College experience

Hopefully someone will read and learn from my experience!


I saw alot of guys in my college just game, and this was before MMOs. People will find any excuse to slack off. Wow has nothing to do with it. Although that said, I dont know if i would have finished grad school if WoW was in my life.

Its not enough to do homework, you actually have to read and memorize and study. Don't think just because you did your homework you are fine. Go over the lecture notes after EACH LECTURE. Type it all out. No serious, type it all out. Figure out what the professor really wants from exams and prepare your study that way. Each prof wants different things. Also each discipline wants different things. In science obviously there is alot of memorization and math work. In English, alot of reading. 

College and esp grad school is about time management. Its really fing critical. I would def. not be in a raid guild "we raid XYZ days a week or you get kicked". You can't do it. There will be times you have to crunch and just study. You will have 5 finals in a week. You will have 5 finals plus 3 projects in a week. 

Organize your time. Go to google calendar, block it out. Figure on 5 hours per class per week (and thats on the low side to be honest). Its best to block out time immediately after the class so it's still fresh (this is really fing critical). Use parental controls on wow, now that you know when to study. 

Lastly...okay its like this. High school is something that you just punch cards and get through it. Everyone is expected to have a HS education. People come into college thinking its just like HS. Its not. Its a very unique time in your life, it will never be repeated. You have a ton of opportunities to make friends, explore new careers, and explore cultures. This is the time where you figure out what you want to do in your life. Whether its basket weaving, or sports, or science, or whatever. There are *so* many opportunties because you are in college. Seek that stuff out. They won't really announce most of it. My college did an absolute horrid job of letting people know there were opportunities. For example there was a 'research experience program' that I never knew about until the last year of college and only through the grape vine. They never announced it. Definitely PLUG IN to the grapevine, know people, get out. Now is not the time to be sitting in your dorm and raiding. The friends you make could last a lifetime. The decisions you make will. 

I slacked off through most of college but really focused when I got into grad school. I think that saved me. But by and large its the EXPERIENCE that is critical. In the real world nobody gives a shit what GPA you got, or what stupid classes you did, unless they are technical "here is how you do this". Everyone is expected to read and write, and know the basics of the field. You don't leave a comp sci degree not knowing how to program for example. But the really important thing, the thing that you are paying for, is the opportunity. Like summer work (very very impt). Like overseas education. Like volunteer work in your field. Like research symposia (if you want to be an academic). Stuff like that. 

People are going to look at your resume, and 90% of it is 'what have you done in measurable terms'. Ie I released a program that was downloaded 100,000 times and won this award. Or "I helped set up a program feeding the hungry". 10% of your resume is your education. Your grades aren't even on your resume (unless its outstanding). So, when you are doing college, shape your journey by these measures, and get to know important people in your field. Professors are by and large fing worthless unless you want to go to grad school. 

Sorry for wall of text. I spent 15 years in education and changed my career course a few times, its extremely costly and embarassing to be working at the same level as kids 10-20 years younger who know more than you even though you have much more education. Suffice to say I learned a few things and ways not to approach life.

Edit: One last thing, another very expensive lesson. When it gets time to your career (and you should always be thinking, what will people actually pay me to do, and what job could I get with the skills that I have or can easily get). What will get you in the door. Is it the piece of paper diploma? Everyone has that. Is it "I took such and such course". Yeah everyone did that. Or "Well I'm this certification". Certs are not that useful (just trust me on this, especially in IT, only licensure is important, like "Board certified in XXXX", but you'll know that when you get there. 

Okay what gets you in the door. How do you get a job. 1) Its who you know. I got an opportunity out of tech school as a intern. It sucked ass but it was experience and a name. 2) Its what you know. Companies are looking to fill niches "we need someone who can do X, ie build a virtual server". 3) Its who you know who has opportunities. How did I get my current job which is very comfortable middle class. I knew someone who knew someone. I talked to person A, a professional in the field. He know about places A B and C. I called each of those places. "I'm looking for a job opportunity". One said, yes we need someone like you. Boom, i'm hired. This was after literally YEARS of monster.com indeed.com you name it. If you are going that route the odds of getting a job drop off a cliff. Trust me, in this climate nobody is going to get hired going that route. Craigslist may work because its local. Once you get to a national search, unless you are a CEO or college president, forget it. There are thousands of people applying, and half are more qualified than you.

