy of the file to put in another folder in the hard drive. I also make Smart Playlists, that automatically add files - for instance, Papers My LabMates Wrote - based on authorship in that case.

And of course Papers also ties in to LaTeX, in whatever IEEE or other proper format, so the citation process is quick and painless when I need it.

But the killer feature? Search, baby, search. Because all those files are .pdfs, I can search for a term, and find every single paper I have with that term in it. Even if it's not in the title. Awesome. Especially for papers titled things like, "Microfluidics: A Review". Um, gees, I might need a little more detail.

And I can take notes on each paper, like, "Put in Section 3" and those are searchable too. So when I go to write Section 3 of my article, I can look up all the papers I wanted to include. Or, ahem, "Experimental Parameter for Temperature," so when I go to do experiments, I might be able to find what I need...

So, dear readers, I am pleased to announce that a day a half later, I have gathered every paper I currently have in .pdf form, which is 632. I have populated the proper citation data for all 632 of those papers, and sorted them into meaningful groups (there are 200 that may be relevant to my PhD thesis). And at the end of all that, I did a search for the experimental parameter I was interested in.

And exactly one result popped up - the paper that had once been lost, and prompted the whole organization spree.

I have achieved that Second High, ladies and gentleman - total paper domination.

How do you keep your papers organized? Do you have, or does your lab dictate, a software of choice?

Your Brain On Science

One of the cool things about living in Boston (which is FULL of research universities already) and being surrounded by research at World's Best School, is that there are always opportunities to learn and participate in cool science. Sometimes it's a simple as attending seminars. But I also think it's fun to participate in research studies.

Figure: xkcd, as always, hits the nail on the head

There are ALWAYS flyers up in the halls asking for people to join experiments. It's actually not worth my time to volunteer, but if it pays at least $20 an hour, hey I'm game! In addition to flyers in the hall, the Behavioral Research Lab needs so many guinea pigs that they have their own website to handle all the studies.

I have participated in studies on gambling, teamwork, judging people and products, and negotiation. I got to user-test a system for controlling robotic arms on the space station. Those are all fairly little studies, that only take an hour, or maybe a handful of hours over several days. Of course I'm also in a big long-term medical study that tracks the effect of calories on your health over two years.

But I have to tell you about my absolute favorite study - a depth perception study.

The purpose of the study is to understand how the brain processes images to determine depth. Apparently, your brain uses all sorts of clues to estimate depth in your surroundings. The most obvious, and common, is that your brain compares the images from your two eyes, and interprets the difference between the images as depth. That's why when you close one eye, you can't tell depth as well. But that's not the only way your brain works - it also uses shadowing, for example, and vanishing-point perspective. 

The researchers want to figure out what the brain is doing, and then use that to help people who either a) only have one eye providing data to the brain (due to injury or very poor/lopsided eyesight), or b) have trouble with depth perception because their brain isn't processing normally.

I've gone to three sessions for this study. For the first one, I looked at images on a screen, and pressed buttons corresponding to what I saw. I also had to do things like thread needles and assemble parts with one eye closed.

On the second trip, I got to look at the same images, but inside an MRI machine! So the researchers can see what parts of the brain light up when looking at images with and without depth. And the coolest part? They printed me a picture of my brain.

Figure: Behold! Miss Outlier's brain. A lot of time, money, and schooling went into this...

And then six months later, I came back and did the same thing (to replicate the data - make sure my brain hadn't changed between then and now...). I told them that since it's Winter Break, it's entirely possible that my brain is on vacation, so if they see any discrepancies, they could attribute the change to that!

And I got another picture.

Figure: Miss Outlier's brain, round 2.

How many people get paid to take an MRI of their brain? How many people EVER get to see their brain? That is AWESOME!

The lady did worry me a bit when she gave me this latest printout, though. She looked at me worriedly and said, "Well I'm not supposed to tell subjects this...." Oh no, I thought, they found something terrible like a tumor up there. "But you have really defined folds in your brain." she continued, and then looked at me expectantly.

Huh? Is that bad? What is your brain SUPPOSED to look like? Doesn't that just mean I sat really still?

With a little more prodding, it turns out that apparently a lot of people's brains look more blurry or fuzzy than mine does. The researcher made it sound like mine was abnormally good.

