service

  • A New Assistant Professor (NAP) has a question: I have worked at an industrial research lab for five years and have finally received an offer from a well-known US public research school as an assistant professor in engineering. I am so excited but at the same time I am a bit anxious about setting up a new research

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  • Crankypants

    There is work to do tonight, but I can’t make myself do it. Preparing a whole new midterm for one student who was ill, writing a letter of nomination for a student for an award, getting an abstract/bio ready for an upcoming talk. This has been a really difficult semester and I am really cranky. I

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  • Grant Woes

    Yesterday I found out that one of my NSF proposals got declined. I was disappointed, as I think this was probably the best proposal I have ever written. I read the comments and felt even more down. The comments indicated that it was poorly placed panel-wise. It received 3 “goods”, and the comments were pro forma. First,

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  • I have been extremely busy, hence the scarcity of posts. I have been wanting to post on a number of interesting topics, but the time just isn’t there… And then I forget or the impetus to write diminishes for whatever reason (mostly due to sleepiness), and then there are more pressing things to tend to

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  • Ranty

    I think I might explode with anger and frustration. I have a proposal due next week and I cannot get to work on it because I have to finish two nominations (including writing letters) for colleagues (no, they could not have been done sooner because everyone, including the nominees, waits till the very last fuckin’

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  • Ah, Meetings

    I am very tired, it’s been a hellish week; but, something that happened last week remains with me, so I might as well try to purge it through writing, as I have been itching to do. I am sure I wrote about similar experiences before, but here it goes again. I am very impatient and the people who speak

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  • I have submitted a paper to a journal that prides itself in rapid turnaround. It’s been a week and no action; it’s sitting on the editorial desk (well, metaphorically; rather in an inbox or a folder of some sort). I am getting really antsy, because they often send out for review within a couple of days

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  • I am at a major public research university. Sure, this is a university and teaching is important, for some definitions of important; anyone who says that research does not beat teaching to a pulp is a liar. Bringing in extramural funding is the most important metric in most STEM fields. It translates into overhead dollars for the university. It also

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