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.
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.
7 comments:
I am one of your new readers and I thank you for writing this blog. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of it after getting here from Abi's blog. And I understand your reasons for being anonymous and if I were to blog, I will do it anonymously. But the reason I have hesitated has been that its difficult to maintain anonymity over time due to the small size of the Indian scientific community.
I wanted to comment on personal questions that people ask during interviews. Note that I am a new faculty at an IIX and a male. I was also asked questions on my marital status during my visits, not everywhere but in most places. I felt it was largely a question of curiosity and probably a harmless one. But in some instances it was followed by another question "is your wife willing to come back to India?"! I was amused but not offended because I do know of an instance when a friend rejected an Indian faculty offer because the spouse was unwilling to return.
Another personal question I was always asked was what is my home town and whether I had any preference to go to an institute nearby home town. In some cases I felt they shouldn't have asked me that, but in some other cases I felt it was asked in a friendly way just to know more about me with no consequences to my application. I consistently told them that for me all institutes were equally preferable until I visit all of them (that was indeed true!) and make up my mind.
Regarding the query by Typical PhD student, the start up grants are widely different in new and old institutes. Some old IITs may give only 10 to 15 lakhs as startup grants, while new IISERs/IITs give upto 2-3 crores for startup. The major problem is not so much as the equipment but the space requirements because the new buildings have not come up.
Even if you are asked, "Why have not got married," do not be offended :-)
Giridhar
Hello NPNI
thanks for bringing up my question and commenting on it in your latest blog. Actually, I aspire to apply for a faculty position in India in an institute where I get a solid platform to launch my research. Being an experimentalist requiring lots of equipments & lab facilities, skilled technicians, etc., a pre-existing strong infra-structure is very much desired by me. And hence I raised this question.
Dear Typical PhD student
I notice that you are an engineer: I was briefly one and am now an accidental biologist. My knowledge of how engineering research works is therefore poor. Through Abi@nanopolitan , I recently visited the blogs of Giri@IISc and Arunn . These people are not only excellent researchers in engineering departments but also have taken the time and effort to communicate with others. For example, I learnt a lot from Giridhar: He is incredibly patient and responsive and to such a large number of questions, addressing all kinds of matters. He’s done what many institutional websites should do and have not ( as an aside, I certainly will try to have an FAQ blog implemented for our faculty and students). So the best advice for you perhaps comes from role-models such as these and from their blogs and the comments in their blogs.
About your question on whether to choose a well-equipped environment or one that is starting (all other things being equal). The answer really depends on you, on what kind of scientific personality you are. For example, there are ‘drillers and diggers’ as Istvan Hargattai, a science biographer has described. Drillers will focus and keep at a problem all their life. Diggers hop from one question to another. Diggers benefit from the effort put in by others to develop central facilities and key equipment (nothing wrong in this!). Sometimes, rarely, there are very talented diggers who also develop facilities they need for each dig. Some drillers need others to develop the one key facility they will use and other drillers will do this too themselves in a focused manner. So, IMHO, you need to answer your question yourself. Are you a driller or a digger. And, what kind of a driller or digger are you. I am a lazy digger who did not mind the inevitable delays of working with a ‘startup’: This is said with hindsight, so not of too much use. 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. Here is a link to a biologist’s perspective on what’s a good institution when job hunting.
You may also want to see here what biologists are up to in these matters (a bit tame compared to the excitement of STEM, but, biologists do it very slowly)
Cheers and see you somewhere here in 2013
Vijay
Hi Vijay
Thank you very much for your informative, comprehensive and well-addressed reply. I appreciate it. (I was/is 'typical PhD student' by the way).
Your points are really practical.
I will see you around in 2013 if I am lucky enough to get a faculty without a post-doc :-)
thanks
diggi
I noticed my male colleagues are respected for speaking their minds. Not necessarily so for women.
Your blog interest me as it gives a glimpse of what my life could have been had I not stayed here.
Thank you all for your comments. Newfaculty, thank you for your take on being asked personal questions. I was also asked questions about my home town and whether I want to be close to my family etc.
Professor Giri, your analysis about the space requirements at new institutes is bang on!
I will certainly follow your advice about the other matter :)
Vijay, thank you for your detailed answer to typical PhD student's question. I liked your driller vs digger analogy . The advice about looking for a place which is fun to be in and which wants you is indeed very valuable.
Dr Sneetch, glad to hear from you again.
In Indian professional settings, it seems to me that there isn't a lot of difference in how women or men are perceived when they speak up their minds. I think age and seniority has much more to do with the perception- older or senior professors automatically get taken much more seriously than the newbies.
But, this is just my perception.
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