Friday, January 30, 2015

My terrifying interview

Turns out this is the season for interviewing so another post on the application/interview process: So one of my friends mentioned an interview that she had for a faculty position that was very stressful and it made me recall my worst faculty interview.  The faculty members threw around their weight.  Tried to beat her down verbally, and made the program unappealing from a friendliness standpoint.

My situation was at a very big school and they asked for three presentations all over the same day.  This was a 7am-8pm day.  The presentations were a research talk, teaching and research interests, and then a lecture.  The lecture was covering a topic that I had taken a class on over a decade ago and a topic that isn’t really used outside of the classroom.

I showed up and immediately had a discussion with the department head.  After this, he took me over to the room to give me research talk.  There were a ton of questions.  I loved this!  I love answering questions and getting feedback so this was awesome.  My teaching and research interests went over okay, but then the lecture came up.  Again, this is a topic, that when I took it, that I got an A in.  Top of the class. But a decade later and with only a few days to prepare, I wasn’t coming in at the peak of my knowledge.  The lecture started off well and then about 15 minutes in, things started to fall apart.  I was asked questions I couldn’t answer.  They wanted this lecture to test my knowledge of this narrow topic that I definitely didn’t remember.  So I answered as best as I could while they pretended to be naïve students.  I was sweating hard.  I couldn’t hold it together, but somehow persevered and made it through the class.  I could tell I was discombobulated by the end and not of the proper mindset. 

I’m normally really personable, great conversation, not a bad face to look at, but I was really really off after this.  I felt like they were talking down to me for the rest of the day including the dinner.  Afterwards, one person said it was because I’m more applied and make more money, but I brushed it off as a just a comment trying to relax me. 


What’s funny is that I already came in with a job offer and this was just a backup.  I don’t know why I was sweating so hard.  I looked up the school recently and saw they hired someone I know that I enjoy the company of, so I’m glad I wasn’t their pick.  But holy crap.  We get it: you’re smart about this topic, maybe you should be smart about your human interactions and you wouldn’t be a lonely man with nothing but your right hand to come home to.  Sorry, that was uncalled for.  But remembering back to that situation gets me in a bad mood.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

A friend's academic journey

It's crazy to think that a year ago I was interviewing for faculty positions. Time really does fly when you're terrified of what the future holds.

A friend from my National Lab days after my MS went to industry after his PhD and now he's applying for positions in a similar field to mine (this is his 2nd application cycle). I helped him with his applications but I still have no idea what committee members look for. He's only applied for 3 schools this since he's very particular about where he lives. And he's said that this is his last year. Otherwise, he'll just stay with the company he works for forever. This will be more monetarily beneficial but he says he isn't stimulated.  Now, I don't view him as a spectacular researcher, though he does have great pubs and he went to a top-10 school for his BS, MS, and PhD.  One big thing is how his students react when I ask about him.  THEY LOVE HIM!!!

They have mentioned how he is the sole reason for keeping in the field.  He clearly cares about students; much more than most profs I've talked to.  He's far from selfish and can truly inspire students while getting some cool results out.  I guess a lot of profs have fed back to him that he doesn't have enough academic interbreeding....that he went to the same school (though a great one) for all his degrees.  He needed to stay close to home for family reasons...his dad was very sick and died which he was in grad school.   I never heard of academic interbreeding before this.  And I kind of wish I wouldn't have.  Now I'm wondering if when I get to be on search committees if I'll pass judgment on this simple metric.  This is someone that really cares and if you feel the main job of a professor is to educate, then he's perfect.  I told him to look at maybe some R2s that wouldn't care and maybe make his way up.  His schools are better than mine, but wasn't able to change schools because he took care of his dad.  So his career is forever tainted.  

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Dear NPR, please don't become Discovery Channel

I used to love the Discovery Channel.  I watched it as a kid and started watching it even more when Mike Rowe came in with Dirty Jobs and the Adam and Jamie showed up with the Mythbusters.  While I don't necessarily agree with everything the MB do, I appreciate how they get the younger ones interested in science and engineering.  That being said, I wish someone would teach them statistics....among other things.  My heart really lies with Dirty Jobs though.  Mike Rowe's personality mixed with the content makes it one of my favorite shows.

When I saw that Dirty Jobs was cancelled it broke my heart, but to me it signalled something different: Discovery Channel needs to fill this massively great show.  They have been filling it with basically the TV show equivalent of click-bait: horrible shows to get viewers one time.  The network it not good now, and that upsets me.  Once the network figured out a recipe that works: crazy experiments and explosions with a dash of bad science equals ratings.  They've been taking a a quantity over quality tactic.  I'm concerned that they'll just creating more and more shows therefore diluting the brand.

NPR has been coming out with a lot of shows lately.  I hear about a new podcast roughly every single week.  And so far, I've been liking it: Snap Judgment is a relatively newer show that I love, and Serial exploded with popularity.  It seems like every few months though, my favorite podcasts like Radio Lab and This American Life are plugging newer shows on NPR.  So far, they've been interesting; I just ask you, NPR, PRI, or whatever, to make sure the quality of your flagship shows don't get diluted with newer shows.  I don't suspect it will happen, I just worry a lot about my entertainment.  Unrelated to anything academic or industry....just a quick thought since I've been listening to a lot of podcasts in my travels.

Friday, January 2, 2015

The new house

Happy New Year!

As soon as I accepted an offer from the new school I started looking at houses and talking with people.  I wanted to find a good neighborhood: close to stuff but quiet.  It took my 9 months to find my current dwelling, so I figured it would take me longer to find my new one.  Turns out it’s waaaaaaaaaay cheaper to live in my new city, so I found it in 3 months and about 5 visits between myself and my spouse.

Finding my current place was a long process because I live one of many markets that’s expensive and hot (not unlike me).  I wanted something very specific and the architecture of the area combined with cost and safety made it tough to find exactly what I desired.  Every time I found exactly what I wanted, someone scooped me.  On my first visit to my new city I found three houses and checked them all out.  None of these were really what I wanted.  Then my spouse went out and looked at about 10 over a few days.  I came back out to look at the top three and we had found the one we wanted.  We put in an offer about 5% below asking and got it. I especially like it because it’s almost turn-key.  So are renting it out for this semester and next, then in May we’re starting to rip parts out the house and replace.  Plans are that it should be ready by the end of the semester just in time for us to move in.

I have to say that we’re a little worried about renting it out to students but that’s the advantage of ripping the house apart when the semester is done…it almost doesn’t matter what they do.  On top of this the neighbors will be thanking the Lord when we move in because we would be replacing the rowdy college kids.  It’s kind of like giving someone REALLY bad news before giving them kind-of bad news.

I’m really pumped about the move (though we haven’t yet put our current place on the market) as I can already see having friends over, how I want it arranged, and having students over a couple times a semester for lab celebrations.  On that note: my advisor would have the occasional get-together at his place, but I noticed other advisors would just take their students out.  In our lab the get-togethers weren’t related to a lab event like when someone finished their PhD.  It was just a random Spring or Winter one.  I’m fine with that, though I plan on celebrating their achievements.  Unless they don’t want that.  What if they would prefer not to celebrate with their boss?  What if they wreck up my house because they actually secretly hate me?  Actually, I have no idea what I’ll do.  It’s too bad there isn’t an “Advising for dummies”...kind of like those parenting books.