This Seems Like a Good Time to Mention That I Hate Your Work

Have you ever been attacked in a rather impolite way while giving a professional talk?

OK, so "attacked" is a bit of hyperbole. Let's say instead "severely criticized" or perhaps even "insulted". A few notches down would be "asked a question that may have been intended to humiliate you."

I have! Recently! In this case, the question/comment was of the "Your work is totally worthless and a waste of your government's money" sort.

But first, let's go back in time. Not long before I gave my very first talk at a conference as a graduate student, a certain scientist asked me an informal question in conversation. I said I did not know the answer. An hour or so later, he asked me the exact same question at the end of my talk, in front of a few hundred people.

I thought: What a jerk. I did not know him very well, although I had read some of his papers, so I didn't know what his motivation was in asking me a question he knew I could not answer. It could be that he wanted to humiliate me, although that is not my preferred explanation. My favored hypothesis is that he thought it was such a great question, he didn't actually care whether I knew the answer or not, he just wanted to get points for asking it in public. I don't know for sure, but I must say that I was never able to summon much enthusiasm for conversing with him, much less working with him, after that episode.

Since then, it has been my general impression that some people who attempt to ask "take-down" kinds of questions or who make vague derogatory comments ("Your science is completely worthless") aren't actually concerned that Science is being harmed by a misguided or ignorant person. Instead, they are seeking attention and just enjoying the sound of their own brilliance. That is: Enough about you, person who just gave a talk! Now listen to what I have to say even though I don't actually have much to say that is interesting, relevant, or possibly even sane!

But I could be wrong about that. And I don't really want to spend any more time discussing why some people are jerks in this particular way. (And I don't mean to imply that everyone who asks an aggressive question or makes a negative comment is an unreasonable jerk. In some cases these questions and comments are well deserved and useful.)

Anyway, when a very outspoken rude person attempted a take-down kind of question/comment during a talk I gave at a conference recently, I totally did not care. I responded with basic explanations and opinions to his "concerns", and that was that. What surprised me was the number of people who came up to me afterwards to tell me that I shouldn't let it bother me, I shouldn't be upset, I shouldn't worry etc. In fact, I was not bothered, upset, or worried at all.

I appreciated the concern, but then I started to worry that I might have seemed upset when this is not at all what I felt. I don't think I said or did anything that could be interpreted as my being upset when I was up on the stage dealing with the obnoxious comments. I felt quite calm, perhaps a bit impatient, but mostly I thought the whole thing was absurd. It was not a big deal. It upset me to think that people might have thought I was upset when I wasn't. Does that make any sense?

Perhaps people were projecting? That is, they would have felt upset if the Big Guy had gone after them like that?

And maybe these aggressive people serve a useful purpose? Perhaps it actually helped me in the long run that I was "vaccinated" against aggressive questions at my very first professional talk -- after that, I expect it. There will be jerks. They are just part of the landscape. Water off a duck etc. etc.?

Have you ever been experienced what you considered an inappropriate question or comment -- either in content or tone -- during a professional talk? Were you upset?

Have you ever experienced a rude question or comment during a talk?
	No
	Yes
pollcode.com free polls

Professor Babysitter

Earlier this year, I got a panicked call from a younger relative who was about to give birth to her second child. The baby was about 10 days early and everything was fine, but my relative and her husband had no real plan for a babysitter for their 2.5 year old in the event that the new baby came early. That is, no real plan other than calling me and asking me to take care of their daughter.

I must admit that my first thought was not "Of course! Just let me know what I can do to help!" It was more like "Me?? Are you serious?"

They were serious. They selected me because I fit the following criteria: (1) female, (2) relative, (3) parent, and (4) I could get to their location sooner than other female relatives who have kids. Never mind that my daughter is in high school and I have not taken care of a little kid in many many years..

These relatives are a bit traditional (hence their criteria), but what could I do? It didn't seem the right time to be annoyed that they would never ask a male relative to take a day off from work. My relative is a stay-at-home mom and has never had a career. To her, only another mom could take care of her daughter, and her preference was for that mom to be me.

My mind boggled at the number of people I was going to inconvenience at work by canceling or postponing meetings and other events -- undergrads, grads, staff, colleagues, a dean, an off-campus group with which I have been working -- but I sent off a raft of emails and raced off to babysit for an unknown amount of time.

I did make one quick stop on the way -- I ran into a store and acquired paper, crayons, stickers, crackers, juice.. just in case. Then I went to the hospital where my relative was in labor, her husband was freaking out, and their daughter was sitting strapped in a stroller that was soaking wet because her dad had not changed her diaper for many hours. Before leaving their apartment, he had grabbed exactly 2 books and one paisley-patterned stuffed animal of uncertain species. I was glad I had brought some supplies.

I asked my relative-in-law what his daughter might want to eat for lunch and he said, and I quote, "I don't know. Her mom always feeds her."

So my babysitting adventure began. Yikes it has been a while since I spent so much time taking care of a 2.5 years old. It was exhausting even though my little relative is an extremely cute, affectionate, and (mostly) well-behaved kid.

It turns out that my babysitting had to be confined to the hospital waiting room, lobby, and cafeteria, as my relatives wanted their daughter nearby. This was challenging, but fortunately there were things to see and discuss, such as a decorative pond that we agreed should have had fish in it (but didn't), some religious statuary that I found difficult to explain (so I just made stuff up), and waiting room brochures about some rather adult topics (I made up more stuff).