GO READ *WHAT COLOR IS MY PARACHUTE* It is the most effective book I ever read, and is absolutely true. Your career is all about nurturing contacts. Nobody gives a shit what degree you got, its what you can bring to the table, what is your experience and knowledge base. Can you do X specific thing. Do you know how to set up Y. Can you help us do Z.

The constant in life is change

Wow, long time no write. I mostly update via facebook, but still a good blog post can be worthwhile. I'm still really focused on my career; I had a 6 month contract with Cisco which expired 10 days ago. I have mixed feelings; it was a good educational experience but I pretty much tapped that out, and the pay was horrible. I guess my impression is that i can do more worthwhile things than do scut work at minimum wage, even if it does not directly and immediately lead to income generation.

I'm still trying to get into PACS/RIS, its probably a good field for me but tough to break in to, and is essentially saturated in the U.S.; pretty much everyone has a system of some sort, now its just updates. I spent several months chasing a job prospect; some 6 interviews, and didn't get it at the last interview. Oh well. Sour grapes.

After that I re-evaluated and decided to start my own computer repair business. I've been thinking about it for a while and it's something I can definitely do. The problem is many others can do it too, and its also probably hard to break in to a saturated market. But that's the case no matter where you go in IT; there are alot of people in this field, only a handful really have any skill; and it seems really hard to get off the ground. In this I am sure my PhD is working against me. How much easier of a time would I have if i just had a BS in comp sci or something? I will never know. For now I am doing all the certifications and networking I can do.

First off is finding a name. I am thinking of going with "PhD Computers Inc.". There is a shop online with that name though, in Oregon. I can legally use it for doing business in NC however, but I'm not sure. I can go with something like "PhD Computer Repair", or "Dejournett Computers" . Or something like that.

Uhmm yeah.

So I play a bit too much (191d /played), over the stretch of 3 years . That's 4500 hours. In comparison you work for 9600 a year if you are a 40 hour per week employee. Too be fair, I wasn't actually played while I could have been working. But its still sobering. Nowadays tbh I may play 1 hour a day so i'm very pleased; I am really busy with RL stuff that is hopefully useful for my career.

However, you know what, you may laugh, but I gained huge insight about business and free markets. I was reflecting on this today. If I ever have any free cash flow I'll try to invest it for the purpose of short term gains; i did this a year ago, chickened out, and lost the opportunity to make $15,000 from $1000. I'll make a million and start a nature preserve, which would protect that ecosystem for all time, until the last day.

Long time no write.

Well i've been pretty busy, I hang out on Facebook more often now, and I have yet another blog devoted to my IT stuff. It's here: http://robccnp.blogspot.com/

Also I am working on my Cisco Users Group, that website is here again.

Google calendar feed

Well this drove me absolutely bonkers. I needed a feed for my new users group (website (still very rough) here: http://rtpcug.com/)

Anyway it was less than obvious how to do this. You see the 'settings' in the picture? yeah that aint it. There are fully separate groups of calendar settings, don't ask me why.

What you do is click the down arrow next to your calendar in "My calendars" (see picture). Then you click "Calendar settings". From there, you need to make the calendar public, first of all. There is a row of tabs on the top of the dialouge, the second reads "Share this calendar". Click there. Then click 'make my calendar public'.

Then get the feed url by click on the Calendar details tab, then on the Calendar address row, click xml or html button or ical, which I think is a apple thing.

Guess everyone is in Hawaii this year for xmas

I saw this pict and I recognized it immediately. The Obamas are staying a block from my Dad and step mother. Mele Kelemaka Obamas!

I then got on twitter. Apparently Lance is doing the Ironman in Kona this year. Good luck to him!

Christmas decoration win

I love failblog, its got stuff like this.

Stating the obvious

This story about insurgents pulling out unencrypted feeds from the Predator attack drones is interesting. Apparently some russian programmers (there are alot of them, and they seem to have no morals) have developed software to decipher wireless communication from satellite feeds.

This quote from the developer is pretty 'no duh' for me.

"But generally speaking, this points to a large security gap that the American military has missed."

Any time you have stuff going over the airwaves, it can be captured and exploited by anyone. Luckily with todays technology of authetication and encryption its harder to do that. Turning OFF the encryption during MILITARY operations is just...not bright at all.

