One of the other things I've been musing about since the Big National Conference is just how much feedback there is in My Science: in order for people to take you seriously, they have to know your name already, and once you're Somebody it is much easier to get the research funding and data access you need to do more good work. I don't assume that people have heard of me, with my mighty five (I think) publications in my old-school subfield, but I am trying to raise my profile by moving into sexier adjacent subfields, and by going to meetings and talking about my projects to try to make an in-person impression.
I have a good friend who is already On His Way. E is tremendously dedicated and creative, and also lucky to have thought up a timely and clever project with a well-known and socially adept advisor. He's a good speaker, the right people think well of him, and he just landed a highly respected research job. I'm glad he caught that wave, and hope he stays on it: he'll be great.
We have conceptual feedback as well, of course - research scientists tend to think of ourselves as meritocrats, respecting well-done and convincing work, and if Theory A was well-done and convincing, why should we entertain the possibility of Theory B? There's some ego acting here too: we couldn't have believed the wrong explanation for so long!
These are both deeply human tendencies, and will always play some role in the human scientific community. They can be mitigated with attention, and that's probably good: this article was eye-opening for me (in that makes-you-want-to-hide-under-the-bed kind of way). The effort to be fairer is both individual and institutional (or at least that's how I was thinking about it yesterday), and I think that the effort to be more flexible is mainly cultural. It's our job to not know all the answers, to keep thinking up questions we haven't solved yet, but it is hard to maintain a let's-see-what-happens attitude in a be-right-or-else environment.
On the advice of a total stranger on the Internet (what could go wrong?), I'm making up a new resolution for every month of the year rather than trying to do one thing all year. January's is to be a little easier on myself, to be less harsh a critic, and I see an opportunity for a corollary resolution here: I'm going to give more of a chance to papers whose authors I've never heard of, and I will try to see it as a sign of inquiry, not cluelessness, when people consider alternative explanations and make themselves persuadable.
January 21, 2010
January 20, 2010
Admission
I went to the big national (US) conference for people in My Science a couple of weeks ago. Most people will claim that they find this conference very unproductive, because it is so general, but it is an important venue for job interviews and maintaining personal connections. I actually got quite a bit of work done with some far-flung collaborators, made a point of spending time with people whose general good will I will need in the future, and had an all-around fun class-reunion-type experience.
The meeting itself was overwhelmingly large, so I did not go to most of the talks or read most of the posters. This more focused approach still left me dead on my feet at the end of the first day, and the talks and discussions I did attend kept me busy and engaged. The overall experience sparked a couple of post ideas for me, and this is one of them: promoting demographic diversity is very important in My Science, is totally dependent on the good-faith effort of people who are already in the club, and is pretty much doomed in an admissions and promotion system where we are overwhelmed with applicants and starved for time.
The last speaker in a session I went to on mentoring talked about his experiences as a black man from a small college going into a big-time graduate program: outright hostility, awkward social dynamics, undergraduate classes, and a lasting commitment to making that experience better for students who would come later. He's now a professor at Florida State, and had a lot of interesting and practical things to say about making graduate programs attractive and accessible to people with backgrounds like his: rural, few family expectations for college, no lab experience, not white, few demographic role models in the field, and less likely to maintain confidence in the face of setbacks (and the whole game in My Science is psychological: you need to realize that everyone's insecure, even the really clever people, and you can't listen to your self-doubt).
The things he does to make FSU a more diverse place are these:
When I was in grad school, the students had some long conversations on the merits and methods of increasing diversity in My Science. The business-related arguments (that a diversity of backgrounds brings a diversity of problem-solving approaches and perspectives) don't really work in our field: at least from the insider's perspective, there's not much cultural to what we do. The main point, we figured, was justice: why should people gain or lose the opportunity to do science based on what they look like or where they come from?