In fact, we had lots of fun playing weird little games with stickers, rhyming words, and the bizarre stuffed animal her dad had brought even though it is one she "hates". I felt that her hatred of this animal was justified, and that this allowed me to throw it in the air without fear of causing her emotional trauma. In fact, throwing this dog(?) around occupied us happily for at least 20 minutes of that very long day.

It turned out that the 2 books her dad had hurriedly packed were both bedtime books and she absolutely refused to read them during the day because it was not bedtime. This was reasonable. I had brought my iPad, so I started downloading books onto it: ones I remembered my daughter had liked. When my daughter was that age, we only read physical books, so this was new for me, reading e-books with a little kid. We spent quite a lot of time reading, then we enhanced the adult-topic brochures with stickers of frogs and ladybugs.

Taking care of this little girl definitely brought back memories. When we were playing by the fishless pool, she said "no fish" about 57 billion times, over and over and over. I tried to be very Zen about it but at some point I realized I was going to go mad, so the next time she said "no fish", I said "no whales". This is exactly what I used to do with my daughter lo those many years ago, but I didn't know how this particular little girl would respond. She stared at me, her eyes huge, her brain churning, and then carefully said "no seals". So I said "no dolphins". We worked our way through every sea creature we could think of, and then, miraculously, my relative-in-law texted me to say that the new baby had arrived! Yay!

But I was not done babysitting. I was not done because my relative-in-law would not yet tell us whether the baby was a boy or a girl because he first had to call his parents and tell them and then he had to call his parents-in-law and tell them and then he could tell his daughter and then he could tell me. He asked us to go back to the waiting room so we would not overhear the "gender reveal" in his phone conversations with the grandparents. Is this normal? Is this some tradition of which I have thus far been unaware? We went back to the waiting room and threw the paisley dog(?) around some more until it was our turns to hear the news (it was a boy).

Eventually the new family was united and even though I think they would not have minded if I continued to babysit for the next few hours or weeks, I decided my work there was done. My relative-in-law was very kind in thanking me for helping them out, but he also told me that he thought the experience had been very good for me. In some ways he was right, but when he said that I realized I needed to go back to my own planet as soon as possible.

What, if anything, did I learn?

It is possible to miss a busy day of work and survive, although there are times when I have doubted this. I am sorry that others were inconvenienced, but I am glad I was able to help out my relative in her time of need.

I can't imagine wanting to live the way these relatives live (I am sure they feel the same about me). Mom takes care of kids; Dad works. Dad doesn't even now how to feed or change his daughter (and now his son). And yet, I like them. They are nice people. And their daughter is a happy, smart, busy little kid.

I am glad my daughter is a teenager. I have enjoyed every age that she has been; every age has been my favorite. I am not at all nostalgic for her baby-years.

Not The End of Men Quite Yet

Not long ago, a colleague discussed with me the recently-concluded faculty search in his department. His department decided to hire a male candidate, and my colleague told me he was relieved. In fact, he said to me, "It's so good to know that men can still get hired. I thought we could only hire women, so it's nice to know that men can still get hired." This statement seemed a bit bizarre to me for several reasons, including the fact that the department in question had no female assistant professors at the time of this statement. 

It is strange enough that someone would say this to me (but somehow they do anyway), but what does it mean, if anything? Of course, I hope it does not mean that when a woman is hired, some will think that she was hired mostly/entirely because she is a woman and the department finally had to hire one of those. And if anyone does think that, I hope it does not affect how they treat their new colleague and how they view her work as a professor. (I know enough of the context of this particular situation to know that there are unlikely to be problems in that particular case.)

Nevertheless, as long as there are people who believe that an unbroken streak of hiring men somehow means that men can no longer get faculty positions (in STEM fields), the eventual hiring of a female professor is a situation that calls for vigilance -- by administrators and by faculty -- to make sure any woman hired under such circumstances is not at a disadvantage from the very beginning.

Some Of Them Are Very Bright

As happens from time to time, a science-man having a conversation with me about science, or whatever, will feel the need to establish his I-can-work-with-women creds, even though this is apropos of nothing other than that he is having a conversation with a female scientist (me) at the time, and so he will mention his sincere opinion that a woman or women he worked with is/are actually quite smart. Some of them are even very bright (I heard that one today in an otherwise apparently normal conversation).

Also in a recent conversation of this sort, a science-man told me that he once had to work with a woman who had -- according to what many people told him -- a reputation for being very difficult. He felt that this was a common trait in successful women, and although many successful women realize this and therefore keep a low profile and choose to work behind the scenes (can we call that leaning back?), especially after they get into their late 30s, for some reason this woman chose to stay visible and to work openly with the big male guns even though she was clearly in her 40s (I am not making this up). He did not use the b-word, but he did use the word "shrew" a few times, but -- guess what?!! -- he got along with her just fine. Every once in a while she would start to go shrew on him (I just made up that phrase, it is not a direct quote), but he stayed calm and patient and she would calm down too and they ended up working well together. Yay. 

I do not think less of these men for their misguided attempts to impress me with their progressive opinions of the Female Intellect and/or bizarre hypotheses about the Female Personality in Early Middle Age, but neither am I impressed, just so you know.

