Home sweet home

After a very hectic month, I am home for five days to get some rest and usher in the new year with my family.

I recently heard that a very dear friend from grad school has found a position of her choice.  This friend  had been planning to move back to her country for a very long time, but was not able to do so because academic jobs in her country are very hard to come by.  A couple of months ago, she decided to move back, with or without a job, because it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to overcome cultural and emotional isolation in her postdoc country.  Back home, she was on the verge of quitting academia, when a university that she had applied to invited her for an interview and made her an offer on the Friday before Christmas!  She is absolutely thrilled and excited right now.  This is a research and teaching position at a well known university which has a strong group in her specialization.  So, it seems that her wait was long, but worthwhile.

I must admit that I was very surprised when she quit her postdoc two months ago to move back to her country.  She was about to start the second year of a three year position at a big school, was working with a good scientist who was very happy with her work and had been making progress in her research programme.  However, every time we talked, she would mention that she was home sick and was not sure how long she could sustain it.  When I reminded her how beautifully she had adjusted to PhD city despite initial language problems, she mentioned that postdoc city was not half as friendly and welcoming to immigrants as PhD city.  But, I never thought that this would be a reason to quit a perfectly good job and exchange it for the uncertainty of finding a position in her native country.  In her position, I would have probably roughed it out and waited until I had found a new position/avenue.  I am not sure if I would have quit a job midway without a clear idea of what I am going to do next.  I am also not sure if I would have felt comfortable moving back with my family without a job.

Nonetheless, not having lived at her postdoc city myself, I also cannot comprehend the isolation that she was dealing with.  My PhD city as well as both postdoc cities were very good places to live in.  In my second postdoc city, I did not socialize very much and mostly kept to myself.  But, this was not because the people there were unfriendly or unwelcoming.  Rather, much of this isolation was self-imposed because I had started to worry a lot about my future, whether I was "good enough" to pursue a research career and whether I would ever find a suitable position (and that too in a job market that seemed to be going through a big slump).  Somehow, I ended up wanting to be by myself while all this uncertainty was going on.

Fortunately for me (and a lot of Indians in my age group), the science job situation in India improved a lot in those very years and many of us were were able to return with exciting jobs in hand.  However, unlike my friend, the feeling of home sickness had no role in my returning.  I was never home sick in the west.  I used to visit my family in India every year and had a lot of fun, but never really missed home while I was away.  In fact, I would be very surprised when some of my Indian friends would complain that they missed celebrating festivals with their families and missed the "colour and variety" of life in India.  "What's the big deal - these people just enjoy complaining," I would think [1].

Things went off (mostly) very smoothly after I joined my new position in India.  As time went by, I started appreciating the fact that my family is just two hours away (no more 20 hour flights - yay), a visit to them can be planned at short notice during long weekends and that my father does not have to apply for a visa to come and visit me.  After celebrating Diwali with my family after a gap of 11 years, I also sympathise more with those Indian friends in the west who miss all this [2].

What surprises me most of all is how much I look forward to my brief family visits nowadays.  These visits are very relaxing and refreshing.  Truly, there's no place like home.  But, would I have felt the same if I were living with them, especially without a job?

Nonetheless, I am really happy that things have worked out so well for my friend.

[1] I remember a conversation with a colleague during my postdoc years, who had just arrived from India and told me tearfully that she missed her parents.  "How old are you?" was my retort.
[2] The colleague mentioned above is also back in India - she returned before me.  I recently met her at a conference and apologized to her for being so insensitive.  We both had a good laugh about it.  

Feeling the pulse - I

Last weekend, I started reading TT Ram Mohan's book "Brick by red brick" on the making of IIM Ahmedabad.  I am enjoying this book very much.  I am not exactly good at book reviewing, nor am I an expert in the technicalities of institute building and institute policies, but what I like most about the book is that the author manages to convey his excitement in exploring how IIMA took shape.  In the four chapters that I have read so far, he spends a considerable time explaining what went on in the first five-ten years (with the first full time director at the centre stage) and strongly emphasizes that the institutional culture in these initial days played a very important role in what IIMA is today.

While I continue to read the book, I can't help but relate the history of the initial days of IIMA to what is happening at N1 right now [1].  Thus, since the last few days, I have been trying to "feel the pulse" of N1, with respect to the academic/professional culture as well as non-academic life.  Perhaps, it is too premature to do so, given that N1 is "under construction"and so is my own academic career!  But, I spend almost all my time here and want to understand the place better.  So, I suppose there is no harm in contemplating upon these matters over a couple of posts.

I am unable to pin down a word or phrase that would adequately describe the prevailing culture at N1.  But, I did realize that there are a few aspects in the functioning of this institute which we now take for granted and which have made a very positive impact on my life here [2].  One of these is the approachability of our top administration, including the director, registrar and the deans.  We are allowed to walk into their offices any time we need to [3] and we unhesitatingly email them if they are out of station.  I am of course not implying that everything we ask for gets approved.  But, at least, we have the freedom to ask and ask directly.  Also, if they agree with us or if we are able to convince them, the implementation of the approval is fairly quick.  I also like the fact that it is usually enough to forward the concerned authority's email with approval to the concerned office assistant instead of running from office to office, getting paper applications signed from all parties concerned.

My only concerns are the following:

1) Since approaching the authorities directly saves a lot of time, I tend to do this very frequently and then, forward the approval to the concerned office assistant.  Am I alienating the office staff by doing this?  

2) As the institute grows rapidly, the authorities cannot possibly continue to be so flexible and approachable.  After enjoying the current favourable circumstances, how will we adjust to longer procedures and the more elaborate hierarchy (which is inevitable as the institute becomes older)?  

The reader's feedback about these concerns is most welcome.

I would also like to hear back from you about what part of the daily culture of your institute/university you enjoy the most.  

I will try to write more about N1 culture in the next few posts.  I suspect that what is going on here might be very similar to the situation in a lot of other institutes, especially the new ones.

[1] For this reason and also for the positivity exuded by the author, I highly recommend it to all young faculty members in India.

[2] and which also make it much easier to deal with things which are not-so-good.

[3] with just exceptions of course.  In order to not interrupt important meetings in the director's office, we first call up his secretary to check if he is free.

Job is where the house is?

Today, I am in a mood to dwell upon a non-academic factor that I considered while applying to positions in India, namely, housing.

I wanted to be in a place that could offer on-campus housing.  I associated on-campus housing with safety and freedom from worries about commuting[1].  Of course, campus life at N1 cannot offer the facilities that the older campuses can offer (like a gym, grocery stores etc), but still, it is good to be located in the interior of a gated campus, away from the "thoroughfare" and the noise generated by heavy trucks at night.

At the time of my interview, I came to know that although N1 was not offering leased housing to its members, it had acquired a small number of some very old houses close to the academic buildings and renovated them.  Those of us who really wanted to live inside campus opted for it, even though it is a somewhat awkward arrangement.  My house is a mini-version of the kind of houses our grandparents lived in: it has two rooms, an open porch that doubles up as a dining space with a tiny kitchen and (here comes the best part) a courtyard (surrounded by walls but open at the top) with the bathroom across the courtyard[2].  The main entrance and the door that separates the courtyard from the dining space are both grilled doors.  Before moving in, I got the courtyard covered with asbestos sheets [3] and the grilled doors covered by nets.

To put it mildly, it is not the kind of house I would ideally choose to live in, but at that time, it was a better option than having to look for a house outside, given that I do not speak the local language.  Moreover, as I mentioned before, my excitement at joining N1 overcame all other concerns.  My father, a retired military officer, also told me stories of the kind of dwellings he had lived in and assured me that my house was a luxury.  He said, "you will grow to like it so much that you will not vacate it even when the house in the permanent campus is ready."

The house offers many advantages.  It has been renovated from an old house, is located in the remotest part of this housing complex and is surrounded by trees and greenery on all sides.  The advantages, therefore, are that childhood memories of my grandparents make me happy, there is absolutely no noise (not even that of neighbours watching TV), I have a beautiful view from my window, especially of the rising sun, and what's more, I enjoy mangoes fresh from trees in the summer and have a lot of space for cultivating a garden.