Being on the graduate admissions committee for a year, it quickly became clear to me that "where you come from" has a lot of effects on where you can go: my institution was very highly ranked as a graduate school for My Science, and as such could be pretty baldly snobby about who was admitted. It didn't matter how good your grades were at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople; we've never heard of them, we don't know the people who wrote your letters of recommendation, so we don't know whether you are prepared to come here and keep up with people who had "good preparation" (read: known quantity) at the right universities as undergraduates. In order to maintain our prestige, we have to admit mostly/only students who we are confident will do well.
This is pretty obviously problematic for people who want to go to grad school to learn things, or to become professional scientists, and not just to boost the status of a particular school by their effortless brilliance. Overall, and this is something I was shocked to realize I hadn't been using as an admissions standard, admissions ought to be about what students can do, not just what they have already done. It's very difficult to evaluate that, and when you have three days to rank 150 applications, it's so easy to start using shorthands (where an applicant went to college, GRE scores, name recognition of their letter-writers). If your department is willing to work on cultivating the students, and not just putting them to work in the data-reduction mines, I don't think it would be that big of a gamble to shake up the admissions process.
The meeting itself was overwhelmingly large, so I did not go to most of the talks or read most of the posters. This more focused approach still left me dead on my feet at the end of the first day, and the talks and discussions I did attend kept me busy and engaged. The overall experience sparked a couple of post ideas for me, and this is one of them: promoting demographic diversity is very important in My Science, is totally dependent on the good-faith effort of people who are already in the club, and is pretty much doomed in an admissions and promotion system where we are overwhelmed with applicants and starved for time.
The last speaker in a session I went to on mentoring talked about his experiences as a black man from a small college going into a big-time graduate program: outright hostility, awkward social dynamics, undergraduate classes, and a lasting commitment to making that experience better for students who would come later. He's now a professor at Florida State, and had a lot of interesting and practical things to say about making graduate programs attractive and accessible to people with backgrounds like his: rural, few family expectations for college, no lab experience, not white, few demographic role models in the field, and less likely to maintain confidence in the face of setbacks (and the whole game in My Science is psychological: you need to realize that everyone's insecure, even the really clever people, and you can't listen to your self-doubt).
The things he does to make FSU a more diverse place are these:
- First, let them in
- Second, allow for remediation without stigma
- Third, make a comfortable department community (peer mentors can make a big difference)
- Fourth, advertise at meetings of minority scientists and at HBCs
- Fifth, involve your undergrads
When I was in grad school, the students had some long conversations on the merits and methods of increasing diversity in My Science. The business-related arguments (that a diversity of backgrounds brings a diversity of problem-solving approaches and perspectives) don't really work in our field: at least from the insider's perspective, there's not much cultural to what we do. The main point, we figured, was justice: why should people gain or lose the opportunity to do science based on what they look like or where they come from?
Being on the graduate admissions committee for a year, it quickly became clear to me that "where you come from" has a lot of effects on where you can go: my institution was very highly ranked as a graduate school for My Science, and as such could be pretty baldly snobby about who was admitted. It didn't matter how good your grades were at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople; we've never heard of them, we don't know the people who wrote your letters of recommendation, so we don't know whether you are prepared to come here and keep up with people who had "good preparation" (read: known quantity) at the right universities as undergraduates. In order to maintain our prestige, we have to admit mostly/only students who we are confident will do well.
This is pretty obviously problematic for people who want to go to grad school to learn things, or to become professional scientists, and not just to boost the status of a particular school by their effortless brilliance. Overall, and this is something I was shocked to realize I hadn't been using as an admissions standard, admissions ought to be about what students can do, not just what they have already done. It's very difficult to evaluate that, and when you have three days to rank 150 applications, it's so easy to start using shorthands (where an applicant went to college, GRE scores, name recognition of their letter-writers). If your department is willing to work on cultivating the students, and not just putting them to work in the data-reduction mines, I don't think it would be that big of a gamble to shake up the admissions process.
