For every Epsilon there is a Delta: A Retirement Post

So, dear readers, the time has come for me to retire. Yes, epsilon is now a large positive number, and we all know that cannot go on unchecked. But don’t despair, I leave you in good hands. The blog will continue to be focused on the experiences of early career mathematicians, it’s just that I am no longer in that group. The new editors,  Sara Malec (from Hood College) and Beth Malmskog (Villanova University), will bring their own unique points of view and exciting spin on what it’s like to be at the beginning of your mathematical career. I am excitedly awaiting their posts and look forward to being on the other side of all this, as a reader! In this post, I just wanted to look back on my Epsilon years and share those memories with you.

The first impulse I had about looking back was to look at how many posts I had for each category (which I then simplified a bit because I tend to over-categorize my posts). I have written a total of 115 posts. I was not surprised to find 24 posts in some way related to teaching, 25 about attending workshops or conferences (I go to a lot of those), but I was surprised that many other categories (service, research that happens outside of workshops and conferences, issues of women in math, math in the media, tenure and pre-tenure issues, work/life balance) were pretty evenly matched. What does this mean? It means that, as an early career mathematician, teaching, research, and networking, were very present in my mind, and everything else was present but not quite as much. I imagine this is probably a similar experience to that of others in a similar situation. This is the first time most of us are fully in charge of our classrooms, so it makes sense to think a lot about teaching. Attending lots of conferences is also a common thing among people trying to stay current in their field, trying to get their work known, and trying to find new ideas for research, also more pressing at the beginning of your career. However, I can imagine someone who is tenure-track at an R1 will be more concerned about teaching and research, and someone with a four-course per semester teaching load thinks a lot more about teaching. But we all think about these things.

I was also interested, in looking back, in what people looked at the most. This was slightly tricky because we had some technical difficulties recovering many years of data (the story is too long and boring to go into detail, but the upshot is that we lost some of our site visit data). In short, it is tricky to decide, and we have conflicting sets of data. We got some data from Google Analytics, but only starting at the beginning of this year (so seven months of detailed data). Looking at that reflects the top three (plus two runners-up) posts:

  1. It seems like my most popular post (by far) is an old one, To Ph.D. or Not to Ph. D., from 2012, with 3119 hits this year. I can imagine that somehow this could pop up any time someone Googles “Should I get a Ph.D.?”. It still gets a few hits a day and its popularity seems to fluctuate with no discernible pattern. I also still get comments on that one (mostly about negative experiences pursuing a Ph.D., which makes me think they haven’t read my post carefully).
  2. The next one in popularity, mostly because it went “viral” on the day it was posted, was Coffee into Theorems, with 2560 hits. I guess people really like their coffee shops (of course, I am in one as I edit this post).
  3. This is followed by my post about my intensive Intro to Proofs course earlier this summer, which got 1459 hits all in the month of June. I credit the IBL community for sharing this one like crazy.
  4.  I have selected two runners-up, the first being Manjul Barghava’s commencement speech at Bates, The surprising unity of all fields of human endeavor, with 1172 hits. This is more a testament of Manjul’s popularity than mine. The next runner-up is my post on taking care of yourself, Highway to health, with a meagre (in comparison) 590 hits. This is something we don’t talk enough about, and I’m glad it was as popular as it was.

So what can one conclude (by speculating) about these trends? I’m not entirely sure. I’m pretty sure the Ph.D. post is probably just very related to a common search. In terms of early-career mathematicians (the majority of my assumed audience), I would count the teaching, research at coffee shops, and health ones to be exactly the kinds of things people worry about. These are the issues we deal with: how to teach effectively, how to make time and space for research, and how to make sure we maintain work and life balance. So all in all, not too surprising.

I also decided to look at which posts had the most comments, since that means that other people are interested in sharing and adding to the topic. This is another sign that people are thinking about these topics (and often people who comment are more experienced mathematicians, which is a great addition). So here are the top three and two runners-up again.

  1. The post with the most comments (14), although some of them were made by me in response to the commenters, was Asymptotic Behavior, about how to behave when one finds oneself in social situations with students. I had a blast re-reading this post (one of my earlier ones) because I can see how much I’ve changed since then. I really don’t worry about this as much anymore. Probably because I am now noticeably older than my students, but I think the fact that I am an established figure in the department matters too. I no longer feel as watched or self-aware as I used to. And now that I have tenure, I am totally dancing like an Elaine Benes at concerts even if my students are around.
  2. One that I thought would show up as my most popular post (and it may have been, but it’s also a bit older), was the post I wrote during my sabbatical about struggling with research problems, Mine are still greater, with 12 comments. Many people commented because I think many could relate. Most comments were commiserating, and it was really nice to get that support from the community (also, if you ever feel like you suck at math, this is the post for you!)
  3. The third most-commented on post was one about Test-Making Anxiety, mostly because people had a lot of good ideas and advice to share (11 total). Very appreciated!
  4. The runners-up were Of Bias and Women and the Exam Feedback Conundrum (10 and 9 comments respectively). Usually posts about bias and the like get lots of comments, but thankfully in my case it is more from thoughtful people than trolls (although those exist, I just don’t approve offensive and unhelpful comments). And again, posts about teaching usually invite lots of useful advice.

Again, I think this set of posts highlights the fact that many of us need advice on the balance of social and work life, on persevering through tough research, and on teaching.

It has been really fun writing this post, since I haven’t read some of my old blog posts in a long time. I am sure Beth and Sara have much more to add, and you, dear readers, are also in charge of reading, sharing, and commenting. Make these new editors feel as welcome as I have!

Finally, if you have a favorite post, please share which one and why in your comments below! I am actually very curious about what seemed the most helpful, useful or fun to my readers, and I think this could help Sara and Beth in the near future. Look for me in another AMS blog (coming soon to a computer near you), and until then, Epsilon out!

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