The disadvantage, however, is that precisely because of the location, I am occasionally welcomed back in the evening by rats, frogs and therefore (gasp) snakes.  After my first (and so far, only) encounter with a snake at home, the administration immediately arranged for night lights around the house and regular grass cutting.  The encounter itself was very funny.  It was a huge snake, about six feet long and was sitting in a corner.  I screamed and called the security guards. After they entered the house and assured me that it was non-poisonous, I started taking pictures and videos of it.

(My other encounters with snakes have been in the academic buildings.  Recently, we discovered a banded krait behind my office.  Our socially responsible and humane students promptly picked it up and released it in an isolated marsh.)

Ever since then, my house help spends a considerable portion of time everyday safeguarding the house from snakes, for example, by sprinkling carbolic acid in the courtyard.   Thanks to her diligence, my house has survived an entire monsoon season without a visit by snakes.

Although I don't foresee my father's prediction coming true, with generous help from our civil engineer and also because of the other advantages like easy commuting, I have been fairly comfortable in this house.  I have even made peace with the bathroom-in-the courtyard  issue.  Since I am happy professionally at N1, the house seems to add to my overall well being.

However, my feeling of contentment has been severely put to test by some recent developments.  Yesterday, N1 hosted a consortium, which had representatives from all the new-ones [4].  While socializing with the other representatives, I came to know about housing arrangements at their institutes. It turns out that while one of them has already moved to their permanent campus, including the faculty quarters, the others have arranged leased housing in complexes nearby.  From what I could understand, these are spacious and very comfortable houses (apparently, with three bedrooms) and not too far from their campuses.  After I heard this, I was too embarrassed to mention the housing situation at N1.  It did not help that when I entered my house that evening, I was greeted by a swarm of wasps.

Tired and sore and extremely upset, I started questioning my decision to join N1.
"Can I really stay here? Why am I torturing myself?"   I dozed off for the night thinking on these lines.

I was much calmer when I woke up today morning.  I enjoyed the sound of birds, the beautiful sunrise, fresh home-made parathas [5] and a pleasant bike ride to my office.  I am still aware of the housing disparities between N1 and the other new ones, but am certainly not entertaining any ideas of moving just on account of that!!  Sometimes, one tends to take matters more seriously than one should, I guess.  I mean, who changes jobs just to get a better house?

For now, I will turn to values that our grandparents taught us: contentment, patience and of course fearlessness (which will come in handy if that banded krait makes its way into my house).


 




[1] Comment overheard from a colleague: "it is hard to go to bed not knowing how you are going to get to campus the next morning."
[2] Before you squeal in horror, let me assure you that the bathrooms are themselves proper rooms and not open corners!
[3] I am a bit obsessed with safety issues.
[4] Yes, yes, I know that you know what I am talking about. But, I have now started enjoying the "new" names.  So, let's just stick with them, shall we?
[5] especially because they were made by someone else, my house help, one of the most special people in my life at N1.

Sporting spirit

I just played badminton with my PhD student and two other colleagues.  It was fun!
N1 does not have much by way of sports facilities yet (although there is a plan for a good sports complex in the permanent campus).  Last year, some colleagues took initiative and got the administration to build a badminton court in front of our office complex.  But, it fell into disuse during the scorching summer and monsoon.  Soon after monsoon ended, my student initiated the procedure of getting the ground cleared up for a badminton court as well as a cricket ground.  Thanks to his initiative, we all enjoy a little bit of sports in the evening and get to interact with students in a more informal setting.

This post is inspired by the student's resourcefulness and sporting spirit.  When he joined, he faced some initial difficulties in adjusting to the new set up.  He had trouble finding a place to live, had to overcome language difficulties and soon fell sick because of the cuisine in our canteens, which did not agree with his stomach.
At that time, I was away for a semester.  He spent the semester doing coursework and was comfortably settled down by the time I returned.  He now shares an apartment with a fellow grad student with a functional kitchen and these two have hired someone to cook their meals!  He often tells me amusing stories about his first few days on campus, but never complains.

A few days ago, I had an honest conversation with him to find out how he is doing and if he has any issues or problems at N1.  The student assured me that he was doing well.  His only request was that apart from a departmental seminar and our weekly meetings, we have a regular seminar in our subfield.    So, we have started a weekly seminar with just three members at present, the third being my Master's student.  The three of us take turns to talk in this seminar.  He has also been instrumental in procuring the necessary equipment and getting a virtual seminar going, in which we invite scientists outside N1 to give web talks.

His other non-academic request has been for a departmental picnic to a beautiful town nearby (this might be possible at the end of our winter school).

Recently, due to some problem in our accounts section, the monthly fellowships of our PhD students were held up for a few days.  Some of them immediately wrote up a riot letter about the problems they are facing and emailed it to all staff members and faculty, including the director.  (Although the letter was supposed to be a rude wake-up call to us about everything that is wrong with the establishment, at least from the point of view of students, most of us actually enjoyed it because it reminded us of our not-too-distant rebellious student days.  Nonetheless, the email had the desired effect of students getting their fellowships on time).  On reading this email, I asked him if he needed any money.  I was assured that he was okay because he "likes to save for a rainy day."

All in all, I am really happy and relieved that he has made himself at home at N1 and that he is such a sport!

Some sources of delight

Taking a U-turn from my last couple of posts, I thought I will write in today about some small but very positive developments at N1 that have brought back my happiness quotient to its normal level.

1) We are going to follow up Dr Rock Star's successful visit to our campus last year by yet another winter school around his upcoming visit.  We have already received several applications by students interested in participating in this school.  What's more, other than Dr Rock Star, yet another scientist, Dr Rock-Star-In-Making will also visit us at the same time and deliver lectures.  RSIM was my colleague in my first postdoc university and has done some excellent and path-breaking work since then.  He is also known to be a very good teacher and his visit will motivate our students a lot.  Our department is going to rock this winter!!

2) My teaching this semester has been going well.  I am teaching this course for the second time and feel that this semester, I am doing a much better job at it than last year.  Although the students in both batches were very good, this particular batch is extremely motivated and enthusiastic.  This year, I have also been typing up course notes for it and intend to continue with this practice.  Two weeks of classes are still left and I have already covered more material than I could cover in the entire semester last time.  Students have not burnt out yet and are still participating in class eagerly.

3) In a recent shuffling of job allocations for admin staff, the staff members responsible for the functioning of those units which are related to my non-academic duties have changed.  These staff members are very efficient and have made the work smooth.

4) Our department is organizing an institute outreach activity in a town near by, which will be held in January.  In this connection, some members of our department and one of our deans had a meeting with some people from a local council.  As it happened, I was the only person in this meeting who does not speak the language of N1- state.  The dean requested everyone to speak in English.  The council people did not pay heed and continued to talk in their local language.  But, my departmental colleagues and the dean spoke only in English and one colleague also kept translating to me what the locals were saying.  I truly appreciate their thoughtfulness in ensuring that I did not feel isolated or cornered in the meeting.

5) Finally, I totally love the current weather and the greenery around our current location.  If I feel like taking a break, I take a small walk or go for a joy ride on my bicycle.  In general, the ride between my home and department is very pleasant.  In addition, I have explored some paths which are fun to go on- while one goes through a mini forest around a river, the other path goes straight to a nearby government organization with its own residential complex.  My domestic help has sternly warned me against going on the first path alone, not that I listen to her.  While going on the second path, I like to imagine the future (I don't know whether near or distant) when N1 will have its own fully built campus.

The real job

My last couple of posts have been about administrative responsibilities at N1 and how they leave me with mixed feelings.  Although I may occasionally complain about how these responsibilities take away from my "real" jobs of teaching/research, the truth is that these activities give me a strong sense of belonging and contributing to N1.  They make me feel that N1 is my own institute.
In other words, serving the institute is also a "real" job and an integral part of my professional life.  

