I often find myself looking at the PhD theses of random people (even researchers outside my area of interest), just for the sake of reading their acknowledgment section. I get disappointed when I do not find such a section. Also, I experience a feeling similar to disappointment when their acknowledgments are very short (say, less than a page). You see, I tend to believe that acknowledgments say a lot about the authors---they provide a unique personal perspective on people who you may not know, or know only at the professional level.
In general, I believe that the way people acknowledge the effect/influence of others (even if minimal) in their own accomplishments is very meaningful. In this sense, I tend to sympathize with those who write long, spontaneous acknowledgment texts. When reading short acknowledgments I imagine the author is a cold minded, somewhat introspective person, unable to recognize people around him/her. (Incidentally, my own acknowledgment section was a bit long, even if people may perceive me, I guess, similarly as I do imagine people who write short acknowledgments. Life is full contradictions.) Of course, writing acknowledgments about a potentially emotional period of your life is not easy, and it's legitimate to try to be brief and concise, acknowledging only the essential ones.
Actually my motivation for writing about PhD thesis acknowledgments is the very common mistake that people do by mentioning there their current girlfriends/boyfriends. Such mentions are perfectly fine if you're married or in an irreversibly serious relationship. Otherwise it may be risky, because relationships sometime do not work, and it should be rather awkward to be reminded of this fact of life every time you skim your beloved PhD thesis. (Not my case, fortunately.)
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Writing about myself
This blog has been abandoned for a number of reasons. I like to think I have been busy working hard and having fun traveling around. However, in the last months I have spent a substantial amount of my time writing about myself, with the purpose of convincing people in the academic world to hire me as a researcher or as a professor.
This writing experience has proven quite challenging for me: not only I have to visualize myself in the future, I should also explain ---in concise and clear terms--- why my past is relevant. It is then a journey from the past to the future captured in a only few sentences. The strict, annoying space restrictions that one should adhere to make those sentences quite short, full of compelling adjectives. There is also the need of showing some coherence between what I have done, the things I have been doing, and the things that I would like to do. Also important is to explain technical things in non technical terms without being too vague or too precise. You never know who will read what you are writing; in fact, it might not be read by anyone.
Writing is difficult because writing is an inherently endless process: you usually stop writing because time is over, because the deadline is now. You rarely stop writing when the (suitability, research, teaching) statement is compelling, clear and concise. It will never be in that form: there will always be a more appropriate adjective, a sharper way of writing a sentence. As a scientific researcher in a world full of uncertainties and doubts, you are expected to write about your future in the most certain of the ways.
This writing experience has proven quite challenging for me: not only I have to visualize myself in the future, I should also explain ---in concise and clear terms--- why my past is relevant. It is then a journey from the past to the future captured in a only few sentences. The strict, annoying space restrictions that one should adhere to make those sentences quite short, full of compelling adjectives. There is also the need of showing some coherence between what I have done, the things I have been doing, and the things that I would like to do. Also important is to explain technical things in non technical terms without being too vague or too precise. You never know who will read what you are writing; in fact, it might not be read by anyone.
Writing is difficult because writing is an inherently endless process: you usually stop writing because time is over, because the deadline is now. You rarely stop writing when the (suitability, research, teaching) statement is compelling, clear and concise. It will never be in that form: there will always be a more appropriate adjective, a sharper way of writing a sentence. As a scientific researcher in a world full of uncertainties and doubts, you are expected to write about your future in the most certain of the ways.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Used books
Last week I bought online a book that I consider fundamental for my research area. Reading most of that book and doing the exercises in it was actually my first assignment in my PhD studies. I only bought it now because during my PhD I used my supervisor's copy of the book. The book is quite old now (1989) and it is no longer printed, so I bought a used copy through Amazon.
For some reason, I expected a book used by some individual who found it useless for his own purposes. To my surprise, the copy I bought was actually sold by a university, the University of Westminster in London. Apart from a huge "Withdrawn" stamp in its first page, the book is in perfect state. I found it strange that a university would be willing to sell a book that is a major reference in its area. Why a university library would need to sell a book? The university has an informatics department so there might be people interested in it. Perhaps they had more copies than those needed, but I thought that in those cases libraries would try some exchange with other libraries.