Of Course It's True That Professors Grade Easier Than TAs

Last week when I was in a cafe waiting for my mediumskimicedmocha, I overhead one student say to another, "Of course it's true that professors grade easier than TAs", and the other student agreed with that statement. 

Of course! I rather liked this indication that we professors might actually become nicer with time, as opposed to more cranky and mean.

But do you agree with these students? (ignoring the 57 million variables for which we cannot scientifically or otherwise account in discussing this issue now in this blog post and comments).

Some considerations:

- If you used to be a teaching assistant and are now a professor, assuming that you have even a shred of objectivity about this issue, do you think you are an "easier" grader now than when you were a TA?

- If you are a professor now and you teach a class with teaching assistants, do you think you are an easier grader than your TAs? Is this generally true?

- If you are a teaching assistant now, do you have any idea how your grading "hardness" compares with that of the course instructor(s)?

Over the years, in some classes I have been an easier grader than my TAs and in other classes I have not, but if I had to generalize over my career, I would conclude that (1) I am an easier grader now, as a professor, than I was when I was a TA, and (2) I am commonly (but not in every case) an easier grader than most (but certainly not all) of my TAs. I gauge the latter by how many complaints I get about TA grading and, when faced with a grading dispute, whether I think the TA assigned a reasonable grade or was too harsh. [The latter case creates the tricky situation of needing to be fair to the student without undermining the TA, a topic for another day.]

There are likely many explanations for the TAs-are-more-severe-graders phenomenon, but some obvious ones that spring to mind are:

- We are more idealistic when we are just starting out in a career. We have standards, and these are not as flexible as they become later, when we have been teaching for years and might be more willing to reward a glimmer of knowledge as opposed to being severely disappointed that an answer is not as correct or complete as it should be. That does not necessarily mean that we old(er) professors are jaded and have lower standards (though it may).

- At least at the beginning, when we haven't had much experience as a teaching assistant, we don't have much of a basis for comparison and perhaps not much perspective to guide us in the more subjective aspects of grading things involving writing and equations and diagramming. When I was a TA, it was the rare professor who provided much guidance about grading issues such as partial credit, so I mostly made it up as I went along. I figured/hoped that as long as I was consistent, I couldn't go too far wrong.

- A related explanation: Some inexperienced TAs don't have the confidence to give partial credit for partially-correct answers. I recall a time -- many years ago -- when I (the professor) provided a TA with a detailed answer key to an exam. Fortunately I looked over some of the graded exams before handing them back to the students because I ended up having to re-grade several questions entirely because the TA had been inexplicably harsh. For example, in the answer key that I gave to the TA, I had indicated that the correct answer for one question was something like "kitty cat". That was the complete, official name of the thing that was the answer to the exam question, but it did not occur to me that the TA would give students no points if they only wrote "kitty". I should have written on the answer key that "kitty cat" or "kitty" or "cat" were acceptable for full credit, but it didn't occur to me that the student couldn't deal with this level of variability in student answers. Anyone who wrote one of those words clearly knew the answer, so why take off any (or all) of the points? I think the TA just lacked the confidence, and for some reason didn't even want to ask me about it while he was grading.

Now I am wondering: Assuming that I have become easier as a grader with time, have I plateaued or does the grading-easiness trend continue with time (and with what slope on a grading-easiness vs. time plot)?

Why Did You Say That? (in your talk introduction)

A colleague recently commented to me on the tendency for graduate students to introduce their talks at conference by telling the audience that they are students. I had noticed this some (though certainly not all) grad student do this but hadn't really thought anything of it. My colleague didn't like these "I am a student" introductions because he thought the students were saying it to lower expectations or to try to make it more difficult for people to ask challenging questions.

In most cases, it was obvious from various clues (such as the list of coauthors) or prior knowledge that the speaker was a student, so why mention it?

Perhaps my colleague is right about the motivation of some student speakers, but I think there could also be more positive reasons for why a student would mention their studentness in the introduction of their talk. For example, they could be saying "I'm still a student but I was selected to give a talk to present my excellent results and I am or will soon be looking for a job so please pay attention because I am really good."

A possible argument against that hypothesis is that we couldn't think of any postdocs who mentioned their postdoctoralness in a talk introduction. Presumably this motivation would also be relevant to postdocs, if not even more relevant?

I have no idea what the motivation is because I don't think I ever introduced a talk this way when I was a student. I could be wrong because this was a while ago, but I am reasonably certain it wouldn't have occurred to me to introduce a conference talk this way. Therefore, to find out the answer (or, more likely, the answers), I am asking you, the readers who have done this very thing as students, what your motivation was.

And, to the extent that you can determine this, if you had a specific aim in mentioning your student status, did you achieve this aim?

Life Is Just Unfair To Men

Below is an e-mail message. It seems to refer to a comment (or two) that I did not see, perhaps because they got sent to the spam-box, which I never check. I approve all comments that I see and that are not ads, mysterious links, or obscenity-laden threats. That does not mean that I approve of all comments, just that I don't mind posting things like this. I think they make a dramatic point, though perhaps not the one the author intends.

Dear Female Science Professor:

I notice you haven't published my latest comment.  Some months ago you failed to publish another of my comments which I also thought brought the issues into sharp relief by reversing the roles.