So, recently I did a careful and candid rethink about why I have been getting so stressed out about activities which I consider fun and important.  I came up with the following reasons:

1) Lack of clear demarcation between admin work time and research time.  In theory, I spend the mornings doing research work/teaching and take up administrative work after lunch.  But, my habit of frequently checking emails as soon as I step into office distracts my focus because I feel the urge to reply to emails which can wait till afternoon.  Some self discipline and prioritization is therefore required.  I notice that on the days when my mornings are spent productively, I am also able to focus well during committee meetings and even enjoy them.

2) Although our administration is very supportive, certain matters do take time to be resolved, especially those related to the student complaints I routinely receive.
When a student brings up a problem and I am not able to resolve it immediately, I myself feel helpless and impatient.  Perhaps, this is is the reason why I get more annoyed when students accost me repeatedly about that issue.  This attitude is self-defeating.  I believe that the right thing to do is to pro-actively forward the complaints to those who have the authority to address them and also to keep reminding them till they look into it, but to be inwardly detached, as it were!

3) There's too much on my plate.  I certainly don't want to shy away from serving the institute in any way possible.  But, while it's great to be enthusiastic about institute matters, it is equally important to understand one's abilities and limitations and take up only as much work as one can perform properly (of course, this capacity increases with time).  It is also important to focus on one duty at a time.
The other day, I was in an important meeting, but had to keep coming out of the room to take phone calls about another administrative matter.  Because of this, I missed some key points that were discussed in the meeting about which I had a lot to say.

I welcome feedback from readers about how they balance their time between research, teaching and admin work.  If you faced issues similar to those above or other issues which might have affected your efficiency, especially at the early career stage, please share your stories and tell us how you resolved them.

Meanwhile,  I would like to conclude this post by a very thoughtful comment that Vijay left on my previous post and which has lots of useful advice about one's involvement with administration:

 I emphasize with your time management jugglery. It can be tough. There are many good ways to manage in a way that we still end up having time for science. Some shun all administration and isolate themselves. They need to be protected, not envied or deprecated by others who put in their effort in science administration (which is important if the place is to be ours). How do we, in the latter category deal with our day? My personal take ( and as I said, there are many ways to skin this fish) is that much of the stress we face at meetings is because we feel its something that detracts from our main interests... Being stressed about being in meetings makes us less efficient at meetings, resulting in more meetings and more stress. Going prepared with clear goals and getting out of a meeting and then switching off is much better: Easier said than done, and I wish I followed my advice. As with meetings, so with students and colleagues. If you are visible and accessible, assume you are fair game for being accosted for a discussion. When in such a discussion, its better to be involved than feel that your time is being taken. Much of our bonding and the culture of an institution come from such interactions. When you want to be left alone, hide. Others should sense when you have to be left alone, of course, but in general I prefer to be accessible in error rather than people keeping away in excessive caution.

Roller coaster

Last month has been a roller coaster ride for me, both personally and professionally.  It started with incidents which made me seriously evaluate my professional needs and personal well being at N1 vis a vis what N1 expects from its employees.  There were also some episodes,  specific to an expanding new institute, which were sometimes exciting, occasionally frustrating and sometimes, just confusing.

This post is going to be about a lot of things because I am not focused enough to just write about one issue right now!

Immediately before Dussehra, I found myself spending a lot of time in committee meetings. Now, in principle, I have nothing against committee meetings - a lot of them are about framing or revising rules and regulations about various aspects of N1, for example, our academic programmes, disciplinary code of conduct, various issues that come up as an institute moves from a transit campus to a permanent campus, faculty welfare etc.  I have gained valuable experience by being actively involved in these committees and like my other colleagues, have been able to bring up many important points which I feel strongly about.  The only thing that I don't like about these meetings is that they take precious time away which could have been spent in research work or preparing for a class.  But, I don't think it is reasonable to complain about this because there are other members who have many more responsibilities than I do.

I also get routinely inundated with a lot of complaints from students about various problems.  I sympathize very much with students and bring up their genuine problems at the appropriate forums as soon as they are brought to my notice.
However, sometimes there is a delay in the resolution of the problem partly, because administrative procedures take their own time and partly because the authorities concerned may not take the problems as seriously as one would want them to.  Students, on the other hand, become impatient and want quick fixes!   Recently, I have had to be very firm with some of these students, asking them explicitly not to interrupt me when I am on my way to a class and also not to call me up at night unless there is an emergency.  Then, they are quick to jump to the conclusion that faculty members do not care for them.  This is very annoying.

The Dussehra holidays were very eventful for me, personally.  My brother got married and it's great to have a new member in the family.  It was also a lot of fun to meet many family members and cousins who I meet only during weddings!
During the wedding, I was given the responsibility of co-ordinating with the guest house where all our relatives were staying and also arranging for pick up and drop off of all guests.  According to my father, I was most suited to do this task because of my experience with organizing conferences and hosting seminar speakers at N1!

After I returned to N1 after the wedding,   I got some great news from the department.  We have been given a lot of money by the institute and will now be able to spend comfortably on a lot of things that we wanted, for example, our own library and new high-end computers for the department!  I am particularly excited about having the freedom to invite lots of rock star seminar speakers from all over India.
We will also host another winter school in December.

In a few minutes, I will leave for my home town to celebrate Diwali with my family.  I was initially planning to stay back at N1, but last night, I realized that I have not spent Diwali with my family since 1999 and it just doesn't make sense to be in the same country as my family and still spend it alone.  So, I made last minute flight bookings and surprisingly, got a really good deal!  I am looking forward to all the fun we will have at home,  to spending time with my sister-in-law and also, to possibly catching Ra.One (that is, if it manages a Diwali release).

Here's wishing all my readers a very happy and auspicious Diwali !!

Prince Calming

Prince Calming refers to a senior faculty member at N1, who is one of my mentors here.  As his pseudonym suggests, he is a calm and quiet person, not much given to display of emotions or making authoritative statements/judgements about anything or anyone at N1.  He pretty much keeps to himself and is rarely seen at our tea shop/faculty mess - the two famous hotspots for N1 gossip.

At the same time, however, he is very well informed about institute affairs and does not shy away from expressing his opinion and taking a stand on important matters.

He does so, without making a big noise and more often than not, accomplishes his objective.  Then, he moves on to other things.

One of his most endearing qualities is that he keeps an eye out for the well being of his younger colleagues.  Many of us freely approach him if we have any questions or concerns about professional matters and receive useful and effective advice from him.  

In the last fortnight, I faced some difficult situations at N1 and was a frequent visitor to his office.  It also happened that one day, we both had to travel together to a nearby city (about two hours drive away) for some important institute work.  I learnt a lot of things while conversing with him and I am sure he won't mind if I shared some of them on this blog (although I am equally sure that he does not know about the existence of this blog.)

For starters, just a day before our trip, I had had a bit of a showdown with another colleague in PC's presence about an institute matter.  We had a difference of opinion about something and since this other colleague has a habit of continuously talking without giving others a chance, I ended up raising my voice and sharply contradicting him.  I believed then (and still do) that my point was valid, but I could have certainly put it across in a softer voice :)

During the drive to the nearby city, I asked PC how he manages to remain calm in the face of extreme provocation.  With a smile he answered, "it comes with age."

"Can you please elaborate on that," I asked, not content with his cryptic reply.  He obliged me by telling me some stories from his first few years in his faculty position, when his reaction to certain events at his former institution were similar to mine above.  However, unlike me, after some of his outbursts, he got into trouble.  I found it very difficult to relate PC's current personality to the stories he was telling me and thought, "wow, there's hope for me!"

One day, I was feeling very overwhelmed about some problems and asked PC for advice.  Instead of encouraging my ranting, however,  PC immediately pointed out that the trait that could be most harmful to one's career is negativity.  N1 is not perfect - no place is.  But, as a responsible member of this institute, if someone feels that something is amiss or needs to be corrected, one should take initiative and bring it up confidently with the concerned people/committee.  This is much more useful than gossiping about the problem.  He then gave some more examples of some issues that he had faced and how he resolved them.  "But, Dr PC, " I asked, "in your position and at your stage of career, you can bring up issues fearlessly and people will listen to you, where as, if I bring them up, I will be immediately branded a trouble maker."  