I don't know how to read MRIs, of course, so I have no idea. But somehow I'm not surprised I'm abnormal. I'm an outlier, right? :)

Have you ever participated in a research study? (And P.S., if you have any idea what the brain is supposed to look like, do speak up in the comments. :))

Anatomy of a PhD Defense

I remember the first time I went to a PhD defense. I had just finished my first semester as a grad student, and I still had no idea how the graduate student culture worked. I had no idea what to expect during a doctoral dissertation defense.

Now, I'm old and cynical. I started to lose track of the people I knew that had graduated, so now I keep a list of defenses I have attended. This morning, I attended my tenth defense. (I have more friends that have graduated, but sometimes I can't make it to the actual event.)

I was walking over to the room this morning with two first-year grad students. Today was the first defense THEY had ever attended. I started to explain the typical procedures, and I just had a clear sense of time marching on. All things turn over, all new things become old and then new again...

Man, I really am getting old.

But one of the benefits of age is also (hopefully) wisdom. And if not wisdom, at least the ability to draw comparisons. I've seen a fairly wide range of things happen at defenses. :) So I thought I would describe a typical defense, at least as it works in Mechanical Engineering at World's Best School.

Preparation

First, let's get one thing straight. You KNOW you are going to pass. Your committee of advisors won't let you set a defend date unless you are ready. You can be positive that you'll get a check on your thesis card at the end of the day. But you would like to feel that you nailed the presentation, that you handled all the questions with authority and grace, and that you truly earned your degree. Really, you are fighting for the "Check Plus" instead of the "Check".

Figure: But let's be honest. You wouldn't be at World's Best School unless you always fight for the Check Plus.

So you will probably stress about it anyway. My lab has a student seminar series, run by the students, for the students. Students volunteer to present their work, sometimes to ask for help with their research, but most often in preparation for a) a conference talk b) the qualifying exam presentation, or c) a defense. So often, you will give your presentation to the students first, so that you feel confident on defense day.

The choice of classroom to defend in is also key. If you choose a room in the main engineering building, you are liable to get a lot of random professors "dropping in" to listen. "Drop-ins" tend to ask questions. Hard questions. Off-the-wall questions. Questions you are not prepared for. You don't want drop-ins. :) So it is in your best interests to pick a room that is off the beaten path. Ditto for the time and day (Friday afternoons, everybody is looking for something not-work-related to do... so Monday at 9am is much better), but you don't have much control over that. It's hard enough to get your three committee professors to all have an hour and a half free to slot you in!

The Introduction

On the day of your defense, your advisor will give you an introduction. Some advisors just say, "Here is my student. They have done well. Student, please begin." But it is more common, and a nice touch, for your advisor to introduce you with a quick review of your graduate career, and perhaps an anecdote or two. For instance, one professor recalled the time that his student set the lab on fire. "Despite which," the professor was quick to add, "I am pleased to announce that subsequent experiments fared much better."

Who Attends

The only people who MUST attend are your committee members. Although this morning, one of the committee members had to video conference in from Japan. And another time, the student's actual advisor wasn't even in the room - he had to Skype in from California! That instance was actually the most extreme case I know - that student had three very hard-to-schedule committee members. They were always traveling, or teaching, or otherwise busy. So even after three separate committee meetings, and the defense, he NEVER had all three people physically in the same room. Now that, my friends, is talent.

In addition, anyone at the university is allowed to attend, and the defense announcement is sent department-wide. (See note on choosing classrooms to avoid too many drop-ins...) So your classmates, your friends, and any student who saw the announcement and found it relevant (or who wants to procrastinate from research) will be there.

And usually (excepting matters of national security) the event is open the the public as well. So your family, girlfriend, or anyone else you can convince to sit through a detailed technical presentation can be there as well. In one case, a very popular social student had an entire cheerleading section at his defense. They actually brought little cardboard cutouts, of a "D" and a white picket fence. (Get it? D! Fence!) That, for the record, I thought was a bit unprofessional...

Finally, there may be students who were your friends and graduated ahead of you. It's actually kind of a mini-reunion at some defenses, with alums coming back to support and congratulate you. Again with the sense of time marching on... the world continually turns. :)

Presentation

Generally the presentation is in PowerPoint, but I saw one student do his using a presentation class of LaTeX called Beamer. If you don't know what TeX is, or you do but you wish you didn't, don't worry... in some company, I don't admit I'm that big a nerd either...

You want to shoot for 50 minutes of presentation, and then leave 10 minutes for questioning. I saw one student only take 35 minutes for presenting. That's a problem. That simultaneously makes it look like you didn't do very much, and leaves you open for 25 minutes of interrogation.