What is more interesting to me is the commercial standpoint. WiMax is a new technology that allows broadband like speed wirelessly as long as there is a WiMax tower within 5 miles. So its like cell phones but much faster. Now I think this will be revolutionary IFF the price is decent (and it looks like that to me, the usual $30 or $40 a month). If you think about it, you could get this for your home network and be able to travel around town to some degree and use wireless. Not only that but set up is a bit simplier than wired networks, you dont need a router or switch or anything.

But here's the thing. Now there is going to be alot of traffic over the airwaves, at very large diameter of operation (whereas WiFi only goes a few hundred feet, WiMax goes for miles). So the possibility of somebody sniffing out your signal jumps exponentially. I think our current standard of encryption is pretty good, but think about if alot of people started using WiMax and you could some how get access to that data. That's tens of thousands of credit card transactions and so forth. Again, i think the encryption is pretty good right now, but is a sobering what if as we push more and more into the wireless space.

80% APR?

So when the credit card reform got pushed through, there was a cap on fees to 25% of the maximum balance. And to cope, the credit cards decided to raise rates to 80% APR of balance. It seems like alot but keep in mind the max balance on these is only $300. Still, the numbers baffle. The Foxnews story has more.

I guess what I find so unsettling is that these companies exist by preying upon the poor. I think the problem is two fold. One, they probably have alot of people who dont pay their bills. Two, due to this, they need to raise their fees to exculpatory highs to maintain their profit margin. I doubt they are making money any more so than the big guys.

But still, a $75 fee per year and 25% APR is just unconscionable to me. I guess some people just love preying on 'morons and suckers'.

passed CCNA

Long time no post. So I got my CCNA certification yesterday. I essentially quit science 6 months ago when my fellowship ended and the guy I was working with wouldn't fund me to wrap up the work, nor really even try to help me get it published. Yet then insisted on either me working off the clock on it, or quiting so I can continue working on the manuscript, again without any help, so he could get a publication out. So, I decided that science wasn't going to happen for me. After 3 years of trying to get a real job I either 1) don't have enough people skills to get a sales job or 2) don't have the scientific strength or interest to get a research job. When that happens your options are very few; continue doing postdoc to postdoc, jumping around labs, hoping for the big break so you can go teach somewhere, or quitting altogether.

Its a hard choice but I found that I didn't really care about science to the extent I needed to, with 60 hour a week commitments for very little pay for indefinate periods; forever putting my life on hold.

Anyway so I did jump ship and took a semester of classes to finish up my certification training, and I took the exam yesterday. I was very very worried about it being too hard (the practice exams were killer), but I sailed through with a 900 out of 1000.

So now what. Well some internships are in the works but who knows if they will pan out. Now I can go on the job market and start to get job experience. My plan is to get employed, start working, then work on the next certification, CCNP, then finally maybe CCIE. I am probably one of very few in the field who has the intelligence and academic strength it would take to succeed with the CCIE. However, I'm not sure its even relevent.

One thing i have learned is that academia is a BUSINESS. This is why they dont kick you out even after straight Fs. They are taking your money, they don't really give a shit if you pass or not. Actually, for fields like biology, they rather hope you didn't do well because that's competition for them. Certifications may be required for employment, but have no illusion, all these degrees and pieces of paper, they may open some doors but its far more important to network and have job experience than any worthless degree.

Self Respect

One last thing about the PhD call girl. From the comments on the UK times:

Brains and beauty perhaps, but certainly no self respect, and not enough brains to find funding for her PhD through means that didn't involve turning her body into a receptacle for the insertion of a succession of male appendages.

Ha, like any sane (non-genius) person can get a bio degree while still having self respect? Getting the degree was in essence selling my soul. Doing exactly what they want, when they want it, no matter if it was right wrong, morally questionable, whatever. Just do what they want, get their signature. That's all that really matters. I laugh at these fools non-scientists who think they have a clue. Which is probably why I can't seem to stand people without PhDs. Nobody knows the suffering you have gone through except your fellow scientists. After 3 years, I'm not really back to normal, and I kinda doubt I will be.

The PhD sex worker

Stumbled onto this site via this article in the UK times. Long story short, a girl who is now a 'real scientist' used to be a sex worker. During grad school. Because she was broke and tired of working her ass off so she could eat the next day. Oh, did i mention she was/is a biomedical scientist?