It appears so wrong to me that libraries would accept to sell their books, whatever their motivations could be. It feels as if they would be neglecting the knowledge contained in them. Oddly enough, in this particular circumstance I am lucky, as I was able to obtain a copy of a book that is out of print, but still it feels a bit strange.
For some reason, I expected a book used by some individual who found it useless for his own purposes. To my surprise, the copy I bought was actually sold by a university, the University of Westminster in London. Apart from a huge "Withdrawn" stamp in its first page, the book is in perfect state. I found it strange that a university would be willing to sell a book that is a major reference in its area. Why a university library would need to sell a book? The university has an informatics department so there might be people interested in it. Perhaps they had more copies than those needed, but I thought that in those cases libraries would try some exchange with other libraries.
It appears so wrong to me that libraries would accept to sell their books, whatever their motivations could be. It feels as if they would be neglecting the knowledge contained in them. Oddly enough, in this particular circumstance I am lucky, as I was able to obtain a copy of a book that is out of print, but still it feels a bit strange.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
The truth about reciclying
The other day, as a procrastination exercise, I cleaned up the desk at my office. The job consisted, essentially, in throwing away many drafts of my papers and organizing some other people's papers, for future reference. My desk now is quite tidy, and I am proud of myself. I ended up throwing into the bin approximately 1500 pages, among preprints and handwritten sheets. How come so many pages? It turns out that while producing a paper (and especially when a deadline approaches) I tend to print a lot of versions of the current draft---more or less, one draft per day---so after submitting I end up with ten or more copies of the same work. There is also the issue that I have problems reading from the screen, and prefer to read something by printing it and making annotations on the paper.
So I am pretty much unable to do ecological research. I always remember Alan, who is quite an ecological guy in his research: he hardly prints anything, he gets cool software tools so as to do everything directly on his laptop, and, perhaps most importantly, he seems to be quite consistent in these habits. He doesn't even use the air conditioning in his office, although this is a more arguable point. I wish I could be more sensitive in this issue; I tell myself that nothing is better than actual paper, and how annoying is reading from the screen. Still, I am unable to change my habits. I don't feel bad at all. The reason is very simple: recycling is useless.
Of course recycling is a very reasonable idea, in principle. However, I have come to realize that in the current state of the world, it is a rather useless effort. That is to say, the state of our planet is so critical that individual efforts (such as separating your trash, our concrete contribution to recycling) end up being essentially useless. We need more decisive actions, both from individuals and governments. Here's a simple idea: if wasting trees and paper is a problem, then a truly determinate action would be adding huge taxes on paper and ink so as reduce their consumption (and hence, their waste). Just like what some scandinavian countries do with alcohol. Wasting paper is just so easy, as paper is cheap and nobody cares about buying more. It is easy to think of similar ideas in other settings.
Needless to say, individual actions such as separating you trash are positive. We should continue doing them while bearing in mind that they're little effective---the overall sum of little efforts is still too small in the context of the problem. I have realized more clearly the environmental problems we are facing after visiting the US. It was shocking to me to see the different sense of proportion people have there. Distances are so huge; your social success seems to be represented by the size of your car. Sadly, waste also comes in absurd proportions. It seems to me that the positive environmental actions of an average European family in a week (separating thrash, riding bikes, using public transportation) are lost by the negative effects of a single American SUV which is used the whole day.
There is also the point of people feeling good about themselves when doing ecological efforts. That's a different story, though.
So I am pretty much unable to do ecological research. I always remember Alan, who is quite an ecological guy in his research: he hardly prints anything, he gets cool software tools so as to do everything directly on his laptop, and, perhaps most importantly, he seems to be quite consistent in these habits. He doesn't even use the air conditioning in his office, although this is a more arguable point. I wish I could be more sensitive in this issue; I tell myself that nothing is better than actual paper, and how annoying is reading from the screen. Still, I am unable to change my habits. I don't feel bad at all. The reason is very simple: recycling is useless.