Figure: No check plus for you.

At the end of the presentation, make sure to give acknowledgments. I saw one student cry during acknowledgments, just from overwhelming emotion. I wouldn't recommend that.

When you take questions, your goal is to a) understand the question, which sometimes is no small feat, then b) come up with a satisfactory answer, preferably a "yes/no" with a reason, or a "depends" with supporting examples. Then, crucially, your job is to c) quickly take the next question before your carefully crafted aura of expertise is further assaulted.

If you make it through all questions, everybody claps again. Then everyone except university professors are dismissed from the room.

Post-Presentation

Technically any university professor can vote on whether or not you passed, but usually only the committee members will stay to deliberate, and (see Preparation section) you KNOW how they will vote. But they still have to follow proper procedure, so they cloister themselves in the room while everyone waits outside.

You and your friends stand outside the room, discussing amongst yourselves. We hypothesize that the professors actually discuss the weather and their kids for ten minutes, just to make a good show of it. Whatever they actually do, in a short amount of time they peek out the door, and you have to go back inside. They shake your hand, congratulate you, and tell you that you passed.

Then, triumphantly, you return to your friends - Doctor at last!

Post-Defense Reception

There is always a reception with snacky items afterwards. Hey, any excuse to eat, right? Normally it falls on the girlfriend or wife to take care of the reception arrangements, so you can focus on your presentation. I've actually done two receptions (including today), for friends that don't have significant others or family close by. Hey, I did it for my TA class, and all the time for my RA duties, so I'm an expert!

The reception usually also includes drinks - but different students have different styles. When a Mormon labmate graduated, we had sparkling cider. Another student (now on Wall Street) just skipped right to the other extreme and brought vodka! Champagne is most common, and that's what I did today. We polished off three 750mL champagnes at 11am. :) And one and a half orange juice cartons. Mimosas, of course...

Post-Post Defense

-The post party (if any) also depends on your own personal style. Sometimes there is no post party later that night. Sometimes, as in the case of the student who took seven years to graduate, the post party lasts well into the wee hours of the next morning. :) Sometimes the party waits until the weekend.

But whatever your own style, however you prepare, however you handle the questioning, however you celebrate, here's the thing - YOU ARE DONE!

I promise, it does happen. People do graduate. I've seen it, ten times now. May it be me some day, too. I raise my champagne glass - To a successful future defense for all of you, dear readers!

Is this how defenses go in your experience? How does it work in your department and school?

Seminar Trivia

There are a nearly overwhelming amount of seminars going on around campus on any given week. Between my own office's student seminars, my own lab's seminar series, the department faculty seminars, topic-centered seminar series (energy, MEMS, etc.), MechE student seminars put on by the MechE student club, and faculty seminars put on by the MechE student club, I could nearly go to a seminar every day. And that's just in my department! If you start looking at the entire World's Best School, the raw knowledge dissemination I'm sure makes you smarter just by walking onto campus.

But sadly I don't take advantage of these as much as I should. My first year as a grad student, I would try to go to as many as I could - sometimes two a week, but usually one a week. But now that I'm a 4th year grad student, I've become a bit lazy. I recently read a good post on this here, at Gas Station Without Pumps, a great new blog started in June that you can check out if you like.

So this past week I made it a point to attend a seminar. It was from a visiting Post-doc student, and it was on the topic of designing robots with human safety in mind. This is important when the robots are intended for use working beside people, or for rescue robots, and actually is generally good practice in any situation.

It felt good to just sit and learn, something not strictly necessary for my work, but just for the fun of it. And you never know what you might get out of it.

My favorite piece of trivia from this talk?

It takes 340 Newtons of force to break the nose. (That's 76.4 pounds, for those who don't work in SI units.)

And now you've learned something. :)

Expertise

Recently I've been asked on several occasions to share my expertise on various subjects.

First, it was to explain all the different ways you can manufacture microfluidic chips. That is exactly in my realm of knowledge, and it made me very happy that I could give a helpful, high-level, general overview of the field to a student completely new to the concepts.

Second, it was to share my technical knowledge on thermal control systems. I have built two machines with thermal control systems, and previous students in my lab have built three or four more machines with thermal systems. The student needing help has no fabrication experience, control systems knowledge, or hands-on feel for how to build equipment. I showed them my lab, my current equipment, and the old unused equipment. Between all the examples, I think I was able to show several ways of designing a solution to the problem he was working on.

