4 ms·

Oh interesting. I haven't talked to any recent graduates but I would expect an MIT PhD student to be more articulate and not say "like" every other word. There

by rdtsc 1y ago

Oh interesting. I haven't talked to any recent graduates but I would expect an MIT PhD student to be more articulate and not say "like" every other word. There was a question at the end that made him a little uncomfortable: [1:00:20] Q: Did you use academic labs only or did you use private labs? A: (uncomfortable pause) Oh private, yeah, so like all corporate, yeah... Q: So, no academic labs? A: I think it's a good question (scratches head uncomfortably, seemingly trying to hide), what this would look like in an academic setting, cause like, ... the goals are driven by what product we're going make ... academia is all, like "we're looking around trying to create cool stuff"... My 8 year-old is more articulated than this person. Perhaps they are just nervous, I'll give them that I guess.

gipp 1y ago
I guess you haven't seen many academic talks then? I'd easily put this on the upper 50% of them as far as public speaking goes
busyant 1y ago
> I would expect an MIT PhD student to be more articulate and not say "like" every other word. Buddy, I've met MIT profs whose public speaking was so horrible, it would probably take them 30 minutes to order a glass of water.
- rdtsc 1y ago
  We’re doomed :-)
- dguest 1y ago
  That's an optimization. See I'm thirsty, but I can drink the water later. And my grant proposal is due at midnight tonight (12:01 on Sunday, technically), and my PhD student is texting me to say that he can't log into the cluster, and we also just got the proofs back from that paper but I guess that can wait. At some point I should fill out that reimbursement form for the conference last week but first I should get back to those undergrads who said they wanted a summer ... wait water? Oh yes sure water would be great.
dguest 1y ago
Don't confuse a polished TED talk from a practiced speaker with a seminar from any random person in academia. I'm sad to admit I've given talks (many recorded) that are much worse than this. These seminar-style talks in particular have a strong Goodheart bias: academic scientists judge each other on the papers they write, but the highest honors usually come in the form of invited talks. The result is that everyone is scrambling to have their students give talks. In larger scientific collaborations it can get a bit perverse: you want to get everyone together for discussions, but the institutes will only pay for travel if you give their students a 20 minute talk. You'll often have conferences where everyone crams into a room and listens to back-to-back 20 minute lectures for a week straight (sometimes split into multiple "parallel sessions"), and the only real questions are from a few senior people. It's a net positive, of course: there's still some time around the lectures and even in 2025 there's no good replacement for face-to-face interaction. But I often wish more people could just go to conferences to discuss their work rather than "giving a talk" on it.
- rdtsc 1y ago
  > Don't confuse a polished TED talk from a practiced speaker with a seminar from any random person in academia. I don’t expect a TED talk but we’re still talking about MIT here. I’ve seen 8 year olds more articulated. I guess where I am from being called in front of the class and having to present or talk about the homework reading is common, so perhaps why it’s seen as exotic in US to be able tie words together without saying “like” after every other word, or slump and touch the hair every 10 seconds.
  - dguest 1y ago
    Yeah, MIT-affiliation certainly doesn't imply good presentation skills, I agree with you there. I wonder about this too, but I think any academic institute asks a lot of PhD students. 90% of it isn't about giving a good public talk. Especially at PhD level it's much more about actually gathering a blob of data, distilling it into a (still nonlinear) structure, and then, finally, serializing it into a paper draft. In many cases the talk is something you do at the end as a formality. This doesn't get any simpler just because you're at an institute with a fancy name. Your hypothetical 8 year old has one chance to get a cookie and had better be pretty articulate about it. This MIT-branded academic has a million other things going for them and can afford to slack off a bit on the presentation skills.
esprehn 1y ago
Using the word "like" is not as bad as it seems, and it's been quite common in language for longer than we think (though usage does seem to increase with each generation). There was a recent podcast that covered it with some experts that's a great listen: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5w1gdbhmlCyTapoQ3EkMHp https://open.spotify.com/episode/5w1gdbhmlCyTapoQ3EkMHp
- jbullock35 1y ago
  When you use it as a comma, it’s bad.
  - saagarjha 1y ago
    That's just, like, your opinion.
- globnomulous 1y ago
  > Using the word "like" is not as bad as it seems, and it's been quite common in language for longer than we think The word has many, many uses: filler/pause, oral punctuation, discourse marker, hedging, qualifier. It also serves an important social function, in that it can reduce perceived severity or seriousness. Young women seem to use it assure peers that they are sweet and not threatening. I hate it. It's not uncommon to hear it more than four or five times in a single sentence. The implied expectations are odious: eloquence is a faux pas; directness is rude; a fifth-grade vocabulary is welcoming.
  - TeMPOraL 1y ago
    you be all like, "eloquence is a faux pas; directness is rude; a fifth-grade vocabulary is welcoming". Then the internet be like, "yo, pretentious much?", and then they be like "eloquence is some rascist victorian shit-e", and then be like, "directness is privileged and oppressive", and then be like, "your educated vocabulary is, like, so rich and neurotypical" then you be all like, "but! but! that's not what i mean", and then they be like, "ok boomer" and then they be sharing tiktoks of yo red face on red dit(!) and img2img you into Wojak memes -- Couldn't resist. I feel like you feel, and I'm saddened by the fact that there seems to be no way to hold any quality standards in modern society. Yes, standards of writing and speech and culture are arbitrary, but it's valuable to have them; meanwhile, we live in times where you can't require anything of people, because there's always someone ready to argue the expectations are unfair or malicious, and there's no culturally valid counterargument to that.
hansvm 1y ago
https://xkcd.com/1483/ https://xkcd.com/1483/