My apologies, the first sentence in paragraph five should read:
"By that same logic, the majority of top scientists, especially in the mathematical sciences have been and should continue to be men."

Do you deny that, with few exceptions (ultra-long-distance swimming being one), the top men are better than the top women at sports?  How can you when the score-sheet says otherwise?  By the same token, how can you deny that the most intelligent men are generally smarter than the most intelligent women, especially when it comes to the maths?

I remember when I was younger watching sports on TV and thinking how unfair it was for the women.  As I grew older, I realized that life was just as unfair to men, only in different ways.  This is why I suggest you read Norah Vincent's book "Self Made Man."  Here is someone who has seen it from both sides and firmly decides that she prefers to be a woman, a conclusion that does not surprise me in the slightest.

As I have been burned by what I now realize is a strong sexual double standard in academia (and not in favour of men) I am not the person to argue these things objectively.  I am still quite filled with rage.  There is, however, a woman on Youtube who argues many of the points I would like to touch on in a way that is very rational and objective.  Her channel is "girlwriteswhat":
https://www.youtube.com/user/girlwriteswhat?feature=g-high-rec

I would suggest you check it out as well as Norah Vincent's book.

Kind regards,

Peter

Well this is a bit depressing

From an interview of Rita Colwell (former NSF Director) by National Geographic:

Are you still treated differently as a woman?

Certainly. I still have to tolerate it. It doesn't stop; it never stops. It's just that now it's more covert and not overt.

Can you give an example?

There are too many examples to even begin to enumerate.

I was somewhat surprised by this. Why was I surprised? I don't know.. I can't say I know anything about Rita Colwell's work as a molecular biologist, but it seems to me that she is a rather excellent example of a successful female science professor; that is, successful at a level that most of us will not achieve. It would have been nice if she could have reported to the rest of us that she had to put up with a lot of stupid stuff early in her career but that had faded away as her career progressed.

I suppose I am interpreting the mild question about being "treated differently" to refer to negative experiences. That is how Rita Colwell seems to interpret the question as well.

And I do wish she had given some examples, particularly of the covert situations she still experiences. I believe her 100% that she does experience these things and that it is not pleasant, and I would be interested to know what kinds of things she has to deal with even now, as a senior and very distinguished professor. 

Not long ago, a correspondent wrote to me that a female grad student had said to her that "it's even worse to have role models who are treated horribly than to not have role models".

We could argue about what it means to be treated "horribly", but I think it is too bad to discard some potential role models (whatever that term really means) because they had to struggle -- perhaps quite a lot -- in their careers. Would this grad student not consider Rita Colwell as a good role model because Colwell feels she has had (and continues to have) some (presumably negative) experiences she has to "tolerate" because she is female? Perhaps -- everyone has their own definition of what is a good role model for them) -- but I think that restriction would substantially thin the ranks of potential role models, and that's probably not a good thing.

Postdoc Prestige

Question from a reader:

In your experience in faculty search committees, with respect to hiring an assistant professor, are postdoc positions at national laboratories (e.g. Sandia) viewed with higher regard, equal regard, or lower regard when compared with a postdoc at Prestigious University?

In my experience, all other things being equal (even though they never are), these postdocs would be held in equal regard. I say that mostly because national lab postdocs are certainly not held in lower regard, and I can't think of why they would be held in higher regard.

Stage 2: Acceptance

Yes, I know that Acceptance is Stage 5 in the evolution of grief, but in the academic context of graduate admissions, it is Stage 2(ish), in the sense of Stage 1 = Application; Stage 2 = Acceptance (or not).

At this time of year in the US academic calendar at many institutions, students have been accepted, rejected, or put on hold by the graduate programs to which they applied. Some departments or programs bring in prospective students for an interview or recruiting visit; in the first case to make final decisions about admissions, and in the other case to try to convince students to accept their offers of admission.

Some departments bring in some of each, and some bring them all in at the same time. That is, a group of prospective grad students are brought to visit as a group: some have been offered admission, some have not (yet). The idea for this post is based on a conversation I had with an undergrad who recently participated in one of these 'hybrid' events.

According to this student, the not-yet-accepted students worked very hard to impress their potential advisors and other faculty and researchers. In the opinion of this student, those who had been accepted did not work so hard (or, at least, some didn't. I have no direct knowledge of the situation, but it was the opinion of this student that those accepted were significantly less concerned with making a good impression than those who had not yet been accepted.)

I suppose if I think back over my years of encounters with prospective students at conferences (before admissions decisions are made) and my subsequent meetings with them after they receive an offer of admission but before they make a decision, I could come up with some examples of students who were energetic pre-admission and lethargic post-admission. Without being any more specific than that, I can say that my experiences seem to back up this undergrad's impressions.

I asked this student: But don't those who have been accepted know that they still need to impress their potential advisors? If they accept the offer at that place, why would they want to start off working with someone who may now have a somewhat negative impression of them? Or perhaps they behaved that way during the visit because they are not serious about accepting the offer from that place, and they are just wasting everyone's time and money? Either way, this does not speak highly of the maturity of those students.

Yes, I know that someone can have an off day, be recovering from the flu, experiencing stress, be exhausted from midterms and travel etc. etc. etc., but exceptions aside, I hope that it is not the case that, once accepted, many students think that it is only their opinion that matters now. It is a two-way street: the students need to check out the departments and potential advisors to make good decisions about what is best for them, and the departments and potential advisors are still checking out the students, even those admitted.