Of course recycling is a very reasonable idea, in principle. However, I have come to realize that in the current state of the world, it is a rather useless effort. That is to say, the state of our planet is so critical that individual efforts (such as separating your trash, our concrete contribution to recycling) end up being essentially useless. We need more decisive actions, both from individuals and governments. Here's a simple idea: if wasting trees and paper is a problem, then a truly determinate action would be adding huge taxes on paper and ink so as reduce their consumption (and hence, their waste). Just like what some scandinavian countries do with alcohol. Wasting paper is just so easy, as paper is cheap and nobody cares about buying more. It is easy to think of similar ideas in other settings.
Needless to say, individual actions such as separating you trash are positive. We should continue doing them while bearing in mind that they're little effective---the overall sum of little efforts is still too small in the context of the problem. I have realized more clearly the environmental problems we are facing after visiting the US. It was shocking to me to see the different sense of proportion people have there. Distances are so huge; your social success seems to be represented by the size of your car. Sadly, waste also comes in absurd proportions. It seems to me that the positive environmental actions of an average European family in a week (separating thrash, riding bikes, using public transportation) are lost by the negative effects of a single American SUV which is used the whole day.
There is also the point of people feeling good about themselves when doing ecological efforts. That's a different story, though.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Research, TV ads, and Unacknowledgements
On Commercials. These days there is some relative controversy among Italian researchers because of a TV commercial. You can watch the commercial here. As it is quite likely that the commercial will be erased in the next few days, here's a rough description.
The advertised product is a bank; the commercial shows Claudio, 33, an Italian researcher at a laboratory in the US. We are told that he has an Italian laurea and an american PhD, and that he decided to remain at Los Angeles after finishing his studies. The commercial suggests that Claudio is very successful at what he does. In fact, he appears doing fancy stuff in a very modern laboratory. It is not clear what exactly Claudio's research is, though. Unfortunately, Claudio is not entirely happy and so, one day at the beach, he decides to return to Italy. Claudio has a girlfriend/coworker called Kate; she doesn't like Claudio's decision.
The next thing we see is Claudio resigning to his position at the American laboratory. Right after that, we see Claudio at what appears to be a very modern laboratory, but in Italy. At the Italian lab ---which is very similar to the American lab we saw before--- a colleague says to Claudio: "it feels as if we were in the US". Claudio replies: "and even better". We are told that it is not known if Claudio will fulfill his dreams. Then we see Kate appearing out of nothing, speaking a crappy Italian. Claudio and Kate get on a motorcycle and take a ride. The commercial closes; it reads: "There is an Italy that fights for its own dreams. We stand next to that Italy."
The commercial is offensive in that it Claudio's history is extremely unrelated to reality. It's almost science fiction. There are many highly skilled Italians doing research abroad. This is a very notorious phenomena nowadays, which can be perceived at basically every area of science and arts. Given the way in which the Italian research system expels its most talented individuals, the story of Claudio ---who willingly returns to Italy, with the same research conditions he had in the US--- appears simply laughable. And then it is not clear to me why a bank would like to produce such a commercial. The Italian system is infamous for the ever decreasing funds assigned to education and research, not to mention the unclear, old-fashion procedures it uses to distribute such funds and hire new young researchers. Sadly, the mere fact that the bank dared to produce such a commercial reveals that the Italian society at large is not aware of the huge problem brain drain represents for the country.
On
Unacknowledgements. As you probably know, it is common to add an "acknowledgments" section at the end of a scientific paper. There you thank people who helped you or gave you ideas for developing it, and/or mention the projects/institutions that funded your research. It is not mandatory to write such a section, of course. Well, today I saw something interesting that might impose a trend. In a very recent paper, the authors ---three researchers from Sapienza University of Rome--- include something else. As usual they have an acknowledgments section:
AcknowledgementsWe thank the anonymous referees for their useful suggestions.
The novelty is the mention they added right after that:
UnacknowledgementsThis work is ostensibly supported by the the ItalianMinistry of University and Research under the FIRBprogram, project RBIN047MH9-000.The Ministryhowever has not paid its dues and it is not knownwhether it will ever do.
