willowisp | (no subject)

This morning I had an appointment with one of the doctors at UNC hospitals. I haven't been sleeping well lately, which lowers the efficacy of my myriad medications. He and his attending doctor (he's a resident on a 6-month tour) gave me a few ideas to help with the sleep bit.

After he skiid and I took my daily walk (pictures soon), Andy drove himself to school since we're officially guarding the phone to intercept any NVidia calls. I did a whole bunch of chores which I couldn't since I was in Rome -- laundry, land-mines^W^Wlitterbox, dishes, and general straightening up. Andy had to return some cotton paper because he discovered after he bought it that not all cotton papers are created acid-free. While out he got some bananas and milk, so I won't have to grocery shop until our normal run on the weekend.

While at school Andy met with his advisor and Dr Brooks. The latter has made a request he rarely makes: that Andy give him one of the bound copies of his dissertation. His remaining edits for Andy are all word choice; he's ready to sign off on it. Likewise with Andy's advisor, which means he either needs to get the revisions from Ketan or have Ketan tell him he'll sign off without making any.

Andy's advisor brought up several things. For one, they may nominate his dissertation to ACM (the people who run both Siggraph and the second conference wherein Andy won best student paper). Each school can nominate only one, so it's a boost to know his is even being considered. Also, he and Andy may submit a chapter or three of Andy's dissertation as papers to Siggraph. Since he already had the coding and graphs done, all that he would need would be to cut out enough to bring any given chapter down to ten pages.

Finally, he really wants Andy to stay in academentia... so much so that he's offered Andy a postdoc position at UNC if NVidia and Boeing don't pan out. That would buy us six months for further job hunting, allow Andy to keep up in research and work on some of the "future work" sections from his dissertation, and also allow us to stay here while Andy gets paid twice as much as he does now without the vicious hours he's kept. Andy's advisor thinks NVidia will take their time in getting back to Andy, so having this offer is a nice safety net to alleviate the uncertainty while we wait.

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You know, academia isn't that bad of a job. You get all the holidays. If he doesn't teach summer term, he gets a summer every now and then. And silicon valley burns you out fast. I kind of hope he decides he wants to be a professor.

Congratulations to Andy --for all his well deserved recognition. That post-doc opportunity is certainly a neat option, and a nice cushion. And many's the postdoc who remains happily in the Ivory Tower forever, as I hope myself to do... :-)

Seems whatever I posted didn't make it last night. Wierd. LJ must be having problems. Academia is hell, I would advise anyone who wants to have an ounce of self confidence to steer well clear of it. Holidays? Postdoc? Not likely. Salary? Probably in NC it's not too bad, though it's generally a standard all over the country, and hopefully computer science get paid more than science. Less hours? Not likely. There are papers to write, grants that have deadlines, presentations to make, experiments/work to finish, and your advisor knows you spent hours doing your PhD, so you still have the same time - right? Family? What's that? You're an acadamic, you love your job, your job is life! Plus, when you do go into industry, most of them sneer at your academic qualifications, because they haven't taught you much of anything that's worthwhile in industry. I went into academia with rosy hued glasses, and now I can't get out, though I sincerely wish I could. Only stay in academia if you have a desire to teach, because really that's what it boils down to, and it's a long track (Professors don't retire as early because they generally don't have a good pension). Oh, yeah, and if he does, make sure he's got benefits. Not all postdoc fellowships allow them. I know UCSF doesn't give any. Although I lucked out and worked for a private institution within UCSF so got good benefits.

In other words, I'm crossing my fingers for the NVidia job, you guys need a little luck and good happenings, after all the PhD stuff. :)

All of the above is quite true, certainly. On the other hand, industry is no picnic, either --I've more than enough friends with enough stories of their own carnage and suffering.

If you do manage to find someone out there who will still give you great salary, good benefits, and human hours, in industry or outside of it, hooray for you! :-)