Questions for those who advise grad students and for whom this mode of grad recruiting is relevant:

• Have you ever met a potential student (particularly a potential advisee) before and after their acceptance to your grad program and seen a difference in their energy level or degree of interest in having an interesting conversation about research topics?

• Have you ever met a student who was accepted to your grad program (based on their excellent application) but then, after meeting them, you wished that they had not been accepted? 

• If you answered yes to the previous question, did you later find that your negative first impression was accurate, or did you develop a more positive opinion after more interaction with that student?

Question for current and former graduate students who have been on recruiting visits to programs to which they had been accepted:

• What was your attitude during your visit? Did you try to impress, or was your attitude that it was entirely the responsibility of the program to impress you?

Kitten X Becomes an Administrator

It was not inevitable, but once it happened, no one was surprised. This is particularly strange because even just a few years ago it would have been considered bizarre -- if it had even been considered, which it wouldn't -- to think that Kitten X would ever become an administrator. And now look where we are.

For those who have not been closely following Kitten X's academic career: he was first hired in 2007, following a rigorous search. Remarkably, he received tenure in 2008. Now, in 2013, he has taken on some administrative responsibilities.

It would be incorrect to infer from this that his career has stalled. In fact, he is as energetic as ever. This is why we still call him "kitten", although he is an extraordinarily large cat.

Some have wondered whether it was wise for him to take on administrative responsibilities now, at a time when his days were already happily and productively filled with a wide array of feline activities. Kitten X has no good explanation for why he is doing this.

Does he have the interpersonal skills to be effective as a cat administrator? Kitten X does have some skills, and even some charms, although these charms have an edge to them (at times) and he can be impatient, hyper, and sarcastic. Some of the older cats sigh when they see him coming.

But he means well, mostly.

Unchosen

A reader asks the perennial painful questions about why others were interviewed for a tenure-track faculty position and not them, despite their PhD from an excellent university and their apparently better* publication record compared to some being interviewed. There are no satisfying answers to these questions, of course, mostly because there is so much variability in the process, but in case it helps to have one (more) person's perspective on this much-discussed topic, here are some of my current thoughts on the situation.

(*"better" could indicate quantity or quality: more publications or publications in journals with higher impact factors)

Here are the reader's hypotheses, sent in an e-mail to me, for discussion:

1) Doesn't matter how much you have published, they will only look for Nature or Science in your CV;

2) You must have a PhD from a fancy US university, maybe Oxford and Cambridge are accepted too;

3) You got to suggest something really similar (almost overlapping) to what the people are doing in the department, even if they say that the search is broad and open to any topic.

My responses:

1) There may be a kernel of truth to this, but the statement is too extreme (the part about nothing else mattering). Having a Nature/Science paper is typically seen as a very good thing if the candidate has apparently been a major player in the published research, but the absence of such a paper doesn't mean a candidate will not get an interview.

The likelihood of a Nature/Science (N/S) paper depends in part on the subfield (topic) of the research, so in some cases the absence of such a paper is meaningless. Even within a single search, if the search is broad, there will be candidates in subfields that at least have a chance of publishing in N/S, and others that probably do not.

I can say unambiguously that indicating in an application that a manuscript has been (or, worse, will soon be) "submitted" to Nature or Science does not impress.

In my department, we do look at number of publications and journal quality, but we have interviewed some candidates on the basis of a high level of interest in the research and our optimism that important papers would be forthcoming. Some non-interviewed candidates may have more publications than some of those we invite to interview; there are many factors other than number of publications and journal prestige.

2) Faculty with PhDs from the "fancy" US universities are very well represented in STEM departments at US universities, but "must" is too strong a word in this hypothesis. We do look closely at successful and highly recommended graduates of particular research groups, but such research groups can be found at a wide range of institutions in the US and beyond.

I have seen numerous examples of pedigree-worship over the years, as well as the syndrome in which it is assumed that all students of Famous Professors must somehow have absorbed their advisor's awesomeness and must therefore be highly creative individuals as well. I am definitely not alone, however, in being interested in searching broadly and looking at each application carefully to try to get a good sense for the individual's accomplishments and potential.

Even if you apply to a pedigree-worshiping department and you got your PhD at a "non-fancy" university, any disadvantage that this may cause in some searches can be overcome by doing a postdoc in a top research group (in the US or in another country) and/or by working with collaborators at top-ranked departments (especially if they will write strong letters for you).

3) I also don't agree with this one, at least not based on my own experience. You may have to work harder to explain why your research is interesting and significant if there is no one with closely related expertise in the department to which you are applying, but I have seen great interest in candidates who can explain convincingly why we might want to go in a new (for us) direction in a field in which we have advertised broadly.

So, why didn't you get an interview (yet)? I don't know. The individual who wrote to me has an extremely strong academic record and has put together an impressive application (though I would lose the "in prep" part of the CV, keeping "submitted/in review" manuscripts in a separate list from those published or in press). The research statement in particular is excellent. There is no obvious reason why this person would not be seriously considered for a tenure-track position at any research university that advertises in their field, other than that the field is crowded with excellent candidates.

In that case, it may well be that a high-profile paper in a high-impact journal would make a big difference (especially if other candidates have this, but you do not). Perhaps at this high level of accomplishment, anything you can do to stand slightly ahead of your excellent peers makes all the difference.