And I thought, what the fuck is wrong with our profession? Ten years ago, in the early 90s, there was a small revolution in graduate student stipends in the US. First, it's a little known fact that you do actually get a stipend to work in research while doing your dissertation. This isn't really the case in the humanities, typically you have 4 years in which you are funded by being a TA. After that, you are on your own. So i imagine many English lit people never really make it. And that's probably okay, because a English Lit PhD is a dime a dozen and pretty hard to sell.

So anyway, back to grad school stipends. Well back in 97 when i started, we were getting 14500 or 15500 (depending if you were pre or post candidacy) to scrap by in. Thats not alot of dough. But a few years before that, it was 12000. Why? Well i think it goes back to the NIH funding levels and the doubling of the NIH budget during the 90s (which lead to the crash in the 2000s). We're funded by research grants from the NIH primarily, so when the research grant goes up, so does our salary. Now postdocs at the same time had the same exact problem, their salery was only 20,000 or a bit more.

Finally in the early 2000s AFAIK the postdocs revolted and said, enough is enough, pay us real salaries. So the NIH said, if you are going to use our grants, you need to pay postdocs X amount (which is depending on your years as a postdoc and is about 40k now). However, guess what, that wasn't enforced. Better (better funded) institutions did start paying postdocs that, but many didn't, including the NIH itself. So now 2009 we have a situation where grad students make about 20k and postdocs about double that, in good areas. I know the rockafeller grad students (in manhatten, so very expensive) get 30k? as a grad student? Alot more than the most of us, and cheap housing.

Anyway where was I going. So this a double edged sword. On one hand, you aren't being paid alot. On another hand, you are surviving and getting enough to eat now normally. Back 10, 20 years ago that wasn't the case. You took out loans to survive, or turned to other jobs. Now in britian they don't have the good biomedical research situation. The postdocs and grad students are still getting paid shit. SO ITS NO WONDER SHE TURNS TO PROSTITUTION. If that's not the canary in the gold mine, what is?

Looks, this is what needs to happen. Very stringent entrance requirements on foreign applicants. Stop letting 100 foreign students in to american grad schools. You are killing our science, because by and large people who came here just for school probably dont really give a shit about American science as a whole. I'm painting with a large brush, but this is my observations. You could argue I dont give a shit either, fair enough. Also, a bit better wages and some prospect of actual employment. Nearly all my colleagues dont do academic research. There is a reason. Its horrible. The people are horrible, the pay is horrible, the lifestyle is horrible, you are surrounding by aliens (people who are not green card holders or u.s. citizens). Its incredibly demoralizing to go to work and not be able to hold conversations with your colleagues because their culture is so alien to yours. American born Indians for example, no problem to me, because they have our culture.

Anyway we all know the problem, there are far too many foreign scientists in America, and by and large they dont give a crap about our nation. They choke the industry to the point where we can't compete effectively, because you have your typical American complete with the best 1% of say China. Now you can easily say, no problem, you aren't good enough to compete. And that is true to a large degree. And you can say, well i'd rather have the best 1% working on the problem instead of the 20th percentile person, regardless of nationality. Science knows no boundaries. However, at a national level, when practically none of your actual scientists are U.S. citizens, it's a problem from a national competitivness level. Soon these people will leave and produce useful and innovative products in their own countries, raising their standard of living in relation to the U.S. And I think that's the main problem, we are not helping our standard of living in relation to the rest of the world. I want America to be great, the greatest nation on earth, but our politicians and school deans and those in academia are the problem, not the solution.

Don't become a scientist!

This is a very interesting screed against science written by a tenured professor in physics at WashU. It was written in 1999, and he is essentially saying that there is so little hope of a permenant job in science, you are far better off become a plumber or something similiar.

In this light, it makes alot of sense that I jumped ship and am working on my network engineering certification.

Best Telemarketing scam ever

This is from WOWEconomics, but I had to share.

Apparently this is done by a comedian Tom Mabe, and he has a tape recorder at his phone ready to go whenever a telemarketer calls. Well, one fateful night....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5z4Vs26-TI

Exercise and Diet

Some new thinking that exercise isn't a total cure for bad diet. Perhaps that's misleading, but the title of the story is "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin". Which is sorta true. The idea that you go out to the gym and exercise for 3 hours a week and lose weight, well maybe you'd lose weight, but it wouldn't be due to the exercise per se, its due to the fact that you are supposed to eat less in combinatino with exercise. Its like this. If you consumed 10,000 Cal in a week, and wanted to lose weight, you could cut your intake to 8000 Cal, and not exercise. Or you could burn 1000 Cal and exercise.