You can take a look to the paper here. (For those of you in the CS world: the paper was accepted at SODA 2010, the ACM-SIAM symposium on discrete algorithms, a top conference on algorithmics.)
I suspect this indeed will initiate a trend, as I am sure there are many researchers in Italy in the same situation. Whether this is an appropriate way of acting or not is a matter of discussion. I was surprised by the originality of the protest. It is worth observing that generally completing a (good) paper represents a great effort, and hence arriving to a point where you write an acknowledgments section for a work of yours is supposed to be satisfying. Therefore, it is very sad to see people who arrived there and recorded their frustration in such a way. It is a matter of desperation, I suppose.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Acknowledgments for a PhD thesis
The following is the acknowledgments section of my recently finished PhD thesis, entitled "Higher-Order Concurrency: Expressiveness and Decidability Results". For those interested in the actual thesis (and not in the thing below), it should be publicly available later this year, as a technical report of the Department of Computer Science of the University of Bologna. If you cannot wait that long, drop me an email and I will send you the current draft.
My greatest debt is to Davide Sangiorgi. Having him as supervisor has been truly inspiring. His careful supervision has influenced enormously my way of doing (and approaching) research. His continuous support and patience during these three years were fundamental to me. I am still amazed by the fact that Davide had always time for me, not only for scientific discussions but also for sorting out everyday issues. I am most grateful to him for his honest and direct advice, and for the liberty that he gave me during my studies.
My greatest debt is to Davide Sangiorgi. Having him as supervisor has been truly inspiring. His careful supervision has influenced enormously my way of doing (and approaching) research. His continuous support and patience during these three years were fundamental to me. I am still amazed by the fact that Davide had always time for me, not only for scientific discussions but also for sorting out everyday issues. I am most grateful to him for his honest and direct advice, and for the liberty that he gave me during my studies.
I also owe much to Camilo Rueda and Frank D. Valencia. I do not forget that it was Camilo who introduced me to research, thus giving me an opportunity that most people in his position would have refused. Even if my PhD studies were not directly related to his research interests, Camilo was always there, interested in my progresses, encouraging me with his support and friendship. Frank not only introduced me to the concurrency theory; he also gave me constant advise and support during my PhD studies and long before. Frank had a lot to do with me coming to Bologna, and that I will never forget.
There is no way in which I could have completed this dissertation by myself. It has been a pleasure to collaborate with extremely talented people, to whom I am deeply grateful: Cinzia Di Giusto, Ivan Lanese, Alan Schmitt, Gianluigi Zavattaro. Thank you for your kindness, generosity and, above all, for your patience.
Many thanks to Uwe Nestmann and Nobuko Yoshida for having accepted to review this dissertation. Thanks also to the members of my internal committee (commissione), Cosimo Laneve and Claudio Sacerdoti-Coen. I am indebted to Simone Martini, the coordinator of the PhD program, for his constant availability and kindness.
Many people proof-read parts of this dissertation, and provided me with constructive criticisms. I am grateful to all of them for their time and availability: Jesus Aranda, Alberto Delgado, Cinzia Di Giusto, Daniele Gorla, Julian Gutierrez, Hugo A. Lopez, Claudio Mezzina, Margarida Piriquito, Frank D. Valencia. A special thanks goes to Daniele Varacca, who suffered an early draft of the whole document and provided me with insightful remarks. Along these years I have benefited a lot from discussions with/comments from a lot of people. I am most grateful for their positive attitude towards my work: Jesus Aranda, Ahmed Bouajjani, Gerard Boudol, Santiago Cortes, Rocco De Nicola, Daniele Gorla, Matthew Hennessy, Thomas Hildebrandt, Kohei Honda, Roland Meyer, Fabrizio Montesi, Camilo Rueda, Jean-Bernard Stefani, Frank D. Valencia, Daniele Varacca, Nobuko Yoshida.