My only advice (of admittedly limited use) is to keep doing what you're doing: interesting research, publishing in high-quality journals, attending conferences, giving talks. Stay visible, meet people, network, collaborate. I hope your various advisors/mentors are helping you, and I hope something good happens for you soon.

Annoyance Avoidance

It comes as no surprise that (according to my unscientific poll) the two most-disliked questions that students ask professors are:

Did I miss anything (important)? and Is this going to be on the test? (and variation thereof)

And yet, clearly students want to know the answers to these questions. Is there a way for students to get the desired information and avoid annoying their instructor?

Probably not. At least, not without doing a bit of work first.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I highly recommend that students take whatever steps they possibly can to answer the first question on their own, and then approach their instructor with specific questions about the material. If a student comes to me and says "I missed class last Tuesday but I have read the relevant chapter in the textbook, looked at the review material you posted online, and read [my classmate's] notes that s/he took in class that day, and I just have a few questions..", I am totally happy to answer those questions.

For question #2 and its ilk ("Do we need to know...?"), a similar approach of asking specific questions about course material may be the way to go; that is, by asking substantive questions that show some thought. I realize that is not the same as asking whether something is on a test, but I think that a thoughtful approach to question-asking might result, in some cases, in the gleaning of information such as "I don't expect you to know that particular topic in that much detail" or "Yes, that's an extremely important topic". But again, some work (by the student) is required to get to that type of conversation.

As I was reading the comments and assembling the polls, it occurred to me that some of the items listed used to bother me more than they do now. Am I mellowing with age? In particular, I don't mind the "Is this going to be on the test?" question as much as I used to. It is a familiar and routine part of the teaching experience, and I am happy to roll with it and give a sincere answer, particularly to intro-level students (less so with majors). However, I have not yet achieved a happy coexistence with the first question, perhaps because that one bruises my delicate professorial ego and the second question does not.

In terms of the other items in the List of Annoyances, it is clear that the issue of greetings in e-mails and in person is a minefield. I think it would be very useful if new-student orientations provided guidance on this, as there is huge variation from institution to institution. There is also variation within institutions and we can't expect our intro-course (non-major) students to know the culture of our department/unit. It is probably a good idea, therefore, if students start with the most formal mode of greeting ("Dear Professor X" in e-mail; "Professor X" in conversation) and see if they can pick up on any clues whether it is OK to be more informal. It is probably always a bad idea to refer to men as "Professor" and women as "Mrs/Ms/Miss/firstname" by default.

Professors can also help with this: In the first day of class in my intro-level courses, I specifically discuss the topic of how I want to be addressed.

But now I would like to explore this topic of mellowing-with-age a bit more, not with a poll but just with a request for comments. If you have been teaching for at least a few years: as you survey the list of Annoying Questions (and maybe others not listed), think about whether your feelings about these questions have changed with time. This question does not apply to anyone who has never been annoyed by any of these questions, ever, but for the rest of us: has your annoyance level (whatever that is) decreased, increased, or stayed the same with time?

How To Annoy Your Professor : The Poll

Here it is: the poll based on your responses to my request for annoying questions and behaviors related to student-professor interaction. This was admittedly a one-sided request as it focuses entirely on annoying things students do. I have heard vague rumors that professors can also, from time to time, be annoying, but that is not relevant to our purpose here: to compile a handy list of advice for students to help them succeed in their academic life.

I was very gratified to find that others share my dislike of receiving 27 files all called homework.doc. I have found that if I instruct students about file-naming before the first homework is turned in, the majority of the submitted homework will have student names in the filenames, but if I don't mention it again before each and every homework due-date, the vast majority revert to homework.doc. 

Anyway, based on the comments provided, I have divided the poll into 3 categories: Annoying Questions, Communication, and Miscellaneous. I have not restricted voting to one item/poll, so you don't have to choose if you find some/all of the listed examples highly annoying. I suggest, though, that instead of just checking off all or most of the boxes, that we each attempt to pick our top-3(ish) from each category.

Annoying Questions
	Did I miss anything (important)?
	Will this course be hard?
	Is this going to be on the test?
	Do I need to read the (required) textbook?
	What can I do for extra credit?
	I overslept. When is my make-up exam?
	Can I have your lecture notes?
	Why did you give me a B? (or C etc.)
	Is this right? (before turning in HW or exam)
pollcode.com free polls

Communication
	Calling a professor Mr, Ms, Mrs, Miss
	Men addressed as Professor but not women
	Informal email greeting such as Hey, Hi, Prof (no name)
	Using first name for professor before being told this is OK
	Sending files without name in filename (or file)
	Email with bad spelling, grammar, punctuation etc.
	Emoticons
	Unsigned email (esp if name not clear from email address)
pollcode.com free polls

Misc
	I deserve a higher grade because..
	I put my homework in your mailbox. I don't know why you don't have it.
	Questions that could be answered by reading syllabus
	Entering professor's office without knocking and starting to talk (outside office hours)
	Unconvincing excuses for missed classes, exams, deadlines
	I need you to write me 17 letters of reference by the end of the week.
pollcode.com free polls

What Am I Missing Here?

This has surely been written about 57 million times before, but somehow it would be nice to get the message out to students about the perils of asking a professor the following question about a missed class:

Did I miss anything? or
Did I miss anything important?