The point (and a major point of the article), is that people tend to overcompensate. I know I do. I exercise, and wolf down a burger, or a shake. Unless you are a sports physiologist, you have no idea how many calories you just burned. And you shouldn't feel like you need to replace those calories.

This is one reason why biking is an extremely effect weight lose strategy, but it boosts your metabolsim so much that its quite easy to double your food intake and not really notice. Exercising on a bike burns 250 to 1000 Cal in an hour. When i did my 40-60 mi trips, i would burn at least 2000 Cal, probably close to 3000 Cal. That's a full days worth of food assuming basal metablism. So, the idea was I could eat perfectly normally during the week, go on a long bike ride, eat normally that day (that's the hard part), and burn a pound of fat.

Anyway i'm getting back into shape slowly. I noticed my weight hasn't changed much but I lost a good deal of muscle since i left Houston.

I'm getting to like this guy.

No, not Obama, the other guy.

Its as if McCain was reincarnated as a donkey not an elephant.

Registered for classes

Registered for 3 durham tech classes today, will keep me busy throughout the fall. 6 contact hours, MTW, so 4 days off 3 days on, should be fun. Two are for finishing CCNA cert prep, and one is for linux admin. At the end i'll take the CCNA exam, and i guess look for a net engineering job. meanwhile work on 3 manuscripts and try to find a good science job (although honestly I dont have much hope - my skills just aren't in demand).

Tour de boring

Man, i've been following the tour but so far no big changeups except for the TTs (time trials). Today is no exception. Typically its a group of 3-4 riders way back in the standings, making a break, 90% of the time they get caught, this time they don't, the main guys who we care about (Lance for one), just sit in the peleton. Lance, we are all waiting for your move which better be supported by your team (or 90% of the American cyclist enthusiasts will tune out next years TdF).

Bye bye

Sent in letter of resignation today. That felt pretty good. I would have liked to stay and get the papers out but it proved impossible (lack of funding is main reason). So i'll be unemployed and working on data analysis and so forth on a volunteer basis.

Free healthcare isn't

You know, i usually don't blog these things, but here is a interesting article about a widow of a vietnam vet who spent his remaining years in a state-run home because he was not ambulatory. Then he dies and they say to her "you owe us $300,000" Well, i'm omitting facts, read the article. Anyway the point is the state is saying because its Medicaid, they are entitled to half of his assets. Her point of view is that 'well he's a vietnam vet, the healthcare should be free'. And their point of view is 'medicaid isn't free, someone has to pay it'.

And i think that's really the problem. People expect *free* healthcare, and it isn't, and won't be, ever. We'll pay for it. If we go with a socialized healthcare plan under obama, I can honestly predict several things.

1) Reimbursements to docs will plummet. Okay, they make too much money you say. Well, they spend 10 years of their life heavily in debt, working their asses off, to get to be able to treat you. That deserves compensation (on the other hand I worked my ass off for ten years in a similiar field, and I'm not going to get anything out of it). So if salary plummets, so will the quality of the pool, because if a doc is just going to be a plumber, the smart people will do other things besides wasting their time in that industry.

2) Medical innovation will dry up. The reason why we spend so much on healthcare, one reason, is that we pay for innovation. ALl the new machines? We pay for them, and they are spread throughout the world. All the new drugs? Ditto. If reimbursables slide, there will not be as much incentive to innovate here. This is not totally true, espcially for big companies like GE or Siemens, with big insturments, or big drug cos. However by and large it takes so much work to get by the FDA, it's hard to get approved everywhere. So you get approved here first, then take your product global if it's profitable. Also, there is a huge industry in small biotech here in the U.S., in the end funded by the expectation of profits from patient care. Well, if medicine is socialized, then what would happen?

Anyway those are my thoughts. I think we do need to do something; costs are getting ridiculous. Maybe the pace of innovation should decrease. Maybe we should stop spending billions to get one drug to market (then have to recoop those billions in a ten year period). By and large, however, the main problem is people expect free healthcare to be free. I just can't see the govt doing something better than a free market. I'd love to be proven wrong though.