I am sorry for not addressing you by name. I know that that’s not nice, and I know how it feels. Why do I know? Because you did not address me by name. You started your e-mail with some generic address, such as “Dear Professor” (which – by the way – is not my job title) or “Dear Sir” (which – by the way – is not my gender).
As many of my friends know (and some of them from awkward personal experience), I like walking around cemeteries. Cemeteries from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy are especially great, because you can learn a lot about the people buried there and the time they lived in. Not just names and dates and places of birth and death. Often, the headstone will also inform us about a person’s station in life, their job, their academic and professional titles. It will tell us, for instance, that the deceased was a Doctor of Philospohy. Or an officer for the royal-imperial postal service. Or a house owner’s widow. I love it.
I am spending a quarter of each year on the Haining International Campus of Zhejiang University, teaching in a joint Zhejiang/Edinburgh degree programme in Biomedical Sciences. A while ago, we were asked to provide suggestions for books to be added to the newly-to-be-established campus library. Of course, all the standard textbooks will be there, but it got me thinking about what other books I would consider valuable reads for budding biomedical scientists. And, more especially, what books I have enjoyed myself.
All happy PhDs are alike. Every unhappy PhD is unhappy in its own way.
There was a story in the Guardian not long ago about a young scientist who had supposedly found a dream PhD position, only to then find the lab ill-equipped, the supervisor under-prepared and the institution unsupportive.
Now, my own PhD was a happy experience (not just saying that because my supervisor is probably reading this. Hi Nicolas! But it really was.) But I have seen so many unhappy PhDs, and so many different ways in which a PhD can fail.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump was elected to be the next president of the United States of America. On Thursday, actor Christoph Waltz was interviewed on the subject for Austrian TV. I like the interview, so for the benefit of my English-speaking friends, I have translated it*. Enjoy.
It’s the first week of semester 1 of our new Biomedical Sciences degree programme, and the first cohort of students have been through their first few lectures and tutorials. They are wonderful young people, bright, optimistic, maybe a bit anxious, but nonetheless ready to throw themselves into this new adventure. These days, I think a lot of what it was like for me when I was in my first year of undergraduate. And about what I was like.
Now that I have my own lab, the topic of students writing stuff comes up a lot. It seems like everybody writes to a universal time plan, which is the following: If you have n days to produce a report, or a thesis chapter, or an abstract, then do absolutely nothing for n-2 days, scramble to produce something on day n-1, send it to your supervisor and ask them to provide feedback within the next hour or so, because after all, the deadline is tomorrow! I know this time plan well, because I have followed it myself for years. But it’s not great. And while I’m at it, let me dispense some other sage writing advice …
When I was a child, my grandfather blew my mind with a bit of basic probability and statistics. If you play the lottery, he explained, you might as well just play the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Your chance of winning will be exactly the same as with any other particular combination of numbers. I was astonished and incredulous at first, but then I thought it through, and had to admit, of course, that he was right.
Now, years later, I am not so sure anymore.
So, last week, the citizens of the UK voted in favour of Brexit. This is bound to have far-reaching and long-term consequences, but at the moment, it is very hard to see what will happen and even what will happen next. Will there be another referendum about Brexit? Should there be? While the country debates the possibility of another vote, in a way it is already happening. Around the country, thousands of people are facing a second Brexit referendum of their own: Should we stay or should we go?
Today is Friday, 20 May 2016
I am an Edinburgh-Zhejiang lecturer at the University of Edinburgh (UK).
This is a day in my life.
life and learning 