He again corrected me and said that as a member of N1 community, I have every right to raise an issue and should do so.  However, he also warned against expecting results overnight.  The gist of his advice seemed to be to take up the matter and pursue it patiently. 

This was a timely wake-up call to me before I drifted into complacence and negativity.

Yet another occasion on which PC gave me some useful advice was after a meeting.  I was extremely annoyed at an administrative official who, I felt, had made a disparaging and factually wrong statement about our department.  I asked PC if I should confront this person.  PC said that if I really felt so strongly about it, I should do so, but that I should wait for 24 hours before writing or talking to this person.  As it turned out, those 24 hours were enough for me to calm down and realize that (a) I had misunderstood the context in which this statement was made and (b) I was not the right person to bring this up, anyways.  Incidentally, this reminds me of my PhD supervisor, who once said that the "reply" tab in the email inbox should be renamed "reflect".

I am now out of "the blues" [even literally so as the monsoons seem to be ending] and learning to do my job, calmly and effectively, thanks to interesting experiences and mentors like PC.

I would love to hear back from readers who have learnt important socio-administrative lessons from other mentors.  From the more senior readers, of course, I would truly appreciate more advice and tips :)

Course work: How much/little is too much/little

In the comments thread of the previous post, Hary raised an important point, namely coursework for PhD students.  Hary's perception is that PhD students at new institutes do not have enough course work before starting their research work, since faculty are too busy teaching the undergraduate courses.

Some people are of the opinion that new institutes should have started their PhD programmes after becoming well established and after their permanent campuses are fully ready and equipped.  There is much to be said for this viewpoint.
However, I feel that waiting so long before starting a doctoral program would have been detrimental to their primary objective of combining strong undergraduate teaching along with conducting research activities.  I am not sure how wise it is for any NIIX to restrict its research activities to undergraduate theses and summer research programs for the next 5 to 10 years.  NIIXs are also hiring people who are expected to do research and for many of these people, having students is essential for progress in their research programs.  So, having a well structured PhD program is one of the top priorities of these institutes.  The training of their first few students and what these students do with their PhDs will go a long way in determining the future of these institutes.

Course work, we all agree, is an important component of a PhD programme.
However, not all agree about how much course work a student needs before embarking on research.  For example, the course work that my departmental colleagues and I did as PhD students was more intensive than what PhD students in our department at N1 do. However, whenever my colleagues and I raise the issue of increasing the course requirements for our students, colleagues at other departments disagree with us because they feel that their students do not need as much course work.  So, at the moment, we have balanced all view points by asking students to do some minimal number of foundational courses, upon which all departments agree.  I don't think that determining the course requirements has anything to do with a shortage of faculty: the departments who insist most on less mandatory course work are in fact the departments which have a very high number of faculty members.

After this requirement is fulfilled, the student's advisor will direct the student to sit in for more courses which the advisor considers important for the student.  The student can also voluntarily attend classes that he or she is interested in.  For example, next semester, I will be teaching a course for final year undergrads at N1.
I have asked my PhD student to take this course because he cannot possibly start working on his thesis problem before taking this course.  He will take this course not just informally, but also do all the work required from those who credit this course, that is, do the assignments and write the exams.  Since he is a little senior to the other students in the course, the expectations from him will also be higher.
Likewise, he will be encouraged to take more courses in the future if they are relevant to his training.

For some part of this semester, he is visiting an older institute, which is running a special program in my area of research.  He will be attending some lectures given by an expert on a topic which is very important for his future project.  So, to answer Hary's question, like me, many supervisors encourage their students to spend time in Ox type institutes and do some course work, although there is no formal exchange programme.  Many of us are aware of the exposure that our students need and encourage students to make good use of opportunities available outside N1.  At the same time, however, we also don't want students to lose their focus on their research project by traveling too much, at least in the initial stages of their training.

Another resource which I hope we can utilize is our recent connection to the National Knowledge Network, which now gives us access to very high speed internet.  This month,  a senior professor in North America will be giving a series of lectures on a weekly basis which both my student and I will attend.  All that we need is to connect via gmail webchat and have the professor's webcam facing the board on which he will write (or the screen on which he will project his slides).  This way, if Mohammed cannot go to the mountain, the mountain can come to Mohammad.

With more technology, of course, one can have virtual classrooms on a larger scale in which we get instructors from all over India and the world.  This could be one more way of giving more exposure to students who would like to attend more seminars or lectures and interact with research groups in other institutes.

I would like to ask readers the following questions:

If you are a supervisor, how much course work would you like your student to do before s/he starts working on the thesis topic? Do you encourage your student to attend more courses in the later stages of his/her training or would you prefer that the student focus entirely on their research project?

If you are a student, how much importance do you give to course work as part of your PhD training?  Do you consider the course requirements at your institute or university as too much or too little or just right?

Naysayers

A few days ago, a colleague C invited a senior collaborator to visit N1 for a few days to discuss their research project.  C had hoped that since the collaborator is a well known and senior researcher in their field, his presence would have a positive effect on their department and that the senior visitor would give them some input about department activities like their graduate program, which is being built from scratch.

The senior researcher, let's call him SR, agreed to visit N1 for two days.  However, his visit totally belied C's expectations.  All that SR had to offer was criticism and disdain.  Some of his comments, at their best, could be interpreted as impatience with the newness of N1 and at their worst, as showing no faith in the future of N1.
After SR left, C was depressed for some time and doubted his decision to join N1.
But, he got over it soon and decided not to take SR's comments too seriously.

Perhaps, SR meant to offer constructive criticism, but it just came out the wrong way.  Perhaps, this was SR's way of showing concern for C, for whom he wanted the very best.  Or perhaps, SR is a jerk with an inflated opinion of himself, who could not appreciate the hospitality of a department which had invited him with a lot of goodwill.  I do not know him well enough to decide.

SR is not unique in writing off N1 and I have met others with similar views about N1-type institutes.  If I am in a good mood, I think, "Oh well.  These people have got used to working in a certain environment and cannot imagine that people can adjust to and stay happy in environments different from theirs." If I am in a bad mood,  I deplore their prejudice and lack of vision.[1]

Nonetheless, what concerns me is that by making disparaging comments, scientists like SR are possibly discouraging their PhD students and postdocs from applying to new institutes.  This is not good for my department (and similar departments in other new institutes), who are trying very hard to hire and retain good people.  This is also not good for those students and postdocs, who might only apply to limited institutes and restrict their options.

Perhaps, this is not as serious as I have made it out to be.  I welcome feedback from readers.

For those of you who are planning to enter the job market or who already have a job(anywhere in the world), how important is/has been your supervisor/mentor's opinion about your potential employer to you?[2]

For my senior readers, did you or would you discourage your PhD student or postdoc from applying to a new institute?

If my PhD student ever approaches me for advice about choosing a job, I would say something along the lines of a comment made by Vijay, while answering a question raised in a previous post:

"Today, I would focus on joining a research institution or university, young or old, that is fun to be in and wants me. The two criteria, fun to be and one which wants you, appear simple but are not. If you manage such a place, you have it made and the equipment will take care of itself."




[1] I do so mentally, of course - I cannot imagine the consequences if I were to say that aloud.  
[2] I consulted my PhD advisor before taking my final decision.  I think I would have made this choice even if he did not have a great opinion of N1.  However, his positive views were certainly very encouraging and meant a lot to me.

The office story

The temporary campus of N1 has very limited office space and we all have to share offices.  As a postdoc, I had always dreamt vividly of the day when I would be an independent faculty member and have my own office.  My second dream still remains a dream, but the joy at the realization of the first dream far exceeds the disappointment about not realizing the second.

I share an office with a really nice and easy-going office mate[1], let's call him OM.
We have co-ordinated our activities in such a way that we do not drive each other up the wall.