How can we broadcast the information far and wide so that this question will never again be asked in this way? Is that asking for too much?

In fact, when my teenaged daughter heard her parents discussing this recently (we had both been asked this very question in this very way), she was a bit stunned, having asked a somewhat similar question of teachers in the past and intending no offense. Despite being the offspring of two parents who have infused her with secret professorial knowledge since the moment of her birth, she somehow escaped the knowledge that this question is considered offensive by sensitive professorial souls.

Her response, which is likely common to many students who ask this question sincerely, was: But sometimes my teachers don't say anything important during a class.

OK, understood. Ouch, but understood. But: if that is true, are you really going to get a useful answer out of aforementioned teacher if you ask them this question? So why not rearrange the words slightly, avoid causing offense, and maybe get some useful information?

So then we had an intense family discussion about how you should and should not ask that question. The difference between what a teacher might consider acceptable vs. not acceptable apparently seems subtle to some (students) even though others (teachers) think the distinction is obvious.

Examples:

Asking: What did I miss? = good*

Asking: Did I miss anything (important)? = bad

* Well, not really. By "good", I just mean 'not as offensive as the other statement'. This question at least assumes that something was missed. And yet, professors may not like this question because it is so open-ended. When asked this question, I tend to reply, "Did you look at the review materials that I posted after class? Did you read the relevant part of the textbook? Did you get notes from a classmate?" The answer is typically no, so then I say "I recommend that you do those things, and then I would be happy to answer any questions you may have about the material." etc. This is just part of the normal day-to-day interaction of professors and students and is OK with me.

But anyway, back to my original question, which I hope you didn't miss: Do any universities/colleges include topics in their 1st-year student orientation sessions along the lines of 'how to communicate with professors' (writing and speaking)? This might be a way to give some helpful hints about such things.

What would these hints be? I am sure most professors could quickly come up with a list of their top 3 or 5 or 10 pet-peeves that are easily avoided. I wonder: can we collectively come up with a short list, or would it actually be a very long list (perhaps with conflicting ideas about dos and don'ts) because we are all such unique individuals with our own special eccentricities and so it is essentially impossible for students to avoid offending us? I don't know, but I think we should find out. So, if you are a teacher of some sort and want to participate in this important effort:

Leave a comment with your top-n list of annoying things that students make when communicating (in speaking or writing) with you.

Then, depending on the results, I will attempt to do a poll, and then we will know something, perhaps.

CVs : Windows into the Soul?

The results of the Fake-CV Contest are in.

I think we should call it a tie between Fake CV #2 (A. Lex) and #4 (Magical Robot Unicorn), with an impressive showing for Adolph H. Jones (#5). Thanks to all who participated in the vote and especially to those who submitted Fake CVs.

What have we learned? Anything? I think we already knew this: some CV pitfalls probably result from inexperience or no/bad mentoring and others represent a deliberate attempt to inflate a not-so-great record. The latter does not necessarily mean the CV-writer is a jerk. But it may indicate that.

A larger question is: Can a CV possibly be a reliable indication of who we are and one's ability to do creative, productive work, not to mention whether one possesses any relevant interpersonal skills?

Maybe, sort of for some things, but not for others.

For example, I think that most of us who read dozens/hundreds of CVs of various sorts in a typical academic year know that even the basic metrics of success can be misleading. More publications = better than fewer publications? Not necessarily. Are the papers in good journals? Was the individual in question the primary author (by whatever author-ordering scheme is the norm in that field) of most/some of the papers or an apparently minor co-author? Are these substantive papers or least-publishable units? And so on.

Those are 'knowable' things (just by looking at a CV). There are also unknowables (just by looking at a CV); for example, even if the individual was primary author on one or more papers, does that mean what it is supposed to mean? (the same could be asked of someone who is an apparently minor co-author).

Similar complexity may be involved in other classic CV components, such as # of invited talks, honors/awards, even grants. I have seen people list their advisor's grant in a category called "grants" on a CV. Does that mean the individual in question wrote the proposal or at least played a major role in the writing and development of the ideas? Perhaps. That certainly does happen and is worth noting. Or is this just the grant that supported them but they didn't help write the proposal or develop the ideas? I have seen that as well. These types of things need an explanation.

Of course, the CV is typically just one document among many in an application or nomination file and there are other ways to convey a more complete picture of an individual.

Nevertheless, one of my colleagues recently tried an experiment. He first read only the CV in each file in a large pile of applications and made a list of the "best" ones based only on his impression from the CVs. Then he read the complete files (statements, letters etc.) and found only a few cases in which his opinion changed relative to reading only the CV. [If that had been a real experiment, all names/places would have been removed so that first impressions (from the CV) wouldn't influence the second evaluation (from deeper reading of the file), but that's hard to do.]

What made a CV stand out in this case? From what I saw of his list, it wasn't prestige of the university or fame of the advisor, but mostly how interesting and significant the publications looked (from the title) to my colleague, and other publication-related factors (number of papers, number of primary-author publications, 'quality' of journal).

So, I think the CV does say a lot about us; these contain useful data. Are they a window into the soul? That is where I waffle and say: yes and no.....

Fake CV Contest : The Vote

It is indeed time to vote for your "favorite" CV (you can of course define "favorite" however you want: most entertaining, most bizarre, most horrifying, most illuminating...).

