Dr. Shellie

Blogger, programmer, and entrepreneur Paul Graham has an interesting essay called "Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas." While he is talking about tech startups, some of the ideas are applicable to PhD research, too. In particular, if you are going to spend a lot of time on something (like 5-8 years) it makes sense not to go with the very first idea you have– toss around lots of ideas to see which ones are worth pursuing. Lots of grad students get stuck in the middle of a project, and become more and more afraid to ditch the idea because of all the time they have already spent– even when the project clearly isn’t working.

Another piece of advice he gives is that if you are going to do business, you need to single-mindedly pursue ideas that make money.  For scientists the goal is less clear. Of course, we all want to publish papers and get research money. But some people like to work on applications, others on fundamentals. Some like to do very carefully-planned, long-term projects, and others like to work on shorter ones. Some people like method development, and others would rather use existing methods to go after particular scientific problems. What to choose?

First the search is opened. Several professors in a department are appointed to form the search committee, and the job is advertised on the department web site and other locations. 

Then the applications come in– maybe 200 or so for one advertised position. Since faculty live busy lives, they do not actually read all these application packets in detail. Rather, they sort into three piles. The first pile is for clearly unqualified candidates– meaning those with too few papers, from unknown universities, or both. Then there is the second pile, of "promising" candidates. These come from top schools, have lots of publications, and (preferably) have recommendation letters from famous professors, some of whom (possibly) are former students or former advisors of the search committee members. "After all, you trust the people you know!" The third pile is for everyone else. They may be good; they may not be. Who knows? These applications get only a brief glance. Some universities will require (or encourage) the committee to go through that pile again, taking a second look at the women or minority candidates to see if they could be moved to the "promising" pile.

Five or so of the promising candidates are then invited to campus for interviews. Each candidate will give a departmental seminar and have scheduled half-hour meetings with up to 10 or 12 faculty. Often, one or two will totally screw up the interview by either alienating an important faculty member. Or they will appear to have no idea of what their research program will be if given the job. Certain faculty also regard Interviewing While Pregnant (IWP, let’s say) as screwing up. And certain faculty also think that any women or minorities on the interview list just got stuck there as token candidates due to the completely unfair practice of taking a second look at the applications and/or due to All That Pressure the Dean is Putting On Us These Days to Hire More Women.

Meanwhile, the Famous Recommendation Letter Writers from other universities are calling the search committee and/or department chair on the phone to advocate for their candidate, his/her brilliance, and the tremendous topical importance of his/her field (also the field of Famous Recommendation Letter Writer). The workings of Departmental Politics go forward, and at the end of the day, the search committee somehow ranks the candidates in order of preference. The top candidate is advanced to the full departmental faculty for an "up-or-down vote," as they say about Supreme Court nomination hearings.

Here, something interesting happens, for Number One is often the superstar of the year. S/he has seven papers in the last two years, four of which are in Nature or Science. S/he has degrees from Top Five institutions in the field, recommendations from super famous people, and appears to be brilliant. Most importantly, s/he is working on exactly the research field that EVERYONE WANTS, because it is new and hot and getting lots of funding. And so Number One also comes in on the top of the list at six other universities, and can have the pick of them all.

Number One can only take one job. But that doesn’t mean that Numbers Two through Six necessarily have a chance. Nope. A department is not obligated to hire anyone. And if they are not in a hurry, and if their Number Two choice pales in comparison to the brilliance of Number One (or Three to Two, etc. etc) they may just not fill the position this year at all. This has happened to several people I know– they landed interview slots at three or four universities, but didn’t end up with job offers from any of them.

One of the commenters on Young Female Scientist’s blog recommended this talk by Richard Hamming, called "You and Your Research," delivered at Bellcore in 1986.

Want to do outstanding research, of real significance? Hamming (as in Hamming Code and Hamming Window) wants to tell us how. Here’s what I absorbed. First of all, you have to want to do first-class work. Then you need to prepare your mind to have truly original, independent ideas. This means looking for the important questions and trying to figure out how to approach them. He recommends reading other’s work– but too much, or you will start thinking like everyone else.

Whenever you have a truly original idea, you need the courage to follow up on it. And then you should work hard– but in a targetted way. Says Hamming, "Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime." (To achieve this goal, it helps to neglect your wife.) You should be totally absorbed in your work– letting it percolate through your subconscious in the shower, in bed, or wherever. And lastly, whenever you run into a weakness, try and figure out how to turn it around into a strength by framing the question differently.

It does take courage to adopt this kind of thinking. It takes convinction that you, can, in fact, do something great– that your vision is unique, worth developing and pursuing. A Chinese friend (now a professor) told me that this was something that had been hard for him, coming from Asian culture. I know it is hard for a lot of women. All throughout grade school and high school, it is not cool to be smart– you spend your energy trying to hide it from others. Then in college, you have to adjust to the fact that you are a fish in a much larger pond, and there are other students around who seem smarter and better at everything that you. Then comes grad school, and after a life time of solving problems made up by other people, you have to come up with your own. What problems do you solve? It is all well and good to look for "original" ideas, but what if they are worthless dead-ends? Particularly in science, even knowing what the problems are takes several years of training.

But suppose you have made it this far. You have done a few years of grad school, or maybe you already have your PhD or a faculty job. Then have courage. If you want to succeed in academia, you will have to take yourself very seriously and start dreaming big.

Just don’t neglect your spouse.

Mana Lumumba-Kasongo wears her doctor’s coat, has her doctor’s name badge, introduces herself as a doctor, treats her patients… yet her patients refuse to believe she is a doctor because she is black and female. Damn. What would happen without the coat and badge? Too bad doctors don’t all wear giant, fluffy, blue chef’s hats, or bishop’s miters. Maybe then there would be no ignoring the symbol of status!

Seriously though– it seems that a more "egalitarian"-style social structure (everyone dresses in jeans, people call each other by their first names, not their titles, and so on) only benefits the white men. Anyone who doesn’t look like the "typical" doctor/lawyer/professor, etc. benefits more from a strict differentiation between roles based on outward markers like clothing, badges, and titles. It’s things like these that might keep the female postdocs from being mistaken for the administrative assistant. (Yes, this has happened to me. TWICE.)

In Calvinist belief, you are either going to heaven or hell, but there is nothing you can do to change it. The matter has all been decided ahead of time, and your actions count not one bit. Shoplift, kick the cat when you get frustrated, or whatnot– as long as you are one of the elect, bad behavior doesn’t change your status. But then… on the other hand… would you really expect one of the elect to behave so badly? Not really. Those predestined for heaven probably have nice, neat homes, happy marriages, successful businesses, and athletic kids. It’s only natural. And so, in Calvinism, despite a firm doctrinal belief that actions do not influence your attainment of eternal reward, there was a tendency for the religious to work hard and behave nicely anyway. It showed you were probably, though you couldn’t be sure, one of the chosen. (Or so reads my loose, colloquial summary of Weber.)

I have long believed that academic science operates on its own sort of Calvinism. Basically, people believe that you are either one of the predestined (and will become a great scientist, meaning here, tenured professor at a top school) or not. This is mostly believed to be a matter of innate talent. Of course, you should work hard too. But, if you are indeed one of the elect, you will probably think like one too, right? Surely you will be confident of your own abilities and firm in your scientific convictions. Anyone who voices doubts about the scientific endeavor, the working conditions, the chances of getting a tenure-track job in a pleasant part of the country, etc., is suspected to be unfit– not one of the chosen. This is the American way… self-confidence is revered. We listen to those who are full of conviction.