Making it/Faking it
It's nice to feel like I am fitting in somehow at the conference I am attending this weekend, but it also is weird to be very specifically underqualified. I probably reak of keaner newness, but people seem very forgiving thus far. I particularly like the interest group meetings because you can be a little closer to the people that are actually experts in the areas you think are cool.
Why do I have to go about getting "credentials"? can't I just go talk and collaborate with people over good ideas? This system of proving oneself through academic hardship seems sadistic from this angle, and I don't need to the show that I am interested. Nor do I want to go through someone else telling what I should and shouldn't study. There is plenty I have already identified myself.
hmm - I wonder if I can do a reading course next semester on all those books I realise I should have read before coming.
It also seems that at lot of the grad students here moving about in packs, not venturing off in new directions individually. Maybe I don't see the advantage because I can't find a posse that like the things I do, but I can't help but feel that it is harder to make an impression and get noticed (which is totally a part of why we attend these things) when you are just a face in a crowd.
I am kind of shocked at how there seems to be classes of participants, specficially the question askers and the non-questions askers. I am sure you can guess which is larger. Most of the talk I have attended
are dominated by the usual suspects with very good comments, by an large, and huge swaths of quiet attendees. Why don't they have things to say as well? I nearly always have questions, though often less than good ones, so it just confuses me to see so many receptive but seemingly unproductive minds in one place. Isn't this their field, their passion, their bread and butter? I realise that people not asking doesn't mean that they aren't thinking, so maybe it is a cultural issue more than a capacity one, but still, not so cool. Ah well, at least it lets me stand out in more ways than by my hair colour.
Finn
Why do I have to go about getting "credentials"? can't I just go talk and collaborate with people over good ideas? This system of proving oneself through academic hardship seems sadistic from this angle, and I don't need to the show that I am interested. Nor do I want to go through someone else telling what I should and shouldn't study. There is plenty I have already identified myself.
hmm - I wonder if I can do a reading course next semester on all those books I realise I should have read before coming.
It also seems that at lot of the grad students here moving about in packs, not venturing off in new directions individually. Maybe I don't see the advantage because I can't find a posse that like the things I do, but I can't help but feel that it is harder to make an impression and get noticed (which is totally a part of why we attend these things) when you are just a face in a crowd.
I am kind of shocked at how there seems to be classes of participants, specficially the question askers and the non-questions askers. I am sure you can guess which is larger. Most of the talk I have attended
are dominated by the usual suspects with very good comments, by an large, and huge swaths of quiet attendees. Why don't they have things to say as well? I nearly always have questions, though often less than good ones, so it just confuses me to see so many receptive but seemingly unproductive minds in one place. Isn't this their field, their passion, their bread and butter? I realise that people not asking doesn't mean that they aren't thinking, so maybe it is a cultural issue more than a capacity one, but still, not so cool. Ah well, at least it lets me stand out in more ways than by my hair colour.
Finn