3 ms·

The takeaway from the first story is simple: don't be a jerk. It's harder to find a takeaway from the second story. How do you in general avoid making whatever

The takeaway from the first story is simple: don't be a jerk. It's harder to find a takeaway from the second story. How do you in general avoid making whatever mistakes Bill supposedly made with his seminar?

sandoooo 7y ago
Knowing the culture and relative status dynamics would have helped. Undergrads are lower than the worms beneath your feet as faculty, and shouldn't be invited to faculty gatherings lest they drool on the carpet. By not figuring out what the faux pas's are for the local ecosystem, he was setting himself up for failure. If it wasn't this talk it would have been something else.
- smallcharleston 7y ago
  Are they? As an undergrad I thought my professors were silly folks who got suckered into making a huge effort on obscure facts when they could easily make the same salary with less energy in software/IT. When a prof I did research with behaved rudely to me I just quit his lab and got someone else to write grad school letters for me. Academically all but the best undergrads know basically nothing, but looking down on them seems like you’ll soon have lab a labor shortage to me, especially in CS.
  - Fronzie 7y ago
    undergrads don't bring in grant money, but do cost time (teaching). From a university 'business' point of view, they are a net loss. Grants are a big thing in academia.
    - limbicsystem 7y ago
      In the UK it's exactly the opposite. Here's the best case (UCL - a super research intensive university): https://www.ucl.ac.uk/students/fees-and-funding/how-ucl-uses-tuition-fees https://www.ucl.ac.uk/students/fees-and-funding/how-ucl-uses... Most other universities rely far more on teaching. Tuition fees also have the advantage that they are constant and relatively easy to predict while grants last a few years at best (and of course you do have to >do< something with them so they are not pure profit. Broadly, grants are the delicious froth on top of the tuition fee latte.
    - smallcharleston 7y ago
      It’s not always true. I know an undergrad who had a conference paper out in a direction a PI could use in grant writing.
Traster 7y ago
He was a new person being asked to do something new to him that literally everyone else around him had previously done. It's not rocket science, ask the opinion of the more experienced people around you. The message from the first story is identical to the message from the first - recognise the value of other people's work.
- Archit3ch 7y ago
  > It's not rocket science, ask the opinion of the more experienced people around you. You assume that being humble and acting in good faith will get you ahead in academic politics. From firsthand (but not personal) experience, sometimes you can do everything right and people will still get offended. You'll find no evidence of what went wrong, trying to piece together the event sequence after the fact, much like OP's experience. Of course, OP went out of their way to offend, I don't recommend that. Academics tend to minimize risk [1]. If you try to interpret their behavior outside of that context, you will find it inscrutable, because not only are they playing in a different league, they aren't even playing the same game [1]. [1] much like C suites

sandoooo 7y ago

Knowing the culture and relative status dynamics would have helped. Undergrads are lower than the worms beneath your feet as faculty, and shouldn't be invited to faculty gatherings lest they drool on the carpet. By not figuring out what the faux pas's are for the local ecosystem, he was setting himself up for failure. If it wasn't this talk it would have been something else.

smallcharleston 7y ago
Are they? As an undergrad I thought my professors were silly folks who got suckered into making a huge effort on obscure facts when they could easily make the same salary with less energy in software/IT. When a prof I did research with behaved rudely to me I just quit his lab and got someone else to write grad school letters for me. Academically all but the best undergrads know basically nothing, but looking down on them seems like you’ll soon have lab a labor shortage to me, especially in CS.
- Fronzie 7y ago
  undergrads don't bring in grant money, but do cost time (teaching). From a university 'business' point of view, they are a net loss. Grants are a big thing in academia.
  - limbicsystem 7y ago
    In the UK it's exactly the opposite. Here's the best case (UCL - a super research intensive university): https://www.ucl.ac.uk/students/fees-and-funding/how-ucl-uses-tuition-fees https://www.ucl.ac.uk/students/fees-and-funding/how-ucl-uses... Most other universities rely far more on teaching. Tuition fees also have the advantage that they are constant and relatively easy to predict while grants last a few years at best (and of course you do have to >do< something with them so they are not pure profit. Broadly, grants are the delicious froth on top of the tuition fee latte.
  - smallcharleston 7y ago
    It’s not always true. I know an undergrad who had a conference paper out in a direction a PI could use in grant writing.

Traster 7y ago

He was a new person being asked to do something new to him that literally everyone else around him had previously done. It's not rocket science, ask the opinion of the more experienced people around you. The message from the first story is identical to the message from the first - recognise the value of other people's work.

Archit3ch 7y ago
> It's not rocket science, ask the opinion of the more experienced people around you. You assume that being humble and acting in good faith will get you ahead in academic politics. From firsthand (but not personal) experience, sometimes you can do everything right and people will still get offended. You'll find no evidence of what went wrong, trying to piece together the event sequence after the fact, much like OP's experience. Of course, OP went out of their way to offend, I don't recommend that. Academics tend to minimize risk [1]. If you try to interpret their behavior outside of that context, you will find it inscrutable, because not only are they playing in a different league, they aren't even playing the same game [1]. [1] much like C suites