During 2009 I spent some months visiting Alan Schmitt in the SARDES team at INRIA Grenoble - Rhone-Alpes. The period in Grenoble was very enriching and productive; a substantial part of this dissertation was written there. I am grateful to Alan and to Jean-Bernard Stefani for the opportunity of working with them and for treating me as another member of the team. I would like to thank Diane Courtiol for her patient help with all the administrative issues during my stay, and to Claudio Mezzina (or the “tiny little Italian with a pony tail”, as he requested to be acknowledged) for being such a friendly office mate. I also thank the INRIA Equipe Associee BACON for partially supporting my visit.
I would like to express my appreciation to the University of Bologna - MIUR for supporting my studies through a full scholarship. Thanks also to the administrative staff in the Department of Computer Science, for their help and kindness in everyday issues.
I am most proud to be part of a small group of Colombians doing research abroad. We all share many things: we started in the same research group, have similar backgrounds, and came to Europe more or less at the same time. With most of them I even shared an office for a long time. Many thanks to: Jesus Aranda, for his inherent kindness; Alejandro Arbelaez, for the good times while working in Colombia and his hospitality during trips to Paris; Andres Aristizabal, for the constant support in spite of our favorite football teams; Alberto Delgado, with whom I started doing research back in 2002 and has always been there ever since; Gustavo Gutierrez, for the old, good times when he was my first boss, and for the sincere support during all these years; Julian Gutierrez, for all the discussions on life and research, during our PhDs and even way before; Hugo A. Lopez, for sharing with me the experience of living in Italy, several trips, and a plenty of discussions on concurrency theory and life at large; Carlos Olarte, for all the good times in Paris and hospitality in the great city of Bourg-la-Reine; Luis O. Quesada, for his exceptional kindness and hospitality during a visit to Ireland (despite of the fact that my visit brought historical floodings to the Cork region). Above all, I would like to thank all of them for being my friends.
Perhaps the most significant achievement of my PhD studies is all the people I have meet along the way. A special thanks goes to: Cinzia Di Giusto, for her constant support and friendship, and for being the most enthusiastic partner in research one could imagine; Antonio Vitale, for the several trips and for sharing with me bits of PhD frustration and pizzas of varying quality; Ivan Lanese, the loyal friend, the reasonable flat mate, and the talented co-author. Thanks also to: Stefano Arteconi, for insightful and enjoyable discussions on Italy, movies, and music; Ferdinanda Camporesi, for the many chats and the movies we watched together; Marco Di Felice, for being the most welcoming and friendly office mate in underground and being worse than me in calcetto; Ebbe Elsborg (and family) ---the most loyal reader of my blog--- for his kind hospitality during the most splendid vacation in Denmark I could have imagined, and for plenty of discussions on pretty much every aspect of life; Elena Giachino and Luis Perez, for all the fun we had together at summer schools, and for dinners and parties at Pisa; Zeynep Kiziltan, for the chats over lunch that didn’t deal about work; Flavio S. Mendes, for the many trips we did together around Italy, the constant support and friendship, and the many times I stayed at his place; Margarida Piriquito, for the most unexpected friendship I can remember; Sylvain Pradalier, or the coolest French guy I could have shared an office with; Alan Schmitt (and family), for the several great dinners at his place (in Grenoble, but also in Casalecchio) and the clever games in which I would always lose no matter how hard I would try.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my family for their unconditional, constant support. There are no words to thank my parents, my sisters, my brother, and my grandmother. Their love gave me strength to overcome the difficult times. I would also like to thank Andres Monsalve, who is more like a brother than a friend to me. Thanks also to the rest of my family, the many cousins, uncles, and aunts for their continued support towards me.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tears in the workshop
Some months ago I attended a workshop celebrating the 60th birthday of a computer scientist. This kind of events usually consist of talks given by people who are academically and/or personally close to the honoree, say former students and coauthors. A workshop is only one possibility for celebrating a scientist's life and achievements; the most common thing I have heard of is to organize the workshop and/or edit a festschrift--- a special volume of scientific articles. Sometimes there is no workshop and only the festschrift is published. Some other times the potential honoree refuses any kind of celebration.