Firstly, while I am a morning person, OM is a night bird.  Therefore, my most serious research-related work gets done in the morning before OM arrives or while he is away teaching.  Similarly, his research work gets done in the evening or at night after I leave.

The timing that overlaps is late morning and afternoon, when we do teaching related work and/or have office hours for our students.  I am a little sensitive to noise, but OM manages to hold discussions with his students in a not-too-loud voice, and mostly over his desk.  By contrast, I like to discuss things with my students on the blackboard.  Moreover, since I have spent long years teaching really big classes in North America, despite my best efforts, my voice does get a little loud at times!  Therefore, my style of teaching is more disruptive.  It is rather convenient that OM is not bothered by noise (or at least does not complain about it).  Our office hours for students also do not coincide and therefore we have managed not to suffocate ourselves by an inflow of too many students at the same time.  As it happens, our office does not receive good cell-phone signal.  If either of us receives or makes a call, he or she is forced to go out of the office.  So, there is no disturbance on this account.

We also have an unwritten understanding that whatever we say to each other about N1 does not go out of the office.  Therefore, we often share our concerns and frustrations about troublesome matters.  He is one of the very few people here with whom I can converse freely without worrying about the consequences.

To cut a long story short, if one cannot have one's own office, having an office mate like OM is decidedly the next best option[2,3].

Recently, our office-sharing fairy tale almost came to an end, when the powers in charge of office space decided to shift OM out of our office to make way for a new female colleague (NFC), who joined us this semester.  It was perceived by the well-meaning authorities that two women would be more comfortable in the same office than a man and a woman.  (Is this policy common in other institutes in India?)

OM accepted this new turn of affairs with a stoic silence.  I believe in the fundamental premise that any resources that N1 is providing to us right now should be considered a luxury and not a right.  So, I did not want to complain about this new arrangement[4].  But one day, at the conclusion of a very pleasant and successful meeting, I took some risk and approached the senior person responsible for office allocation and requested him to let OM continue in the office.  To my relief, he happily agreed and mentioned that he was only acting on the assumption that I would prefer to share an office with a female colleague.  I thanked him for his concern and assured him that the previous arrangement with OM worked well for both of us.  So, OM and I continue to be office mates.

There's a small twist to our story.

NFC has been allocated office space in a different building which is currently under renovation.  This building is not yet ready and while she waits for her real office to be ready, an extra desk and chair has been arranged for her in our office.  NFC went through a short-lived trauma of her dream of her own office not materializing, but has adjusted well to the status quo.  For now, we three seem to be doing very well with each other, although, we sure hope that the status quo does not last too long.








[1] He reminds me of the happy-go-lucky Dev Anand in this song in Nau Do Gyarah
[2] To me,  sharing a spacious office with windows is much better than having a cubicle to oneself.
[3] Of course, we do have some points of conflict.  While OM prefers to open windows and let in fresh air, I am more of an AC person! I also like to set the temperature at 26 C, which he finds too cold!
[4] I was also afraid of being branded a trouble maker.

Winter school - conclusion

Our winter school was very successful.  Dr Rock-Star, the primary speaker, was absolutely delighted to see a large number of enthusiastic students for his lectures.
The topic on which he was lecturing is a very important topic in my field, and the available literature on this subject follows a certain approach.  However, he chose to convey the subject matter using a very different approach, which is elegant and more easily comprehensible to students.  He had not previously communicated much to me about his lectures and I realized on the first day that the problem sets that had been previously prepared (following the traditional approach) for tutorials would not match his lectures.  So, every morning before his lectures, Dr R-S and I would sit together and prepare new problem sets.  I have to admit- he was the brain behind the problems while I mostly typed them out and solved them.  I think I enjoyed this part of the winter school the most.  This new approach to the topic has also generated some interesting research problems and has been a valuable addition to my research programme.
The tutors played a very important role in the whole school.  They have not had any previous experience in teaching and took on this responsibility with a very positive attitude.  The material presented in the lectures was also very new to them.  They would take the problem sets from me just after Dr R-S's lecture everyday, work on them during the lunch hour and tutor the students in the afternoon.  According to the feedback forms that we later received,  the students highly appreciated the effort put in by these tutors.  I wish them a successful academic career ahead!
Our participants, as I mentioned before, were a healthy mix of students from IIX institutes as well as colleges and universities.  From the feedback received from them, it seems that most IIX students saw this winter school as yet another opportunity to do something exciting in the winter vacation.  Many of them applied to it because they were encouraged by the faculty at their institutes who were aware of Dr R-S's contribution to this field.  On the other hand, most of our university student participants had not heard of Dr R-S before and their primary motivation in applying was simply to experience the scientific atmosphere at a research institute.  The students unanimously felt that they got much more out of the lectures than they had anticipated.  This is possibly because instead of just attending lectures, they worked out the material in the lectures by themselves in the tutorials.  Another interesting feedback we received was that university students found faculty at N1 much more friendly and easy-going than those at their universities.  They probably would have had the same impression at most IIX and research institutes.
Dr R-S's visit and the winter school has been a great boost to our baby department.
Many students from N1, who attended these lectures, have now decided to major in my STEM field.  Even those students who have not done so have benefited from these lectures and have now become regular visitors to our department seminar.
Dr R-S enjoyed the visit very much and will be visiting us again in the coming winter.
Last, but not the least, my colleague from the last post, has now overcome his health problems.  Although his primary research interests are different from mine or Dr R-S's, he attended the lectures and enjoyed them.  He is very excited about the positive impact of such visits to N1 by senior scientists and we are both planning more workshops/winter schools in the coming years with external funding.  I hope that more colleagues will catch on to the spirit and join our efforts to make our department at N1 active and vibrant.

