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| Emptied pool |
Yet another busy week and sleepless nights. My community is considering to reopen the common areas such as the pool and the gym. They asked us to sign an addendum, which states that we know the risks, and the community management won't be responsible if we catch the COVID-19 disease.
The curse of little tasks
I was talking to one of my friends, and this topic of little tasks popped up. I have met a few Ph.D. students and postdocs that had the curse of little tasks. You end up doing a vast array of millions of small tasks for your supervisor and their collaborators, with no clear vision or a research path on your own. "Oh, fixing this conf file for Viktoria* will take an hour. Debugging the Xīguā middleware for Alexandra* will take an hour. Installing Octave on Puppylinux for Ibrahim* will take an hour. Helping Sumanasena* understand the code written by Indradeva* will take an hour. Configuring a Gridgain cluster for Mabrookhassan* will take an hour. Deploying Minitab for Bob* will take an hour..."
These are little tasks. You cannot claim anything by completing small tasks. Most of the time, you end up in the acknowledgment section of the paper or go unnoticed. Your contribution ends up as an engineering or a sys-admin task, albeit a more boring one. Collaborations are crucial to research success. But little tasks are not collaborations. They are nothing more than distractions. Real scientific collaborations are more when a faculty brings you in, discusses their idea, and you contribute at an intellectual level. Of course, you also contribute engineering -- as long as you are a co-author and you know what they are doing, or it motivates you, and it is not the only thing you end up doing 90% of the time. On the other hand, such scientific collaborations will help you tremendously with your progress and career too. You invite collaborators to YOUR idea, including professors, postdocs, and grad students from your university and other universities all over the world! That's how I witnessed some of the most significant collaborations.
The challenge with little tasks is, you end up being merely an assistant to your PI with no clear vision. Context switching takes time. These 1-hour tasks often end up 1-day tasks. Doing too many tedious jobs drain your energy and enthusiasm. That's precisely why Prof. Sumanasena did not do the task on their own. They have no time and no patience for a tiresome task. Luckily for me, I had excellent Ph.D. experience in Portugal and Belgium, with fruitful collaborations, rather than performing little tasks for the supervisors. I am lucky to have had great Ph.D. advisors. I loved my research experience in Europe and want to be like my Ph.D. advisors when I grow up. :) But not every Ph.D. student is fortunate. Communication is the key. There should be verbal and enthusiastic consent from the student or postdoc for these little tasks. The success of a Ph.D. student also depends on the supervisor and the collaborators, not just the student themselves.
These are little tasks. You cannot claim anything by completing small tasks. Most of the time, you end up in the acknowledgment section of the paper or go unnoticed. Your contribution ends up as an engineering or a sys-admin task, albeit a more boring one. Collaborations are crucial to research success. But little tasks are not collaborations. They are nothing more than distractions. Real scientific collaborations are more when a faculty brings you in, discusses their idea, and you contribute at an intellectual level. Of course, you also contribute engineering -- as long as you are a co-author and you know what they are doing, or it motivates you, and it is not the only thing you end up doing 90% of the time. On the other hand, such scientific collaborations will help you tremendously with your progress and career too. You invite collaborators to YOUR idea, including professors, postdocs, and grad students from your university and other universities all over the world! That's how I witnessed some of the most significant collaborations.
The challenge with little tasks is, you end up being merely an assistant to your PI with no clear vision. Context switching takes time. These 1-hour tasks often end up 1-day tasks. Doing too many tedious jobs drain your energy and enthusiasm. That's precisely why Prof. Sumanasena did not do the task on their own. They have no time and no patience for a tiresome task. Luckily for me, I had excellent Ph.D. experience in Portugal and Belgium, with fruitful collaborations, rather than performing little tasks for the supervisors. I am lucky to have had great Ph.D. advisors. I loved my research experience in Europe and want to be like my Ph.D. advisors when I grow up. :) But not every Ph.D. student is fortunate. Communication is the key. There should be verbal and enthusiastic consent from the student or postdoc for these little tasks. The success of a Ph.D. student also depends on the supervisor and the collaborators, not just the student themselves.
Some music and some cocktails. We continue to be in a bumpy ride.
When I say spicy, I mean this... pic.twitter.com/Q0SBABChIC
— Pradeeban (@pradeeban) June 3, 2020
* Imaginary names and imaginary sentences, to give an example.*Sri Lankan abroad raises voice about Sri Lankan problems*
— Pradeeban (@pradeeban) June 1, 2020
Sri Lanka "patriots": You ran away from our country, you loser diaspora. Don't talk about Sri Lanka.
*Sri Lankan abroad raises voice about their host country problems*
Sri Lanka "patriots": Loser. Talk about Sri Lanka.
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