Here is an attempt at a recap of each Fake CV:

1 : Seward "Bo" Gritt III: manuscripts "in prep.", manuscript "submitted" to Nature (meaningless)

2 : A. Lex (Lutheran U): this one has an incredible number of "issues" and is difficult to summarize succinctly

3 :  Buster Bristhlewaite: quirky, not the typical "academic" CV

4 : Magical Robot Unicorn: the "perfect" candidate who is going to get the job for which you applied but won't get because you are not a magical robot unicorn

5 : Adolph H. Jones: unprofessional e-mail address, typos, sad list of "technical skills", disturbing content

6 : Robert "Bob" Smith: no first author publications (in field in which authorship is clearly not alphabetical), maybe some shingling..

7 : Dee S. Perate: thin publication list; one real publication hidden in list of "gray literature" to make list seem longer

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

Which Fake CV is your favorite (you can vote for more than one)
	1
	2
	3
	4
	5
	6
	7
pollcode.com free polls

Fake CV pre-vote

We are almost ready for the vote on your favorite Fake CV, but I just wanted to check and see if any major CV-issues have remained unexplored. There are submissions that I have not posted (apologies for that) but some would be repetitive with ones I posted already, and others didn't seem to be related to STEM-field CVs, the topic of this "contest".

Sorry for the anxieties these fake CVs may have caused anyone, but perhaps it is better to see some potential CV pitfalls in this way? In some cases, CV fails are because the applicant's record just isn't that great and the applicant tries, via creative CV formatting and organization, to hide some of the shortfalls. In other cases, however, what may well be a highly-qualified applicant undermines their application by the way they construct their CV. Example: when someone with a decent number of interesting publications in respectable journals hides these among non-equivalent types of "publications" just to make the publication list appear longer (see Fake CV#7). The hiring committee (or whatever) is unlikely to be fooled by this.

Perhaps we will vote tomorrow. In the meantime, please comment on any unexplored CV-fail issues or submit a last minute Fake CV to exemplify a useful and/or entertaining issue.

Fake CV #7

Another cautionary tale, writ in a CV:


DEE S. PERATE

Postdoctoral Fellow, 2008-present
PhD., 2008, Femtoscience, Genius Institute of Technology
B.S., 2001, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Math (quadruple major), Brilliant Institute of Technology

Publications

Perate, D.S., 2012, On being a femtoscientist. Brilliant Institute of Technology alumni bulletin, p. 15.

Perate, D.S., 2011, Whither femtoscience? Genius City Press (editorial, April 3, page D7).

Perate, D.S. and Advis, O.R., 2011, Femtoscientific analysis of a nanocomposite layered material with 3Rt structure and inverse polytypic vacancy switching. Journal of Femtoscientific Analysis, 22 (3), 345-361. (impact factor: 17)

Perate, D.S. and Advis, O.R., 2009, Femtoscientific analysis of a nanocomposite layered material with 3Rt structure and inverse polytypic vacancy switching. Abstract F354-32, "Less than Nano" annual conference, Danvers, Massachusetts.

Perate, D.S., 2008, Femtoscientific analysis of a nanocomposite layered material with 3Rt structure and inverse polytypic vacancy switching. Ph.D. thesis, Genius Institute of Technology, 289 p. (with Appendix).

Fake CV #6

This (partial?) CV contains at least two possibly-puzzling elements one may encounter in publication lists. Depending on the (sub)field, these elements may be complete non-issues (may even be the norm) or may be Red Flags.


Robert "Bob" R. Smith

Science Department
Science University
Scienceville, SC
USA

Employment History

Postdoctoral Research Associate, 2010-present, Science Department/University

Education History

PhD, 2010, Science, Department of Science, University of Science and Engineering
B.S., 2005, Science, Department of Science, Other University of Science and Engineering

Publications

A.X. White, T.R. Green, B.C. Black, K.E. Pink, R.R. Smith, N.I. Brown, V.C. Beige, and P.R. Taupe. The discovery of scientific evidence for some science things. J. Sci. Thi., v. 349, p. 12,345-12,399, 2012.

B.C. Black, A.X. White, T.R. Green, P.R. Taupe, K.E. Pink, R.R. Smith, N.I. Brown, and V.C. Beige. Scientific evidence for an engineered solution to some science questions in nature and experiment. Proc. Nat. Sci. and Eng. Stu., v. 1, p. 18-21, 2012.

R.W. Rabbit, H.F. Lizard, E.U. Dachshund, N.V. Worm, R.R. Smith, C.F. Sheepgoat, D.T. Rooster, and W.G. Dolphin. On the science of engineering, I. Theory. Trans. Theory Eng. Nat. Sci. Lett., v. 23, p. 556-572, 2011.

J.-P. Oak, D.D. Maple, C.V. Aspen, R.R. Smith, E.J. Birch, L.F. Pine, and E.S. Larch. Investigation of scientific results on a scientific experiment: implications for science. J. Exp. Sci. Res., v. 59, p. 47-95, 2011.

M.W. Cupcake, C.B. Brulee, W.D. Cheesecake, R.R. Smith, and V.B. Crumble. Evidence for scientific science in a vaccuum. J. Und. Sci. Res. Res., v. 16, p. 201-222, 2005.