Mission winter school

Before continuing with the winter school story from my last post, I quickly went over it.  The frequent use of the pronoun "I" instead of "we" irked me and possibly irked the other readers as well.  Let me clarify - I am not a megalomaniac.  Nor do I lack in team spirit.  There were three of us who initially planned the lecture series.
However, by the time the plan was put into motion, one of my colleagues was battling a serious health problem while the other colleague was dealing with some personal issues which significantly engaged the colleague's mind and energy.
Moreover, since Dr Rock Star has been my academic mentor, it meant a lot to me that his visit should be a success and that he should return with a good impression of N1.  So, I ended up planning the event myself (although with a lot of help from the admin staff).  Hence the use of "I" more than "we".
Nonetheless, I do acknowledge that I have a serious problem in asking for help.  I tend to take on more responsibilities than can be handled comfortably[1].  Recently, I made some serious mistakes because of this tendency to bite off more than I can chew and have learnt, since then, to ask my colleagues frankly for help and also to say no to something I am unable to do(though I must admit, I say it rather tactlessly and sometimes to the wrong people, but more about that later).
Coming back to the topic at hand, the whole event was shaping up very differently from what had been initially anticipated.  Ideally, workshops/instructional schools should be planned and announced at least 4 to 5 months before the event so that by the time the participants are invited, they have enough time to book their tickets.
However, in this case, the announcement was sent out only about two months before and it was exactly a month before the event week that the "selected" participant list was ready [2].  At this time, a tragedy occurred - due to an unexpected server problem, some of us lost all the emails in our N1 email account.
I was among these unfortunate few [3].  Not being a very computer savvy person, I had not created a back-up and therefore, lost all the contact information of the selected participants [4](their email addresses had been clubbed together in my address book, which I also lost).  However, since I was "personally invested" in this mission and 25 is not such a big number, I remembered the names of all the participants and which institutes/universities they were from.  It was easy to retrieve the email addresses of students coming from research and IIX institutes.  Not so for university students.  Fortunately, I remembered the writers of their reference letters and it was easy to contact them and ask them to send me the email addresses of these students.  So, this crisis was somehow averted and important lessons were learnt regarding data management as falling back on memory is not always a viable option.
All invited students, except one, confirmed their attendance.  Around this time, I announced Dr R-S's visit to students at N1 again and about 25 students expressed an interest in attending these lectures.  So, we now had a nice audience of about 50 students ready for the lectures, with four of them being PhD students, willing and able to run tutorials.  So, it seemed more appropriate (and also more fashionable) to call this a winter school.  The budget was approved, all required rooms in guest house and hostels were reserved, the registration packages for participants were ready and a bus was arranged to bring students from the train station at scheduled hours.  A big lecture hall was also booked.
Around a week before the arrival of the speaker, I started receiving emails from more students at N1, who wanted to attend the winter school.  Since the lecture hall can accommodate a very big number of students, there was no problem in them attending the lectures.  However, it was too late to register them for the winter school and therefore, we could not give them the registration package (which included meal coupons).
In the 48 hours preceding the first day of our winter school, a few strange and unexpected things happened.  An undergraduate student from an IIX institute, who had not applied before, wrote to me out of the blue that he would be attending the event and that he had already booked his train tickets for N1 city.  I was highly irritated, but could not do much because by the time I received the email, he would have already boarded the train to N1 city.  I did not have the heart to refuse him hostel accommodation on his arrival, but I did have a talk with him about winter school application etiquette.   I would like to hear back from readers what they would have done in such a situation.
I also got a panic call from four female students coming from a college in Delhi.
These students had made their booking together through a travel agent, who booked their train for a wrong date.  They realized this only on reaching the station and by then, it was too late for them to book another train.  So, they had no option available except to come by flight the next morning.  This was not such a big problem for me - the shuttle bus driver was instructed not to wait for them at the train station and pick up arrangements were made from the airport.  However, on the day of their flight, they called up again to inform me that this flight had got canceled and that the only flight available was a late night flight.  Due to a shortage of institute vehicles, at such short notice, I had no option but to hire a vehicle(Tata Sumo) from a private operator known to me. The father of one of the women spoke to me and said that he had apprehensions about the girls arriving at N1 city at such a late hour and being received by a private taxi driver.  I sympathized with his concerns, but was at my wits end.  At that time, I remembered that most students at N1 are usually up till very late at night.  I called up two second year students, who had volunteered to help me with organizing the event, and asked them if they could accompany the Sumo driver and receive the girls.  These two boys, of course, jumped at the opportunity.  The father was now sufficiently reassured.  Needless to say, the girls arrived very late, but safely and comfortably at N1.
All students had now arrived on campus and we were ready to begin.
Okay, so the post has again turned out to be much bigger than I thought.  What's more, I am visiting my family this weekend and my disciplinarian father is mortified that I am blogging so late at night.  I will continue the story in my next post.





[1] As a child, I once asked my teacher to make me a class "monitor".  But, once she did so, I found myself unable to do even simple things like opening a Godrej almirah, in which we stored our books etc. 
[2] Some students, who could have really benefited from these lectures, applied after the deadline.  Sadly, I was unable to invite these students because we had already reached the numbers approved by the administration.
[3] All our lost data was indeed retrieved later, but by then the winter school was over.
[4] I had put together all their email addresses in my address book the previous evening, with the intention to send out the invitation the following morning. The server problem happened overnight.  In my (misplaced and ill-timed) effort to save paper, I also did not print out the applications of students, but kept track of them online. 

How an informal lecture series became a winter school

Happy independence day to all Indian readers!
Today, I would like to write about an activity at N1 last year that I thoroughly enjoyed organizing.
After I joined, some colleagues and I felt that it would be a good idea to invite a distinguished scientist in our field to visit us for a week in the winter and deliver some lectures that would be accessible to students.  This was a vague idea, but no one had any concrete suggestions.  Apart from the above qualities, we needed a speaker who would be willing to spend a week at a new institute like N1 at a time when almost all institutes in India organize their conferences/workshops etc.
One of my academic mentors, let's call him Dr Rock Star, maintains very close ties with India and frequently visits different research institutes here.  He has done some really good work in my field and also happens to be an excellent teacher.  He was one of the people who offered me a lot of encouragement when I decided to join N1 and had even expressed a willingness to visit me some time.  So, he seemed to to be the "ideal" candidate for our mini- lecture series.  Our director immediately approved the lecture series.  I wrote to Dr Rock Star, who happily accepted our invitation.  However, as his schedule is usually very packed, we did not have a lot of flexibility in coming up with dates.  He simply gave us a block of five days in which he was not scheduled for any other event and we had to plan our lecture series within those days.
The immediate challenge was that the last three of those five days were coinciding with an international conference at N1 that had been planned months in advance.  I also came to know that there was another symposium coinciding with the first two days of our proposed lecture series.  This symposium had been announced before I joined N1 and I was not made aware of it until after Dr Rock Star confirmed his dates.  Given the space and resource constraints at N1, I found myself in an uncomfortable situation.  I felt that I was trying to bull-doze my way through events which had been carefully planned months in advance.
Fortunately, the organizers of both the conference as well as the symposium had no such qualms and fully co-operated with me. We sat together and figured out the room allocations for all visitors of the three events and luckily, our guest house had just the right number of rooms available to house all faculty participants of the three events as per their dates.
The second challenge (or so I thought) was to get student participants for our lecture series.  At first, my plan was to have the lectures only for students at N1.
Sadly, students from my own department were very few in number and did not show much enthusiasm for Dr Rock Star's lectures.  I was scared that he might just end up lecturing to empty class rooms!
I remember bringing up this issue during a departmental meeting, in which the director was also present. I asked him if I could invite about 20 students from outside N1 to attend the event.  He approved this suggestion along with the reimbursement of travel expenses of out-station participants and asked me to get in touch with the accounts section to work out the detailed budget.
That evening, I sent out emails to my colleagues at other institutes in India, announcing Dr R-S's visit and lectures and requested them to forward this information to students from their institutes and universities in their cities/towns who would be interested in these lectures.  I thought that within a few weeks, I might hear from around 20 students who would like to attend these lectures.  I was in for a big surprise! By the next afternoon, I had received about a hundred emails from interested students.  To my amusement, some of the emails were from lecturers in certain colleges who wanted to bring their whole class along for these lectures.[1]
Over the week, I received many more applications.  It was clear that I would have to follow some sort of selection procedure to short-list  genuine participants.   So, I wrote back to all these students asking them to submit, by a certain date, a statement of interest explaining why they were interested in these lectures along with a reference letter from someone who could comment on their academic performance.  This automatically narrowed down the applicant pool.
Apparently, college lecturers who previously wanted to bring their whole class with them did not show any willingness in guiding their students on how to write a statement!
By the deadline, I received about 30 "complete" applications from students from various universities and IIX institutes.  These were mostly undergraduate students, but some of them were in Master's programs.  Some of these applications had to be rejected because these students, applying from the same department, had just cut-copy-pasted the same statement!  Other than these, I invited all other students.
They were about 25 in number, including 4 PhD students.
Meanwhile, I announced Dr R-S's visit again to our students at N1.  This time around, I received a much more positive response.  25 students expressed interest in attending these lectures.  Apparently, when I had sent the previous announcement, many of them had not received it due to a server problem and hence the poor response!
So, there would be 50 student participants attending these lectures.  It was much more appropriate to call it a winter school now.  The 4 PhD students were asked if they would be willing to run tutorial sessions after lectures on each day of the school- they agreed.
At around this time, I went to the accounts office.  After all the horror stories I had heard about accounts sections in government institutes, I was very nervous about dealing with them.  But, they turned out to be  very helpful and friendly.  I had no experience in preparing any kind of budget before and had no idea how to contact caterers, transport providers etc- the accounts office did all this work.  They also pointed out how much expense one would incur on many other contingencies that I had not thought about. [2] One evening, after some discussion, around 5 pm,  our budget was ready. We sent it to the director and by 6 pm, we got a one-word reply from him, "approved".

This has turned out to be a much larger post than I imagined (just like the winter school).  In my next post, I will write about my experience in running the winter school, which is when the real challenges showed up.