The workshop itself wasn't very interesting from the scientific point of view; the honoree works in a field relatively away from mine, so the talks weren't that relevant to my research. It was, however, a rather emotional experience: all of the invited speakers told very nice and positive experiences about the honoree at the personal level ---the guy couldn't avoid the tears at the end.
The emotional part of the workshop made me reflect a lot. The immediate question is, of course, will I have such a workshop? Being not particularly brilliant (I consider myself a little bit above the average, but not too much) I do not have too many hopes. And then there's the issue that I am relatively young, so I should wait almost three decades before having 65 years, and being a potential honoree. So let's say I still have time to become a brilliant computer scientist (or more realistically, to get brilliant students who would have to include me as coauthor in their papers :-) ).
The really insightful issue here is that a good scientific career appears to me as something very difficult to have. Let's put aside the issue of employment (if you're reasonably smart and active you'll find a permanent job sooner than later). The thing that seems really difficult to me is to be constant during your career; to maintain the same curiosity and inquisitive spirit for years and years. That's the real challenge, I think. One hears of people who were very productive and successful in the past but that now are depressed or sad, sometimes without a good reason. And that makes you think: science is already frustrating, and if you add to that the regular frustrations of life then it could be an unbearable burden.
Perhaps more importantly is the human aspect of research. In science you're surrounded by extremely brilliant people who are well aware of that. The issue is how they manage (and project) their talent to others. As in life in large, there are two possibilities: either you find arrogant pricks or you find humble, modest researchers. I have had the pleasure of working only with people in the second group, but you can easily find people in the first one. It can be annoying. Instead, it is a joy to find experienced researchers and professors who are always available, ready to share their knowledge and learn new things. Those who are able to motivate, appreciate, and get the best from their students. Those who at the end attend (and deserve!) workshops in their honor.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
You may be shocked
Robin Milner is probably the most influential researcher in concurrency theory, the research area in which I work. He has won the Turing award (the Nobel prize for computer science), and made decisive contributions in several areas of computing; in all of them his ideas have had both theoretical and practical impact.
Milner is 75 years-old now. He continues to work, more actively than what one could imagine. He has recently finished a book on his latest group of theories, one that attempts to provide a general formulation for a number of complicated phenomena. My impression is that such theories have had much less impact than his previous work. I personally do not like the theories; I find them very hard to understand. I guess I am not alone in that perception. One gets the impression that Milner knows that, and that he is most interested in making his theories more accessible.
The other day, by mistake, Milner sent a private email to a public mailing list. The email was intended to one of the chairs of a forthcoming conference: in his email Milner was sending very well in advance his slides for his keynote talk. In his very refined English (which we all have come to appreciate by reading his books and papers), Milner expressed his concern about the lack of a projector in the conference, also pointing out that he should be very busy over the coming weeks. Referring to the slides, Milner wrote: "You may be shocked to receive them so early." Pure Milner style.
That email from Milner got me thinking. I was indeed shocked, but not because of the slides. I was shocked to realize that Milner in 75 years was still concerned about some of the annoying issues related to research, such as writing slides and doing arrangements for conferences. Then I realized: I do not want to be 75 and be worried about research! Granted, I am not a genius-like researcher as Milner is, and most likely when I get old I won't feel the urgency of making a last, extraordinary contribution to science (as Milner probably feels). Even if one feels like doing research till the end (literally), that would certainly be disastrous way of ending your life. I mean, there are so many wonderful things in life so as to be concerned till the end about research. At that age, I certainly expect to be worried about hobbies, family, and health (in that order).
Milner is 75 years-old now. He continues to work, more actively than what one could imagine. He has recently finished a book on his latest group of theories, one that attempts to provide a general formulation for a number of complicated phenomena. My impression is that such theories have had much less impact than his previous work. I personally do not like the theories; I find them very hard to understand. I guess I am not alone in that perception. One gets the impression that Milner knows that, and that he is most interested in making his theories more accessible.
