John over at Confessions of a Science Librarian has posted an interview with...me! It's the inaugural post in a series of interviews with "scitech bloggers (including librarians) and people in the publishing industry".
If you haven't been reading John's blog, I highly encourage you to check it out! He has lots of very interesting stuff to say about science, scientific publishing, and the present and future of information.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Wow, Jane, what a great honor for you, and what an interesting interview!
Hi Jane,
Interesting interview indeed, I really liked your diplomatic answers.
However, I have a question regarding one of your answers (... I can work on whatever research problem I find interesting, dabble in other subfields ...), since I am now about to finish my PhD in CS, I wonder how can I start my own research with speed (not like spending X Years to come up with a research idea as in PhD).
How do you recommend us new PhD graduate to pursue with being an active researchers, where we tackle new ideas without spending ages in literature Review sort of thing?
I hope I tried to clarify what I wanted to say.
thanks
Iris
Jane, it was fun for me too. Thanks for agreeing to help me with my new project. And Rebecca, don't worry, I follow your blog too. You're on my short list of CS bloggers I want to get around to interviewing...maybe late spring or early fall.
Thanks, Rebecca!
Iris, that's a great question (as usual!). Figuring out what research you want to pursue post-PhD can be tough to figure out. A good way to start is to look at a problem that is related to your PhD research---maybe a question that arose that you didn't have time to pursue. Other than that, what worked for me was keeping my eyes open, reading a lot, and talking to *a lot* of people about what they were working on and what they thought the important unsolved problems were. Eventually, you get ideas for problems to pursue---and then you just follow them and see where they lead. (Hope this helps!)
Neato! It was really interesting!
Thanks Jane for your great answers as usual.
One last question please that came to me while reading one of those CfP, is that, do you do research whenever you found a good CfP venue, or the other way around (i.e. you pursue your own research interest and then whenever a CfP in a decent conference that tackle the problem I am working on appears I write a paper.)
Shortly speaking, do you prefer the CfP line of research (have a CfP then work on a problem to publish a paper) or the do you prefer the do your own research and whenever a decent CfP appear in the horizon go for it?
What do you think?
Thanks
Iris
Wow - this (coming up with research ideas) is actually something I've been struggling with recently - except at a far more basic level. I'm due to graduate in a few months, and I've been looking around at master's and doctoral programmes.
Unfortunately, they seem to want me to give a description of what I'd like to research - and right now, I haven't a clue. Pretty much most things sound interesting, and it seems impossible for me to judge what areas might actually have achievable and relevant stuff to do, because I don't know anything yet.
So, how do you come up with ideas at the MSc/PhD stage? Is it common for undergrad students who go on to further study to have One Big Thing they want to look at, or is it fairly common for people to be a bit vague and undecided?
Iris, Anna, great questions! So much so that I'm going to elevate them to their very own post. Thanks for the inspiration!
Post a Comment