[1] The other amusing outcome was that Dr Rock Star started receiving invitations from several colleges in India, from which he had never heard before, inviting him to visit them during his forthcoming visit to India!
[2] I sometimes feel that it is probably much harder for accounts people to deal with faculty members than for us to deal with them.  If they are not dealing with people like me who dare to organize big events without knowing the basics of writing up a budget, they are dealing with others who try to teach them how to do their jobs! Abi@nanopolitan, in this post has a link to a really nice picture about how people in science see each other.  One could easily replace the technician with the accounts section staff. 

Welcome new readers

Last week was very eventful for this blog.  Thanks to a very kind post by Abi@Nanopolitan, this blog got an exponential increase in readership and lots of new followers.  In fact, to be very honest, before Abi's post, I would be lucky if I got more than 10 readers a day!  As per the blog stats, now I seem to be getting a few hundred readers a day!  I am of course delighted that people are reading the blog.
So, welcome to all my new readers :-)
Many of you have also left very interesting comments and questions.
First of all, thank you for the encouraging feedback.  I am really happy that people want to read all that I write about.
Secondly, blogger seems to relegate a lot of comments to spam, which I have to correct from time to time.  That's why some of the comments appear later.
Some readers have asked me why I remain anonymous.  Some have also pointed out that it is not easy to pull off anonymity for too long in our small scientific community in India and that it is easy to figure out my identity from the hints I leave on the blog.  I agree with them.
I have absolutely no malicious intentions in remaining anonymous.  Nor do I have much to lose if my identity is discovered.  What I write here is what I openly say to my colleagues at N1.  But, at the same time, I don't see any strong and pressing reason to reveal my identity because I don't think it will make any qualitative difference to the blog.
Some readers have also written that reading the blog has helped to allay their misapprehensions about applying to new institutes.  I am delighted to hear this.  I strongly believe that an academic job seeker should explore all job opportunities with an open mind and zero prejudice.
There has also been some discussion about the contentious issue of a candidate being asked about his or her marital status during job visits.  In the North American context, it is now illegal to ask such questions during interviews.  No member of the selection committee will openly say to a candidate that being unmarried will work in his or her favour because as per the "written" law, the decision to hire a candidate is to be made solely on the basis of merit (it is not for me to comment how far this is practiced).
However, I have learnt in the last few months that conversations like this in India have to be evaluated in a different light.  People openly ask others about their personal lives and also share tidbits about their own.  Professor Giridhar's blog links to a very informative website for new faculty at IISc, which frankly advises them not to get offended at being asked such questions.
I have learnt to take myself a little less seriously and just ignore or laugh off these remarks.
I recently came to know that the prof at O2 who had asked me my marital status indeed really wanted me there and pushed my case.  Therefore, it is entirely possible that he was asking me about my personal life    with very harmless and noble intentions.  Perhaps, he really felt that he could use this information to push my case!  [I wonder what he would think if he knew that I harshly labeled him a sexist because of that!]  But I still feel that it would be best if these awkward conversations do not come up in professional settings and certainly not immediately before a candidate's job talk!!
Typical PhD student has raised an interesting question:
suppose you are an experimentalist, and require tens of various kinds of equipments (plus skilled people/technicians who can maintain those & fix problems in them) for your research. Suppose you join an institute in India, be old or new, and you are given grants to buy one big equipment for your research. Now, if you join an old institute, you have all the other kinds of equipments up & running in shape, with dedicated technicians, so that you can launch your research straight away. However, in a new institute, by the time one can procure the other kinds of equipments (worth a few million dollars in total, for example), set them up, and hire & train people to maintain them, one will have past his/her prime in research. So in this regard, could you please comment if it is not wise to join an institute with some good infra-structure ? It is certainly great to take up challenges in a new institute, and to challenge oneself in excelling things, but I was wondering if it would make more sense to join an already reputed & established institute.

The current facilities at N1 are sufficient for my experimental and computational requirements - so, I have not seriously considered this issue.   I would like to think about this question some more, talk to my colleagues who have much bigger lab requirements and address this question in a future post.  Meanwhile, feedback from readers about this question is most welcome.

Institute activities - 4 (More interaction with students)

I have been very busy for the last couple of weeks with the admission procedure at N1.  Last year, my only contribution to student admission was to proctor the entrance exams.  This year, in addition to that, my responsibilities included counseling students applying here, checking their documents and helping the first years with moving into and settling down on campus.  Till a month ago, I was a well meaning but scatter brained prof, who cared about students at N1, but did not have any hard facts about them!
Now, even if you wake me up at midnight, I will be able to rattle off data about the number of students in each program and each year, in which residence each student is staying, the academic performance of the older students and (!!) even the order in which our new students have registered.
I must admit that it is an absolute pleasure to interact with the fresh batch.  Since all these students have seen me throughout the whole admission procedure, many of them approach me freely with their questions and concerns.  N1 is in a position to offer them many facilities and resources that we could not offer to the students who joined before and I enjoy giving this good news to students and seeing their faces light up with joy.  On the other hand, we still cannot offer the facilities that students at old institutions take for granted.
One night, I showed up unannounced in one of the student hostels to check how the new occupants were doing.  I was mentally prepared to encounter unhappy, demanding students, staying away from home for the first time, who would complain about N1 not matching their expectations.  To my surprise, these students were mostly cheerful and excited.  They raised some concerns, which, fortunately, I was in a position to address quickly and to their satisfaction.  After that, we had a friendly chat about student life, science and course work.  I was surprised to hear first years asking me questions about where I did my PhD from, why I chose that particular university and how I prepared for GRE.  These were not the questions I had as a 17 year old staying away from home for the first time!
Nonetheless, there have been crazy moments as well.  The craziest days were the four days immediately after the registration.  My phone was continuously ringing for all kinds of reasons (some genuine, mostly silly).  Recently, I was in touch with a friend to whom I described one such evening of phone calls.  She was very amused- so, I thought I would share it on this blog:

5 pm - Call from a student who is lost in the campus and does not know how to get back to her hostel. I had to bike to her location and guide her back.
6 pm - Call from a student who is upset that her room is a few steps away from that of her classmates. She wants to be in the adjacent room!
6.30 pm - Call from a student who has been alloted Hostel  A which is next to a boys hostel. Her parents do not want her to live next to a boys hostel. [This girl is in Physics! I told her to convince her parents because she is going to be surrounded by men all her life! Eventually, they got convinced]
7.15 pm - call from the same student that her parents are convinced.
9 pm - call from a student who wants a vehicle the next morning to go to class!
11 pm - earlier in the evening, a student had discovered a lizard in her food.  Being a sensible person, instead of calling me, she called up the medical unit and was immediately taken to the hospital.  But, the nurse called to tell me about this.

The worst is over now.  Now that the classes have started, students are too busy struggling with their course work to call me! I too can now focus on my real jobs, research and teaching, which is what I thought I had signed up for!

Institute activities-3 (Supervision of students)

Last two weeks at N1 have been crazy.  Our new students have recently joined and being involved in many administrative procedures related to students, I have had very little peace of mind and time to blog!  At some point in the future, I should write about this experience too, but today's entry is about something that I had not immediately anticipated on joining, namely supervision of students.
When I joined N1, I was very excited about teaching courses that I had never before taught, but had wanted to teach for a long time.  With respect to supervision of students, I did not feel that I was ready to take PhD students straightaway.  I was more inclined to start with supervising Masters theses in my first few years.

But, there were some unexpected surprises waiting for me!

