:D
First happy post in ages!
Sort of.
A couple of weeks ago, I closed one really horrible chapter of my life. :x I'm still in grad school, but I hope things can only get better from here on out. I think I understand myself a bit better -- I aim too high, which makes it extremely difficult to feel like I've succeeded at anything without getting positive feedback from others. Positive feedback = getting good grades, winning awards, etc., rather than the feeling of nonchalance (about my research) that I've been getting from everyone around me. Up until grad school, everything was so much more straightforward. To feel good about myself, I just needed to finish projects well, and I have to admit, the last minute rush to get something working before a final project demo REALLY drives me. Yes, it's stressful, but the accomplishment just feels that much better after the fact. o_o Am I weird?
The problem with research is twofold. Up until now, I've been given problems that I haven't been particularly interested in myself; it doesn't help that the only person who shows any interest in the topic I'm working on has been my advisor. This mostly stems from the fact that this isn't really his area of expertise... But when I ask other grad students to discuss things with me, since they don't have any investment in the project, I just feel somewhat stifled? I'm not necessarily asking you to give me the answers to all of my problems. Sometimes, I just need to think out loud, and maybe in the middle of my question, I'll come to some realization that X works or Y doesn't. Instead, I feel like no one thinks what I'm working on is useful (de-motivation, much?) or tunes me out with the immediate "that's wrong" kind of reply without even fully understanding what I'm trying to ask. :( It's so frustrating when you have such a poor support network... and I'm sure some grad students have it better, but I don't. :( Of course, the other problem with research is that there isn't necessarily a very clear solution for a given problem (that's research, right?). That's not to say that class projects are always black and white easy/hard -- I've been talking to one visiting researcher who, at least based off of her own experience, thought that there was very little to gain in terms of creativity with class projects, but I beg to differ. It really depends on the person. When I was given the freedom to choose my own projects, I never chose to do something because it was easy (okay, it happened once, but I ended up not getting chosen for that project and got stuck with the hardest one of the possibilities -- to my betterment). There was always some application I wanted to target or some circuit/function I had read about in app notes or textbooks or research papers that I wanted to try. And I could be creative because I came up with my own project. I feel like that largely hasn't been the case while I've been in grad school. Rather than get encouraged by things I read in paper, because I was working at such a low level (low = block level), everything I read in papers just showed me what didn't work well enough or that all of the low hanging fruit had already been picked...
Anyways, I'm much more suited for systems design, I think. And even if I was completely pissed off at the fact that I got stuck with the brunt of the CS work for the interactive device design class I took last term, I got a surprisingly large amount out of it. Technological innovation can and should be driven by user needs, and that's where I think the old-school circuit designer mentality has failed the industry somewhat. It NEEDS to change to keep its edge; we're at a point where block level innovations are far too hard to come by, but there's still SO MUCH to do at the systems/applications level...
Anyways, that's the direction I want to head in. There are various obstacles (= wrapping up my current projects and getting people on board) to heading there... But at least I have a better vision of what makes a good PhD for me. Irrespective of whether that's a good PhD for other people... I'm highly opinionated, but eh, I'll try harder to emphasize that what I say only applies to my own goals...
That being said, we lost the end of term competition for our final project... In my opinion, it was the most technologically advanced project out of all of the ones in the class, but where we failed was at the project ideation stage. We all just wanted to play with cool tech and tried to mold a use case (although relevant, just not "product" worthy) around the tech. So we lost. And the people who won? Well, the idea itself didn't even come out of the student team... but people bought into its purpose, because it was commercializable or the judges clearly could see various industries making use of the technology, no matter how simple it was...
So I learned... There's no way people will buy into whatever cool tech (= cool game demo or w/e) if you can't demonstrate that it's useful...
OK, so that wasn't quite true, but it still sort of worked...
I participated in a hackathon recently, and although I wasn't really thrilled about the technology we were using, while other people were focused on things like games, I wanted to find some kind of medical application (a bit farfetched, but eh...)... And one of my teammates came up with an idea that could possibly sell well, although we really didn't have enough of the background in the area to see if it was useful (but I guess for a half-day hackathon, you just need to show that it might be relevant and hope for the best?)...
And we got 3rd? :D Some potentially cool prize should be coming with it... hopefully? Well, unfortunately, the folks who got "most innovative" kind of weren't very real-world applications focused (it was more like the game I made in the IDD class...), but 3d graphics are shiny, right? It wasn't innovative, but it was a fun demo... and, man... iPhone 6 would be really nice :(. Eh, whatever... HAHAHAHA....
We were supposed to get 2 minutes to pitch or project, but the teams before us went on for a really long time until they finally started warning teams that they'd be cut off at 2 minutes. Unfortunately, I ran into some technical difficulties with my laptop that ate into our allotted time... and we were the only group that the judges had 0 questions for... D: *owl hoots in the background* ... So I was pretty disheartened... but I guess we got our point across without the need for Q&A, and that's why things worked out as they did?