Third, it was to present on how to design a good case study, and find speakers, and put together a panel for a conference. This is in relation to the conference I helped organize this past Spring Break, which I will be doing again this year.

Fourth, it was my knowledge on life in grad school. I organized the Orientation activities for the new MechE grad students this year, and I got lots of questions. From the logistics of classes and paperwork, to getting around campus, to the expectations in grad school and navigating the tricky lab/advisor relationships - I fielded as much as I could, and knew where to point people when I didn't know the answer. Even after Orientation, there have been lots of new students in my office, and it's been a pleasure to welcome them to the group, and be available for those random questions that pop up, and help them settle in to graduate life if they need it.

When I sat down to think about all this, I was struck by how far I've come. This is my fourth year in grad school. If this was undergrad, I would be a senior. I am supposed to know my stuff by now. And finally, I feel like I do actually know what I'm talking about. That's not to say I know everything or have nothing left to learn - far from it. But I can contribute a) high-level knowledge of my field, b) detailed technical expertise, c) committee organization and conference pointers, and d) general graduate school advice. I'm not sure what other categories there are left!

So can I graduate yet? :)

Grad Student Etiquette: Asking to Skip Meetings

I know every lab has different customs on when and how often students meet with the professors. I usually meet with my advisor once a week, and it has been twice a week this summer while I am also involved in a group project (once individually, once in the group).

These past two weeks, I have been really busy with both undergraduate orientation events (since I live in a undergraduate dorm and am in charge of two floors of girls), and graduate orientation events (since this year I am the Orientation Chair in charge of planning those events). We have 160 new Mechanical Engineering grad students joining us this year, so it takes some planning to pull off a bunch of events for them over a week.

So I asked my advisor if I could skip a week of meetings. He had no problem with this, as he is pretty easy-going in general (and honestly, I think he is busy too with beginning-of-the-semester activities).

But I wonder in general - what is the policy for asking to skip meetings? In some labs, there is a weekly meeting with the whole lab, and one student presents each time. In that case, you may only present once every couple months as you rotate through the group. I would hope that in two or three months you would have some results to show - and if you weren't prepared, it's mostly your own fault.

But I think it's entirely reasonable that if you meet every week, sometimes you just won't have anything to show. And honestly, some weeks everything I say during the meeting I only did the day before... you can get a lot done in one day! It's amazing how time slips away from you. If you have a meeting on Tuesdays, for example, the week goes like this: Tuesday you present. Wednesday you slack off because you just had a meeting. Thursday you have class and you work on homework. Friday - well who wants to work on Friday? Make it a lab clean up day! Then Monday - ack! - you have to get some work done to show on Tuesday.

So I don't feel bad about taking last week off. I was busy getting everybody oriented. But what do you do when you have no excuse, you just didn't get any work done to show? Do you ask to skip that week, do you pull out something older you had saved for just such an eventuality, or do you just discuss future goals?

Girl's Night Out!

Last summer the girls in my group had a couple girl's outings - once to a club where they served three-course $9 dinners for girls on Wednesdays, and once just out for a bite to eat.

But now we are losing one of the girls to California (and a new job - congrats!), so we decided to take ourselves out for a last hurrah.

(Also, we were jealous of all the stories of the boys' nights out. Although we would never replicate what happens on the boy's nights - they get pretty wild, and we just don't drink that much...)

There are several options for ladies' deals around Boston, and we ended up going out to restaurant that offered free dinner (with $10 drink purchase, of course there is a catch...).

Figure: The ladies of my group

Of course, we picked a miserable day to go - rain and puddles everywhere. I discovered that the right foot of my rainboots is not actually waterproof anymore, but oh well - we all dried out eventually!

I have always felt so lucky to be surrounded by such fun and smart people in my group - and it's just a bonus that so many of them are girls! A good looking group we make, I think. :)

Side Projects, and Also - Ouch!

A couple days ago I got a comment from a labmate that has stuck with me - and really bothered me. I asked to use his scanner to make .pdfs of some papers, and he of course didn't mind and agreed. As he was scanning the papers, he noticed that they weren't related to research. He laughed and said, "I won't even ask what you are working on now!" 

I said, "Oh don't worry - it's just a small side project I'm finishing up."

And he replied, "I figured. Everything you do is a side project. I don't think I've seen you do 10 hours of actual research in the year that I've been here. I mean, that's pretty impressive."

I think he was joking, and the other two people listening kind of chuckled, and so I smiled and just let it go.