On my very first day, I came to know that one member of the department, who works in a field with a little bit of an overlap with mine, was moving to another institute.  This ex-colleague had a PhD student  at N1 and although all arrangements were made for the student to move with the advisor, the student expressed his unwillingness to move.  I was asked on joining if I would be willing to supervise this student.  It seems that neither of my other department members were willing to take this responsibility. I too refused.  Firstly, I was not ready to advise a PhD student so early in my career.  Secondly, he had already started work on his dissertation topic and I have no expertise in this area.  This student, indirectly tried to bully me into supervising him by asking his PhD grandfather, a very big shot in my STEM field in India, to talk to me.  When this did not work, he even expressed a willingness to change topics, but by now, I had lost whatever little sympathy I had for him [1].  He has now moved to a local university for his PhD.  So, this problem was diffused.
There was some pressure from the administration to our department to increase its intake of PhD students.  This might be true for all N1-type institutes.  Although our flagship program is our undergraduate program, these institutes do not want to lag behind in terms of research productivity.
Towards the end of my first semester, we interviewed potential PhD students [2].  I was on the interview panel.  We ended up shortlisting 3 students based on their performance in the interview.  The research interests of the second and third candidates matched those of faculty members who wanted to take students.  The first student, however, indicated that he wants to work with me! This created a difficult situation for the department because on on the one hand, we could not offer admission to second and third students without also offering admission to the first and on the other hand, I was not ready to supervise him.  The chairperson asked me to rethink.
I thought about the whole situation carefully.  I had no doubts about the ability of the candidate: he had a good academic record, had done well in the interview and had strong letters.  He came across as a positive and sincere person.   My primary concern was if I was the right supervisor for him.  I consulted my academic mentors.  To my surprise, they all encouraged me to supervise this student and were positive that I would be able to do it!  Largely motivated by their positive feedback and also impressed with the student's ability and sincerity, I decided to step up to the challenge!
In his first semester here, he took some core courses, while I was away on a sabbatical.  His course requirements are technically over, but he is taking some more courses in the coming semester which would be useful to him.
Meanwhile, we have started meeting regularly.  I have started with giving him some simple problems, hoping to gradually build up to the main theme of investigation.
One quality that I appreciate very much in him is that if he doesn't understand something, he says it up front[3].
My personal interaction with him has been interesting and hilarious at times.  He is extremely polite and chivalrous!  Whenever he sees me carrying heavy bags or taking my bicycle down the steps, he rushes to help me.  I have told him in no uncertain terms not to do that, but to no avail[4].
Also, like most grad students, he is a late night person.  I, on the other hand, am an early morning person.  I am in the department by 8 am[5].  Last month, after I rejoined N1, I noticed that he too would be here at 8 am working diligently in his cubicle.  After some time, however, I started noticing that he would be fast asleep.  I had a frank conversation with him one day and assured him that I do not expect him to match my timings.  He can come in later if he likes, since we meet in the afternoon.
He also seems to have become popular among the undergrad students in my department.  Much to my amusement, my summer students were also taking his help in doing the assignments I gave them.
I do hope very sincerely that he will get a strong academic training at N1!


[1] It is interesting to note that while all this was going on, the student did not make any effort to talk to me directly.  Leave alone talking to me, he would look the other way if we ran into each other in the hallway! He would only convey messages to me through the chairperson.

[2] N1 admits new PhD students twice a year.
[3] I, unfortunately, did not practice this policy as a student.  I was very scared of asking questions because I did not want to look stupid.  If I was not sure about something my supervisor said, I would note it down and look at it in my office.  I now realize that this is not the best policy! When in doubt, speak out!!  I certainly don't think that he is stupid when he asks questions.

[4] My Indian readers might recall some episodes in Jaspal Bhatti's satirical TV show called "Flop Show" from the 1990s, in which PhD students would be shown to do grocery shopping for their supervisors and even clean up their houses! Given the reputation that some old universities in India have,  this might not have been an exaggeration!  I certainly do not want to turn into that kind of supervisor.

[5] Normal office life at N1 starts at 10 am.

Institute activities - 2 (Interactions with students)

A month after joining N1, as I started to settle in and know the place better, I was given some responsibilities which involved dealing and interacting with students.  I must admit that I initially tried to excuse myself from these duties.  While I love to teach and academically interact with students in classrooms, I am pretty clueless about how to deal with them personally.[1]
Students at N1 are fairly intelligent and independent.  They certainly do not expect their professors to babysit them.  After preliminary investigations, I found that most of them are also fairly responsible and do not need monitoring.  So, in the first few months, my policy was to keep my office doors open for them whenever they had an issue, but not necessarily to reach out to them on my own because I did not want them to feel that I was intruding into their space.  In that sense, I was passively but not actively engaged in these duties.  In this connection, I had some strange conversations with students, which made me wonder if I had spent all those years preparing to be a research scientist to go through this! Here are some examples:
[A] A student approached me one day and complained about rats in her residence room.  I spoke to the local cleaning staff, who took measures for preventing this problem.  A few days later, the persistent rat returned and this time, I was angrily accosted by this student on my way to a class.  Exasperated, I asked, "Do you want me to go to the room and personally chase away the rat?"  The student immediately apologized and now either chases the rat away herself or talks to the cleaning staff directly.
[B] Another student complained to me that she was eve-teased by some local person when she was out at night.  "As a faculty member at N1, it is your responsibility to ensure that women students are not harassed," she said.  I spoke to security personnel and instructed them to accompany women students at any time of the day or night [2] if they ask for protection.  Since there is considerable distance between the students residence and academic buildings, the institute also arranged for door to door pick up and drop off at certain times.  This student has never availed herself of either of these facilities, nor have many others.  A (male) faculty colleague, also involved with students,  has suggested that "in keeping with Indian culture," women students should be back to their residence by 9 pm.  But, this rule need not be applied to men students!!  Fortunately, the highest authorities at N1 disagree with this discriminatory practice and rules are the same for all students, irrespective of gender.
The next incident was the most shocking:
[C] A student walked into my office visibly upset with his academic performance.  This third year student is not exactly a favorite at N1.  He routinely misses his classes and has been caught playing cricket during a class test which counted towards his grade.  In my course, I had a lot of trouble getting him to submit assignments on time.  He poured out all his woes and mentioned how his first year courses  were taught poorly.  This, according to him, has "weakened his foundations".  I first went over the several remedial measures he could go through to address his weaknesses.  I also encouraged him to approach his instructors with his difficulties and to make use of tutorial sessions.  He refused on the grounds that "professors here only care for their research and not for teaching" (a very unfair allegation, if you ask me).  I made several attempts to convince him to seek help from instructors like his other classmates and also told him that he must take responsibility for his performance instead of blaming others.  Not only did he not listen to me, he also started to make personal attacks against specific instructors.  I lost all patience when he asked, "Can you return the precious years of my life that I have wasted in this god-forbidden place?"  My reply was, "No, I cannot. Now please get out." He was surprised, but obeyed and has not used me as a punching bag ever since.
After completing a semester at N1, I went on a five-month sabbatical to North America.  I was visiting one of the top universities in the world.  While observing the student facilities over there and comparing them with the one at N1, it suddenly hit me how brave the students at N1 have been in choosing a new institute and a new course of study despite family pressure and lack of precedent.  I resolved that on my return, I will take a more active interest in student well being.
After returning, one day, during a conversation with the director, I was surprised to note that he knew each and every student at N1 by name and in which program they were registered.  He was also aware of the problems that many were struggling with and suggested practical solutions.  This further motivated me to be more involved with students, while respecting their personal space.  I now directly approach students from time to time and ask them how things are going and what they like to study, etc.  This has, to my surprise, has provided me with very positive and useful inputs.  For example, I mentioned in my last post how I had avoided a student for a long time, perceiving her to be reclusive.  When I did talk to her, she was touched by the gesture and opened up and made me realize how much she wanted to reach out and fit in!
I would like to come across to students as a friendly, approachable faculty member, who cares for their well-being and is not just here to impose institute rules [3] on them.  I am also catching up with the director in learning more about students.


Epilogue: As I was writing this post, one of my summer students walked in to say good bye.  She gave me a card addressing me as "her sweetest teacher".  I also received an email from another student saying that apart from great science, he has also learnt "teaching and other humanly values from my pleasant personality".
I think I might be going too far in my new approachability policy. [4]





[1] My brother, just a few years my junior, often complains that I "belong to a different generation".
[2] Of course, there are limitations to this step.  Security personnel are employed to safeguard the campus and cannot accompany people outside the campus.  I don't think that we can fully ensure her safety outside the campus.  This, unfortunately, is the reality that many Indian women live with.
[3] although this too has to be done, sometimes with severity!
[4] This, incidentally, is the Messiah guy from a previous post.