December 17, 2009
Cookie Countdown
Liam and I have made 200-ish cookies since last Saturday, for Christmas presents for his teachers at Kindergarten, for a contribution to my office party this afternoon, and just because hanging-around-the-house-type vacations are better with a big box of cookies on the kitchen counter. We've made three types so far, and we might just have to make some more while he's out of school.
- First, we made chocolate-vanilla swirl butter cookies, with a recipe out of an old Cook's Illustrated (it doesn't seem to be online). They came out pretty well, and Liam really enjoyed rolling out the dough and seeing the swirl pattern.
- Second, we made gingerbread, following this recipe from Bon Appetit. It's way too mild and needs a lot more ginger: 1 tablespoon of ground ginger, plus a half cup of chopped candied ginger, is nowhere near enough for 6 cups of flour. I should have seen this coming. Liam loved rolling out the dough and using the cookie cutters, and he's also distributing the cookies very seriously. A star for him, a tree for C, and a heart for me? Perfect.
- Lastly, I made these peanut butter cookies last night, and they're really good. I think I'll just have one more before I head off to run errands.
December 11, 2009
It's a secret
Liam is (mercifully) not flipping out on the way home this week. I don't know if he's feeling less tired at the end of the day, or if he's just handling it better, but it's a big relief. There's a very real possibility that he's only doing it because otherwise he can't open the day's window in the advent calendar, but I'm sure that there's a difference between effective motivation and bribery. And hey, either way, he's getting practice at dealing with feelings rather than freaking out, and he's also not giving us more grey hair than necessary. Win-win.
All the kids in kindergarten are apparently working on gifts for their parents: during breakfast this morning, out of the blue, he looked at me and said (in German, though) "it's a present for mamas and papas." "Is that a secret?" I asked, and he nodded gravely and put a finger over his lips. I want to take him to buy a Christmas present for C, and I'm sure he'll give up the secret (hint: it is not a skateboard), but I don't really mind if he's going to be so cute about it.
All the kids in kindergarten are apparently working on gifts for their parents: during breakfast this morning, out of the blue, he looked at me and said (in German, though) "it's a present for mamas and papas." "Is that a secret?" I asked, and he nodded gravely and put a finger over his lips. I want to take him to buy a Christmas present for C, and I'm sure he'll give up the secret (hint: it is not a skateboard), but I don't really mind if he's going to be so cute about it.
December 6, 2009
Giant fluffy sweater, day 1/2
I almost never knit large projects - I'm more at home with hats, mittens, scarves, and baby clothes. I think it's a problem of limited time to commit to a single project, since my days involve being (and staying) employed, and my evenings involve cooking, playing with Liam, putting Liam to bed, cleaning up, and working more, and then knitting if I have the time. I'm also insanely picky about projects for myself, so I wouldn't make most things I see patterns for, and I change every pattern I use. I found a sweater pattern that I wanted to make for myself, though: this one is straightforward, functional, and cute, and it's done in very big yarn, so it ought to go pretty quickly.
I cast on yesterday, and between the yarn, which is huge (it's like pencil roving), and my giganto needles (which feel like I'm knitting with tree branches or something), I'd used up an entire ball of yarn in five and a half rows. That second ball got me through to the end of row 13. At this point, I started wondering whether I have enough yarn to make this sweater. The lady at the yarn store ordered me a bag of eight balls of yarn in the same dye lot, which was the number that the pattern called for, but if I'm only going to get 8-ish rows per ball of yarn, this might be tight. Back to the pattern to check, and...oh. 8 100-gram balls of yarn, according to the pattern, and I have 8 50-gram balls of yarn. That's...huh. It's totally a matter of perception, but I probably wouldn't have started this pattern if I'd known I would need 15 or 16 balls of yarn. That seems like way too much.
I'm up to row 24 now, and I will get to about row 54 before it's time to add stitches for the sleeves, which will just about take all of the yarn that I have. The sweater is going to be very cute, with the big puffy stitches and the garter-stitch border and the great buttons my friend S gave me for by birthday. I sure hope the lady at the yarn store can order another bag in the same dye lot.
