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Wow, I can't believe I just read that whole thing. Maybe it was the excellent writing quality or maybe I just find things like this interesting. As someone wh
by Xcelerate 14y ago
Wow, I can't believe I just read that whole thing. Maybe it was the excellent writing quality or maybe I just find things like this interesting.
As someone who just graduated with a B.S. in chemical engineering and will start work toward my PhD in the fall (also in chemical engineering, but will actually involve a TON of programming), this strikes a chord with me.
A few takeaways from the article:
-The author does not give himself nearly enough credit. "Self-deprecating" is probably the right term. He considers himself average, but he is far above average. I mean this as a compliment of course.
-I think some of those tools he wrote could actually help me with my work (particularly CDE) -- I'll have to go take a look.
-I am going to have to learn how to focus, and very quickly. I consider myself very motivated/stubborn but I get distracted so easily that it's ridiculous, and this is not going to work for grad school unless I alter my behavior substantially before I get there.
-Before reading his book, I too had the idealized notion of "brilliant idea, years of writing one paper about it". The reality isn't quite as fantastic, but I appreciate learning the truth over belated disillusionment.
-Just realized the author is pgbovine -- excellent work! I currently have a completely free summer to do whatever -- would you have any tips on how I should prepare before I get to grad school? I already know which professor I will be working with, so I'm trying to figure out what level of "initiative" I should take before I arrive.
- pgbovine 14y agowhoa thanks for the compliments! re: focus -- yes, that's key. but of course, it's bad to be blindly focused down a bad direction, too. don't put too much pressure on yourself early on, since nearly everyone flops and flounders. re: what to do over the summer -- i don't know if there's much you can do to prepare :) maybe reading your professor's past papers? again, i wouldn't stress about it too much.
- pgbovine 14y ago"Before reading his book, I too had the idealized notion of "brilliant idea, years of writing one paper about it". The reality isn't quite as fantastic, but I appreciate learning the truth over belated disillusionment." I don't know whether that's the convention in your field (or with your advisor), so I don't want to make any generalizations. It's certainly possible to graduate with one big idea -> single paper, but that's just not what I ended up doing.
- needAnAccount 14y agoI'm also in chemical engineering and am looking to integrate programming into my work in grad school. What did you find to work on that's programming related?
- Xcelerate 14y agoFind a grad school with access to a supercomputer. There's a lot of fun ChemE problems that require one of these to solve. Simulating classical or quantum systems (molecular dynamics) takes a lot of algorithmic knowledge from CS and a lot of chemistry knowledge to understand the principles. Then the engineering knowledge is for scaling it up so that you can make something practical with your results.