Anyways, I'd probably do another hackathon. In my opinion, this one was very "chill." The dedication wasn't quite there and by 5PM, a lot of the teams had left... o_O Also, originally I only wanted to do a hackathon with friends, but frankly, I get a little nasty during crunch time when people aren't pulling through and I'm left to do all of the last minute bug fixes and hacks to get things up and running... So maybe friends aren't the best to work with... I'm liable to ruin friendships... and rather than just finding any person to work with, I'd hope their skillsets and dedication would complement my own? I do have to admit though, that having a mascot-like teammate who does mostly support (not necessarily any technical work, but instead can look up stuff for you or who's eager to make Powerpoints and give you encouragement and feedback -- Should I just do this because we don't have time? Should I scratch that idea? -- high level stuff, you know) is fantastic.
Hmm... hopefully people think that I'm dependable. That's a trait I care about both in myself and in others...
What else? I went to a Tech reunion some 2 weeks ago. It was fantastic seeing people I hadn't seen since graduation or even before then. I also went to a friend's housewarming party after the hackathon. It was equally fun. :D I will admit to having a little too much to drink :( Not that I got drunk (3 shots are too much for me)... but my stomach is just really god awful at handling alcohol... and I felt really really sick afterwards...
It was fun, and I randomly ran into a high school friend I hadn't seen in almost 7 years... because he was a friend of one of my friend's new roommates... Small world, ain't it? When everyone is in Tech, that is...
It's lonely up here. :( I thought it would be a crutch to rely too much on old friends in a new environment... But when you don't have any old friends around, surviving is much more painful... :( Especially when it's hard to click with new people. There's a certain kind of person that I get along well with, and unfortunately, my interests/personality just don't overlap well enough with the people here. It's not to say I don't have many friends... but there's a difference between knowing someone and being very close with him/her, and it's hard when these people have more "adult" lives -- i.e. are married, have been out working for a while, etc. :x
People probably think I have a serious issue re: "grass is greener...", but I legitimately think that I'd be happier elsewhere. @_@.... I guess I need to make due with what I have and hopefully become a stronger person as a result of this "ordeal"... Maybe go outside of people in my field and find people who are more interested in hackathons and other activities that I'd enjoy...
Sort of.
A couple of weeks ago, I closed one really horrible chapter of my life. :x I'm still in grad school, but I hope things can only get better from here on out. I think I understand myself a bit better -- I aim too high, which makes it extremely difficult to feel like I've succeeded at anything without getting positive feedback from others. Positive feedback = getting good grades, winning awards, etc., rather than the feeling of nonchalance (about my research) that I've been getting from everyone around me. Up until grad school, everything was so much more straightforward. To feel good about myself, I just needed to finish projects well, and I have to admit, the last minute rush to get something working before a final project demo REALLY drives me. Yes, it's stressful, but the accomplishment just feels that much better after the fact. o_o Am I weird?
The problem with research is twofold. Up until now, I've been given problems that I haven't been particularly interested in myself; it doesn't help that the only person who shows any interest in the topic I'm working on has been my advisor. This mostly stems from the fact that this isn't really his area of expertise... But when I ask other grad students to discuss things with me, since they don't have any investment in the project, I just feel somewhat stifled? I'm not necessarily asking you to give me the answers to all of my problems. Sometimes, I just need to think out loud, and maybe in the middle of my question, I'll come to some realization that X works or Y doesn't. Instead, I feel like no one thinks what I'm working on is useful (de-motivation, much?) or tunes me out with the immediate "that's wrong" kind of reply without even fully understanding what I'm trying to ask. :( It's so frustrating when you have such a poor support network... and I'm sure some grad students have it better, but I don't. :( Of course, the other problem with research is that there isn't necessarily a very clear solution for a given problem (that's research, right?). That's not to say that class projects are always black and white easy/hard -- I've been talking to one visiting researcher who, at least based off of her own experience, thought that there was very little to gain in terms of creativity with class projects, but I beg to differ. It really depends on the person. When I was given the freedom to choose my own projects, I never chose to do something because it was easy (okay, it happened once, but I ended up not getting chosen for that project and got stuck with the hardest one of the possibilities -- to my betterment). There was always some application I wanted to target or some circuit/function I had read about in app notes or textbooks or research papers that I wanted to try. And I could be creative because I came up with my own project. I feel like that largely hasn't been the case while I've been in grad school. Rather than get encouraged by things I read in paper, because I was working at such a low level (low = block level), everything I read in papers just showed me what didn't work well enough or that all of the low hanging fruit had already been picked...
