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I took a class senior year with Cynthia which tried to cover some of the things that she had discovered. One of most surprising things about her work is that sh
by singhrac 6y ago
I took a class senior year with Cynthia which tried to cover some of the things that she had discovered. One of most surprising things about her work is that she brings this full algorithmic firepower to problems that I had always considered outside the realm of mathematics - fairness and privacy. Some of her greatest achievements, I think, are figuring out what problems to solve (and of course solving them). She really stood out as one of our best faculty even in a very crowded room.
- thinkloop 6y agoDo you remember any cool examples of an algorithm bazooka?
- jedberg 6y agoOn a side note, I notice you call her "Cynthia" instead of Professor or Doctor. I've noticed other Harvard students do this with other professors too. Is this a typical Harvard thing?
- nicoburns 6y agoCommon at lots of Universities I think, at least in the UK, and probably in the US too. I knew most of my professors by their first names.
- mkl 6y agoNormal in NZ too. Many undergrads don't even know how to use titles, call us by the wrong one, etc.
- kyawzazaw 6y agoI do that with my professors too. US College thing.
- commandlinefan 6y agoOh, yeah - the way he phrased it, I assumed she was a classmate, not the one teaching the class.
- zitterbewegung 6y agoI went to University of Illinois at Chicago (not UIUC or UofC). If I worked with a professor for awhile (not in class more for research oriented things) sometimes it would be appropriate to address them by their first name but I never did.
- downerending 6y agoAt least in the US, having a Ph.D. and insisting on being referred to as "Doctor" is considered a real asshole move. Usually one might address the person once as "Dr. Whatever", but they will invariably reply, "Please, call me Jane". Even referring to someone as "Dr. Whatever" in the third person is pretty unusual, if you've ever met them. If I was to speak of my college professors right now, I certainly wouldn't use "Doctor". Maybe if they were 70 or had a Nobel or something. (Related: In the movie Avatar, one scientist introduces himself to another scientist as "Doctor Norm Whatever". It absolutely clangs, at least to my ears.)
- jedberg 6y agoIf you know them sure. But for a professor who I took a class with? I would always call them Professor Whatever if my only interaction with them was in a classroom context.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- foota 6y agoMaybe a generational thing? Not sure when you went to school, I went to a midsized state school 3 years ago and mostly referred to professors by their first or last name. I think this is more common in CS perhaps? I don't think my physics friends did the same thing as often though.
- bookofjoe 6y agoCf. "Dr." Jill Biden
- downerending 6y ago?
- bookofjoe 6y agoRelated: as an anesthesiology associate professor (M.D.), I always told the residents to call me Joe. However, there were always a couple who either would not or could not do so, and addressed me for the entirety of their three-year residencies as Dr. Stirt. Diff'rent strokes
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- singhrac 6y agoI think she asked us to call her by her first name at the beginning of the semester and it stuck (but I can't remember and I might be being rude). Honestly I'm as surprised as you are - mulling it over I'm sure I called her Prof. Dwork when talking to her, since that's how I addressed most professors I didn't well personally.
- DominikPeters 6y agoA U.S. thing I’ve noticed is calling professors “Dr. Smith” when elsewhere (and certainly in Germany) that would almost be an insult, since it’s “Prof. Smith”.
- apricot 6y agoI know a German professor with two Ph.D.s who calls himself "Professor Doktor Doktor So-and-so". He doesn't introduce himself like that, mind you, but he uses it in his .signature file (is it still called that nowadays? the text that's automatically appended to your email).
- physicsyogi 6y agoThere were only two professors I was on a first name basis with in college. One was my advisor, I also worked in his lab for two years. The other was another professor in the department. It was different in grad school. It was first names for professors you worked with. At that point, they don't know more than you do about your research.
- zajio1am 6y agoNote that applying mathematics to fairness is nothing new, there is a whole field of results, e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_division https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_division