by rdtsc 1y ago

gipp 1y ago

I guess you haven't seen many academic talks then? I'd easily put this on the upper 50% of them as far as public speaking goes

busyant 1y ago

> I would expect an MIT PhD student to be more articulate and not say "like" every other word. Buddy, I've met MIT profs whose public speaking was so horrible, it would probably take them 30 minutes to order a glass of water.

rdtsc 1y ago
We’re doomed :-)
dguest 1y ago
That's an optimization. See I'm thirsty, but I can drink the water later. And my grant proposal is due at midnight tonight (12:01 on Sunday, technically), and my PhD student is texting me to say that he can't log into the cluster, and we also just got the proofs back from that paper but I guess that can wait. At some point I should fill out that reimbursement form for the conference last week but first I should get back to those undergrads who said they wanted a summer ... wait water? Oh yes sure water would be great.

dguest 1y ago

Don't confuse a polished TED talk from a practiced speaker with a seminar from any random person in academia. I'm sad to admit I've given talks (many recorded) that are much worse than this. These seminar-style talks in particular have a strong Goodheart bias: academic scientists judge each other on the papers they write, but the highest honors usually come in the form of invited talks. The result is that everyone is scrambling to have their students give talks. In larger scientific collaborations it can get a bit perverse: you want to get everyone together for discussions, but the institutes will only pay for travel if you give their students a 20 minute talk. You'll often have conferences where everyone crams into a room and listens to back-to-back 20 minute lectures for a week straight (sometimes split into multiple "parallel sessions"), and the only real questions are from a few senior people. It's a net positive, of course: there's still some time around the lectures and even in 2025 there's no good replacement for face-to-face interaction. But I often wish more people could just go to conferences to discuss their work rather than "giving a talk" on it.

rdtsc 1y ago
> Don't confuse a polished TED talk from a practiced speaker with a seminar from any random person in academia. I don’t expect a TED talk but we’re still talking about MIT here. I’ve seen 8 year olds more articulated. I guess where I am from being called in front of the class and having to present or talk about the homework reading is common, so perhaps why it’s seen as exotic in US to be able tie words together without saying “like” after every other word, or slump and touch the hair every 10 seconds.
- dguest 1y ago
  Yeah, MIT-affiliation certainly doesn't imply good presentation skills, I agree with you there. I wonder about this too, but I think any academic institute asks a lot of PhD students. 90% of it isn't about giving a good public talk. Especially at PhD level it's much more about actually gathering a blob of data, distilling it into a (still nonlinear) structure, and then, finally, serializing it into a paper draft. In many cases the talk is something you do at the end as a formality. This doesn't get any simpler just because you're at an institute with a fancy name. Your hypothetical 8 year old has one chance to get a cookie and had better be pretty articulate about it. This MIT-branded academic has a million other things going for them and can afford to slack off a bit on the presentation skills.

esprehn 1y ago

Using the word "like" is not as bad as it seems, and it's been quite common in language for longer than we think (though usage does seem to increase with each generation). There was a recent podcast that covered it with some experts that's a great listen: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5w1gdbhmlCyTapoQ3EkMHp https://open.spotify.com/episode/5w1gdbhmlCyTapoQ3EkMHp

jbullock35 1y ago
When you use it as a comma, it’s bad.
- saagarjha 1y ago
  That's just, like, your opinion.
globnomulous 1y ago
> Using the word "like" is not as bad as it seems, and it's been quite common in language for longer than we think The word has many, many uses: filler/pause, oral punctuation, discourse marker, hedging, qualifier. It also serves an important social function, in that it can reduce perceived severity or seriousness. Young women seem to use it assure peers that they are sweet and not threatening. I hate it. It's not uncommon to hear it more than four or five times in a single sentence. The implied expectations are odious: eloquence is a faux pas; directness is rude; a fifth-grade vocabulary is welcoming.
- TeMPOraL 1y ago
  you be all like, "eloquence is a faux pas; directness is rude; a fifth-grade vocabulary is welcoming". Then the internet be like, "yo, pretentious much?", and then they be like "eloquence is some rascist victorian shit-e", and then be like, "directness is privileged and oppressive", and then be like, "your educated vocabulary is, like, so rich and neurotypical" then you be all like, "but! but! that's not what i mean", and then they be like, "ok boomer" and then they be sharing tiktoks of yo red face on red dit(!) and img2img you into Wojak memes -- Couldn't resist. I feel like you feel, and I'm saddened by the fact that there seems to be no way to hold any quality standards in modern society. Yes, standards of writing and speech and culture are arbitrary, but it's valuable to have them; meanwhile, we live in times where you can't require anything of people, because there's always someone ready to argue the expectations are unfair or malicious, and there's no culturally valid counterargument to that.

hansvm 1y ago

https://xkcd.com/1483/ https://xkcd.com/1483/