Anyways, I'm much more suited for systems design, I think. And even if I was completely pissed off at the fact that I got stuck with the brunt of the CS work for the interactive device design class I took last term, I got a surprisingly large amount out of it. Technological innovation can and should be driven by user needs, and that's where I think the old-school circuit designer mentality has failed the industry somewhat. It NEEDS to change to keep its edge; we're at a point where block level innovations are far too hard to come by, but there's still SO MUCH to do at the systems/applications level...
Anyways, that's the direction I want to head in. There are various obstacles (= wrapping up my current projects and getting people on board) to heading there... But at least I have a better vision of what makes a good PhD for me. Irrespective of whether that's a good PhD for other people... I'm highly opinionated, but eh, I'll try harder to emphasize that what I say only applies to my own goals...
That being said, we lost the end of term competition for our final project... In my opinion, it was the most technologically advanced project out of all of the ones in the class, but where we failed was at the project ideation stage. We all just wanted to play with cool tech and tried to mold a use case (although relevant, just not "product" worthy) around the tech. So we lost. And the people who won? Well, the idea itself didn't even come out of the student team... but people bought into its purpose, because it was commercializable or the judges clearly could see various industries making use of the technology, no matter how simple it was...
So I learned... There's no way people will buy into whatever cool tech (= cool game demo or w/e) if you can't demonstrate that it's useful...
OK, so that wasn't quite true, but it still sort of worked...
I participated in a hackathon recently, and although I wasn't really thrilled about the technology we were using, while other people were focused on things like games, I wanted to find some kind of medical application (a bit farfetched, but eh...)... And one of my teammates came up with an idea that could possibly sell well, although we really didn't have enough of the background in the area to see if it was useful (but I guess for a half-day hackathon, you just need to show that it might be relevant and hope for the best?)...
And we got 3rd? :D Some potentially cool prize should be coming with it... hopefully? Well, unfortunately, the folks who got "most innovative" kind of weren't very real-world applications focused (it was more like the game I made in the IDD class...), but 3d graphics are shiny, right? It wasn't innovative, but it was a fun demo... and, man... iPhone 6 would be really nice :(. Eh, whatever... HAHAHAHA....
We were supposed to get 2 minutes to pitch or project, but the teams before us went on for a really long time until they finally started warning teams that they'd be cut off at 2 minutes. Unfortunately, I ran into some technical difficulties with my laptop that ate into our allotted time... and we were the only group that the judges had 0 questions for... D: *owl hoots in the background* ... So I was pretty disheartened... but I guess we got our point across without the need for Q&A, and that's why things worked out as they did?
Anyways, I'd probably do another hackathon. In my opinion, this one was very "chill." The dedication wasn't quite there and by 5PM, a lot of the teams had left... o_O Also, originally I only wanted to do a hackathon with friends, but frankly, I get a little nasty during crunch time when people aren't pulling through and I'm left to do all of the last minute bug fixes and hacks to get things up and running... So maybe friends aren't the best to work with... I'm liable to ruin friendships... and rather than just finding any person to work with, I'd hope their skillsets and dedication would complement my own? I do have to admit though, that having a mascot-like teammate who does mostly support (not necessarily any technical work, but instead can look up stuff for you or who's eager to make Powerpoints and give you encouragement and feedback -- Should I just do this because we don't have time? Should I scratch that idea? -- high level stuff, you know) is fantastic.
Hmm... hopefully people think that I'm dependable. That's a trait I care about both in myself and in others...
What else? I went to a Tech reunion some 2 weeks ago. It was fantastic seeing people I hadn't seen since graduation or even before then. I also went to a friend's housewarming party after the hackathon. It was equally fun. :D I will admit to having a little too much to drink :( Not that I got drunk (3 shots are too much for me)... but my stomach is just really god awful at handling alcohol... and I felt really really sick afterwards...
It was fun, and I randomly ran into a high school friend I hadn't seen in almost 7 years... because he was a friend of one of my friend's new roommates... Small world, ain't it? When everyone is in Tech, that is...
It's lonely up here. :( I thought it would be a crutch to rely too much on old friends in a new environment... But when you don't have any old friends around, surviving is much more painful... :( Especially when it's hard to click with new people. There's a certain kind of person that I get along well with, and unfortunately, my interests/personality just don't overlap well enough with the people here. It's not to say I don't have many friends... but there's a difference between knowing someone and being very close with him/her, and it's hard when these people have more "adult" lives -- i.e. are married, have been out working for a while, etc. :x
People probably think I have a serious issue re: "grass is greener...", but I legitimately think that I'd be happier elsewhere. @_@.... I guess I need to make due with what I have and hopefully become a stronger person as a result of this "ordeal"... Maybe go outside of people in my field and find people who are more interested in hackathons and other activities that I'd enjoy...