Comments for PhD + epsilon

Comment on Learning to say no by Daniel Díaz

Daniel Díaz — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:48:18 +0000

Lastly, I have been feeling like doing too many things. Involved in too many things. But I really wanted to do everything I did. It’s an issue when all the opportunities show up at the same time, or when you have different ideas and don’t want to leave any of them. Also, I thought that, perhaps, I was going to miss a sort of chances that in the future I will not have again.

All I want to say is: it is difficult sometimes to say “no”, regardless if it’s convenient for you or not.

And, yes, I would like to find that time to just think about a problem, approach it in different ways, write about it, sort my ideas and share them. And I hope you can find that time too. Hopefully, very soon.

Comment on Learning to say no by Matilde

Matilde — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:20:44 +0000

There is another variable that should be considered, namely, when you say “yes”, how seriously are you going to commit? For example, I have no problem in saying “no”, but when I say “yes”, it means that I’ll do my best in the task. It is a mistake to act like this with any task. There are things that we shouldn’t take that seriously… I’d say, for example, take seriously research and teaching, but be more relax about committee work.

Comment on Learning to say no by Jason Starr

Jason Starr — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:54:45 +0000

I am a regular reader (perhaps lurker), but this is the first time I felt moved to reply. I completely agree that young mathematicians need to learn to say no. My impression is that senior faculty do not even recognize when they are overloading their junior colleagues. Of course our undergraduate students do not recognize this either, and probably would not care even if they did recognize this: is not the purpose of every faculty member to be on 24-hour call for all course concerns, no matter how trivial? So saying no is a crucial survival skill. If you really feel uncomfortable saying no outright, a good automatic response is, “I cannot agree to that right now, but let me think about it.” Again, the way many senior faculty think about these chores, they are as likely to try to find another junior colleague for the task than to get back to you. Of course if they do get back to you, perhaps the task is worth considering seriously.

Comment on Learning to say no by Jorge Palacios (@pctroll)

Jorge Palacios (@pctroll) — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:41:16 +0000

Hi Adriana.

I really understand what you’re going through. I’m pursuing a masters degree and it’s been very difficult for me to work on my thesis and subjects because I was like you. I was in a band, I was learning French, I blog, I have a couple of personal projects in game development, a part-time job and the masters degree subjects. Oh boy… It’s sad I didn’t understand earlier the importance of being focused.

As you already said, there’s no easy answer for that. It’s just by trial and error that we find our balance, because there are so many variables involved in our lives and each one of us has assigned different values… I think it’s half hunch and half logic+pragmatism.

Hope you do well on your research and find your balance. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the subject and I think we, your readers, will try to do the same: find our own balance.

Cheers!

PS: I think you know Spanish, so here’s what I wrote earlier this year

Comment on Mine are still greater by Alex Kashko

Alex Kashko — Sun, 19 May 2013 12:19:43 +0000

I loved this article. As someone who has not been able to do “real” maths for years because I needed to work in IT in order to pay the bills I felt really inadequate and over the top when doing even stuff that should have been simple like the problems on the Project Euler website or just remembering proofs I could rederive easily a decade or so back.

All this led me to try to shift my career to “Data Science” where I would have to rebuild my knowledge of maths.

So thanks for an article that tells me I have not got stupid over the years.

Comment on The talking cure by evelynjlamb

evelynjlamb — Wed, 08 May 2013 19:53:40 +0000

I don’t really have anything insightful to say other than it’s awesome that you’ll be teaching in Benin. That is really an amazing opportunity! I hope you’ll blog about your experiences.

Comment on The talking cure by Mike

Mike — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:38:52 +0000

I can’t add anything, but that’s a great story about Ben Weiss. Now I have to try to figure out why the correlation between searches for cohomology and PTSD.

Comment on Mine are still greater by Dana Paxson

Dana Paxson — Mon, 06 May 2013 18:08:21 +0000

Paprika, I admire your willingness to work to overcome the obstacles you face. If you’d like some encouragement and support, and some suggestions about ways to engage in newer ways with mathematics, look me up on Facebook under my name. I’m also on LinkedIn.
Warmly,
Dana

Comment on Mine are still greater by Paprika

Paprika — Sat, 04 May 2013 13:17:17 +0000

Hello. i just wrote to say that your “story” inspired me.
though i, a 21 yr old always had a greater inclination in maths than anything else,i didn’t pursue it as much as i should have( i now believe).also the fact that i couldn’t even clear one level of maths olympiad didn’t do anything to cheer.and in college where we had some compulsory courses for first 2 years, certain concepts took time(to the tune of 3 months) to be cleared.
anyways, i am a earth science major now.but i feel a sense of inadequancy and deep regret for not having been able to make myself proficient in it (how far could i have gone myself,no idea still). but after hearing your persistence, i am certainly enthused to take up maths after my studies are over, even if not possible in a professional sense.i simply hope to make it enough to be able to understand most nuances of modern mathematical reasearch.and of course challenge myself with all kinds of problems

Comment on The mathematics of manipulation by Manuel Rivera

Manuel Rivera — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:39:14 +0000

I heard a joke which might actually have some interesting
philosophical content. It was about Maduro’s comment about the halves:
“Venezuela’s elections and politics are governed by a logic similar to
that in non standard anaylisis”.