dj whitebread
Friday, April 18, 2008
An explanation...
So there's a quote about PhDs being more an exercise in perseverance than anything else. That is very much true. Good thing I am like way stubborn.
Yesterday's faculty candidate gave a presentation on research that is very close to what I do. And very good. And very well published. Oh yeah, and he helps people in the developing world have increased access to the internet, in his spare time. Needless to say, I was left feeling a tad bit inadequate.
I mean, there are technical difference between his stuff and mine. And they completely punt on a certain problem that is really at the heart of what we do. I won't get into anymore detail here, it isn't important.
I want to be a professor. That has always been my goal. The issue is that being a professor is very competitive. My CV isn't all that great; I just don't have enough publications. Now there are lots of reasons for this, but it is still hard to keep up the faith at times that I'm eventually going to make it where I want to be. And let's get this straight, I have no chance of ever landing at a top ten kind of place. Not that I necessarily want to; it's a pretty crazy life. It's just hard to keep the faith that there is a path that I can go down that will end me up with a quality academic position in a cool town.
Hence why my last post was sort of depressing. I am feeling much better today. I'm not sure why, exactly. Maybe it's the beautiful weather. It certainly isn't my performance at the crit last night, ;). My last collegiate race is this weekend. I'm going to try and turn myself inside out to help out the team.
As for my lookout on my job prospects, I sort of need to be able to put all of that out of my mind. I need to try to get something out of the door for OSDI in three weeks and then defend/turn in my dissertation. Those are primary. I am lucky enough to have the fall to focus on job stuff... I think I will get to the point where I'm a professor. I have faith. The path just isn't clear right now, but is it ever really clear? I guess for certain people from certain schools it is... but it is probably the lack of clarity at times that makes life more interesting. Change is scary, and there is probably a lot of that coming.
I guess on some level all this is good, because I don't like to have open issues, and this is forcing me to leave a really big one just wide open and still be productive and move on with the rest of my life. Tricky, this is.
But hey, it's Friday. I'm going to race hard and work hard this weekend. On Monday I'll keep on working. The best way to improve my chances is hard work, so I guess that's what I have to do.
Have a good weekend.
3:09 PM |