I cast on yesterday, and between the yarn, which is huge (it's like pencil roving), and my giganto needles (which feel like I'm knitting with tree branches or something), I'd used up an entire ball of yarn in five and a half rows. That second ball got me through to the end of row 13. At this point, I started wondering whether I have enough yarn to make this sweater. The lady at the yarn store ordered me a bag of eight balls of yarn in the same dye lot, which was the number that the pattern called for, but if I'm only going to get 8-ish rows per ball of yarn, this might be tight. Back to the pattern to check, and...oh. 8 100-gram balls of yarn, according to the pattern, and I have 8 50-gram balls of yarn. That's...huh. It's totally a matter of perception, but I probably wouldn't have started this pattern if I'd known I would need 15 or 16 balls of yarn. That seems like way too much.
I'm up to row 24 now, and I will get to about row 54 before it's time to add stitches for the sleeves, which will just about take all of the yarn that I have. The sweater is going to be very cute, with the big puffy stitches and the garter-stitch border and the great buttons my friend S gave me for by birthday. I sure hope the lady at the yarn store can order another bag in the same dye lot.
December 4, 2009
Complaint, interrupted
This morning, I was all ready to write a complaint as a post here. I've been kind of bothered about this issue for a while, and have never found the right platform for talking about it (plus, Chris is tired of hearing about it). The problem? The (sometimes) terrible music in a knitting podcast I listen to regularly. Sometimes it's great (Jonathan Coulton), and sometimes it's all obvious lyrics and overdone vocals. The injustice! I listened to the two most recent episodes this morning, and had the angry wind knocked right out of me: the music wasn't bad. It wasn't the best thing ever (and one of the bands, though apparently comprised entirely of women, was called "Girly Man", which...no.), but it was a nice mix of fun and poignant and bouncy. Darn you, podcast author with musical tastes that differ from mine, and also impeccable timing!
This doesn't get you out of a complaint, though. The podcast has rubbed me the wrong way before - the theme of the episodes for a while was "alchemy", which is fine as a metaphor, but (and I'll keep saying this through gritted teeth until the rest of you give up and go along with me) magical thinking is not science. People who made themselves crazy with mercury fumes while trying to transform lead into gold are not a model for informed inquiry or the scientific method.
I...get a little defensive about this. Needless to say, I never wrote this to the podcast author (no constructive point), but it bothered me every episode until she switched the theme to "Make Do and Mend", which was lovely and thoughtful. I liked that a lot.
This doesn't get you out of a complaint, though. The podcast has rubbed me the wrong way before - the theme of the episodes for a while was "alchemy", which is fine as a metaphor, but (and I'll keep saying this through gritted teeth until the rest of you give up and go along with me) magical thinking is not science. People who made themselves crazy with mercury fumes while trying to transform lead into gold are not a model for informed inquiry or the scientific method.
I...get a little defensive about this. Needless to say, I never wrote this to the podcast author (no constructive point), but it bothered me every episode until she switched the theme to "Make Do and Mend", which was lovely and thoughtful. I liked that a lot.
December 1, 2009
Productive?
After Liam's epic crankiness last night (and impressive, as-predicted 13-hour night of sleep), he woke up this morning, wandered in to our room while I was getting out clothes for the day, and promptly threw up. Mostly on himself, poor guy. So I'm home today, and he is acting perfectly fine, and I don't really mind the surprise sick day too much. I feel like he and I don't get enough time together during the week, so (although I haven't brushed my hair yet today) I'm feeling all right. I've also gotten more done than I expected.
Today I have made:
Today I have made:
- lots of coffee
- the world's ugliest pumpkin pie
- more progress than yesterday on my current writing project
- the discovery that I have a lot to do before my meeting tomorrow
- a lot of clean laundry
- oatmeal!
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