But I'm not sure how to take that. I mean, ouch! I know I've done more than 10 hours in a year, obviously, but it's also true that he spends a lot more hours actually in lab than I have this summer. And yes, I work on a lot of side projects. (Sometimes I get stuck on them.) I have a lot of interests - I'm an RA, I'm an officer in a student club, I work on business ideas, I like to cook, I take exercise classes, I like going on random adventures. And, of course, I write this blog (although my labmates don't know that).

I've talked a little before about how I don't work weekends, and a lot of people do. I think all the things I do are part of a healthy, balanced life. I am happy with my life, I've tried really hard to position myself so I can advantage of a lot of opportunities.

And beside the point of how many hours I spend on actual research - if my advisor is happy with my progress, it really doesn't matter how long it takes me to do my work. The labmate who made the comment also will casually toss into conversation that "well last Saturday when I was in lab," or "on the holiday Monday when I was working on my project." In my experience, people like that who feel the need to brag about working long hours may not actually be getting any more done than I am.

That's why I love grad school, or working in a small company, and particularly dislike large structured workplaces. I like to be free to schedule my time how I see fit, not according to other people's expectations. When I've worked in large companies, people would judge you harshly on how many hours you were at your desk. People would talk about going in to work "just to show my face" even if they didn't have to do anything in particular. I think that's ridiculous. I like the entrepreneur model, where you work as many hours as it takes to get things done, whatever hours those may be, and then you stop.

That being said, I do want to graduate eventually. I do need to work on PhD related stuff. So perhaps I need to swing the pendulum back and focus a little bit.

How many hours do you spend on side projects or your own interests?

Why I Love Going to a Technical School

Here at World's Best School, we are decidedly skewed toward science, math, and technology. I adore the atmosphere here - at no other time in my life, I think, will I be surrounded with more people like me. And I love that no matter what your interest, no matter how nerdy, you can find kindred spirits here. I've attended the Science Fiction Movie Marathon, and played Motherboard Jenga.

But sometimes even I have to laugh at some of the events I get notifications for. Several selections from email announcements for your enjoyment (all real, I promise):

__________________________________________

World's Best School Rubik's Cube Competition!

If you're planning to come to this Saturday's Rubik's Cube Competition, don't forget to sign up online this week! We may not have room for everyone who doesn't pre-register.

Sponsored by the World's Best School Rubik's Cube Club

Time: Registration opens at 9:00; 3x3x3 runs from 11:00 AM until 1:00 PM

Events will be held from 9:30 AM until 5:00 PM, including the 2x2, 3x3, and 4x4 cubes, and the 3x3 one-handed competition

Cost: $5 for first event plus $1 for each additional event. For students who help judge at the competition, the $5 fee is waived! Spectators are welcome at no fee!

Anyone who can solve a Rubik's Cube in less than ten minutes is welcome to attend! All competitors who successfully solve a cube will be ranked by the World Cube Association! Come and meet some of the best cubers around!

_______________________________

Integration Bee

Do you have what it takes to be crowned the next Grand Integrator?

Come try out for the epic nth annual World's Best School Integration Bee!

20-minute qualifying exam:

Tomorrow, Monday, xxxx 2010

Stop by at any time from 5pm-6pm

Main Event - Come compete if you qualify, or cheer on your integrating classmates!

Wednesday, xxxx 2010

Prizes will be awarded to qualifiers and winners.

Bee there or bee square!

_______________________________

Robosub Competition

Have you ever gone to the beach and thought, "This scene could really be improved by a bunch of unleashed submarine kill-droids fighting laser sharks"? Who hasn't, right? Well in that case you may be interested in this year's AUVSI autonomous underwater vehicle competition webcast:

http://robosub.org/

The webcast is a week from Sunday. Someone should enter Dogfield in a scuba suit:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/the-other-side/dog-owner-takes-dachshund-scuba-diving/story-e6frfhk6-1225888331151

Anyway, check it out if you're an aquabot type!

_________________________________________________

So I never thought there would be an audience for these kind of things, but I am told these were all well-attended. As was the "pi recitation" competition on March 14th, the Medieval club jousts, the slackline practices in the courtyard, and the juggling in the hallway on Sunday evenings. The sophomore robotics competition fills half the hockey rink with onlookers. And hey, I went to underwater hockey for a while, which is pretty far off the beaten path - so really, why not? To each his own!

What oddball stuff goes on at your campus? Have you ever tried something wacky just for kicks?