The other day, by mistake, Milner sent a private email to a public mailing list. The email was intended to one of the chairs of a forthcoming conference: in his email Milner was sending very well in advance his slides for his keynote talk. In his very refined English (which we all have come to appreciate by reading his books and papers), Milner expressed his concern about the lack of a projector in the conference, also pointing out that he should be very busy over the coming weeks. Referring to the slides, Milner wrote: "You may be shocked to receive them so early." Pure Milner style.
That email from Milner got me thinking. I was indeed shocked, but not because of the slides. I was shocked to realize that Milner in 75 years was still concerned about some of the annoying issues related to research, such as writing slides and doing arrangements for conferences. Then I realized: I do not want to be 75 and be worried about research! Granted, I am not a genius-like researcher as Milner is, and most likely when I get old I won't feel the urgency of making a last, extraordinary contribution to science (as Milner probably feels). Even if one feels like doing research till the end (literally), that would certainly be disastrous way of ending your life. I mean, there are so many wonderful things in life so as to be concerned till the end about research. At that age, I certainly expect to be worried about hobbies, family, and health (in that order).
Friday, March 13, 2009
Heart
The other day I was reading some forum (or some blog comment, I can't recall) in which the latest U2 album was being discussed. One of the comments expressed more or less the following:
This duality between innate talent and acquired skills pervades many facets of human life. The immediate examples that come to my mind are soccer players and researchers. Some are talented because they're were born like that; being brilliant is natural (or even instinctive) for them. Think of Maradona here. Others, in contrast, try to compensate the lack of innate talent with additional doses of sacrifice, discipline, or even leadership. Think of Gattuso here. In both cases, our human nature constantly pushes us to the unavoidable search for equilibrium.
I remembered the comment on U2 while talking with a former supervisor of mine about potential PhD students. Doing a PhD is a serious decision, as it requires a lot of personal compromise. A special sacrifice most likely you haven't faced before. There's no formula or pattern to follow for doing a PhD; after all, it's research: you'll be dealing with issues that no one else has addressed before, so what you ignore is usually much more than what you know for sure. This applies both for the supervisor and the student; each of them doesn't really know what to expect from the other.
U2 is the living proof that you don't need great performers to produce great rock songs. Indeed, if you pay attention, Bono doesn't have a great voice, The Edge would be nothing without all the machines and effects he uses, and the drums and bass are only correct. After all, rock is all about attitude.
This duality between innate talent and acquired skills pervades many facets of human life. The immediate examples that come to my mind are soccer players and researchers. Some are talented because they're were born like that; being brilliant is natural (or even instinctive) for them. Think of Maradona here. Others, in contrast, try to compensate the lack of innate talent with additional doses of sacrifice, discipline, or even leadership. Think of Gattuso here. In both cases, our human nature constantly pushes us to the unavoidable search for equilibrium.
I remembered the comment on U2 while talking with a former supervisor of mine about potential PhD students. Doing a PhD is a serious decision, as it requires a lot of personal compromise. A special sacrifice most likely you haven't faced before. There's no formula or pattern to follow for doing a PhD; after all, it's research: you'll be dealing with issues that no one else has addressed before, so what you ignore is usually much more than what you know for sure. This applies both for the supervisor and the student; each of them doesn't really know what to expect from the other.
My former supervisor has a theory on potential PhD students: to do a PhD you need something that goes well beyond GPAs and mechanical knowledge acqusition; in his view, above all things, PhD students must have what he generically calls their heart: a rare mix of independence, self-confidence, enthusiasm, audacy, stubborness, curiosity, sacrifice, and passion. As many other intangibles in life, a student's heart can't be easily defined but you can tell for sure when you see it.
Being one of those endowed with a rather modest amount of innate talent, I can only but agree with this way of understanding what it takes to do research. Although this could well apply to many scenarios in life, when doing research it is especially evident that you need a resiliant heart. Indeed, since doing a PhD is such a unique experience (especially if you go abroad for that) you will need to use your heart in those (frequent) moments in which your academic side has run out of answers. In any case, it could help to think the following: if Bono can sing as wholeheartedly as he does with his limited voice, a good student with the proper amount of heart should succeed in that road to oblivion also known as scientific research.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)