The importance of stupidity in scientific research

Via PostSecret:

“[R]esearch is immersion in the unknown. We can’t be sure whether we’re asking the right questions or doing the right experiment until we get the answer or the result. … [I]f we don’t feel stupid it means we’re not really trying.“

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Speaking of stupidity, I’m still alive — just recovering from the quarter. I’ll be back to somewhat regular posting before too long. Until then, please talk amongst yourselves.

Signs that it’s time to consider leaving your job

• One day, while working one-on-one with one of your male coworkers, he comments that “you’re so quiet – you’re going to make some man very happy someday.” You politely explain to the coworker that this doesn’t pass as a compliment, but he’ll hear none of it. You assume that his wife nags him a lot. You continue to work with him, but peg him as an ignorant dude with sexist tendencies.

The next day, your male boss makes nearly the exact same comment in the lunch room, with all of your coworkers as witnesses. You give him your best “you’re crazy” look just before the previous day’s quotable coworker says, “That’s exactly what I told her yesterday, and she got mad at me!” The two of them become engaged in a heated discussion about the merits of a quiet wife as you silently munch on your peanut butter and jelly sandwich, occasionally glancing up from the Stephen King book you’re reading. You vow to quit your job if one more person tells you that you’ll make people happy if you keep your mouth shut.

• Two weeks after you start a job, your superior informs you that he or she is not actually licensed to work in his or her profession at the moment. In fact, his or her license has been suspended. You realize that continuing to work in this situation is going to completely dash any hopes you’d had of running for public office.

Then you realize that you never really wanted to run for public office anyway.

• The CFO of the company enjoys sneaking up behind you to play with your hair while you’re trying to work.

Under pressure

These are exciting days here in CaitlinMSE-land, and nothing says “festive” quite like clip art and a post title taken from a Queen & David Bowie duet! Now that the fun of my on-campus interviews has come to a close, I’m staring down three on-site final interviews. Have you seen me lately? Do I look particularly terrified? Yes, I’m not so good at hiding my anxiety, am I? The on-campus interviews, they were becoming old hat, no sweat. Next week I’ll be out of my element on two separate occasions, and that isn’t counting that non-ferrous midterm or ferrous quiz sandwiched between my interview trips. I’m desperately trying to keep everything in perspective, which is difficult to do when you’re treading water in the deep end of engineering. (It’s especially difficult when you’re dealing with the fear that you’re innately a humanities major who just happens to be sporting a colorful engineering candy coating.) My advice to all MSE majors: schedule a very, very light autumn quarter class load your senior year. Also, don’t try to TA three sections of a class four days a week. Otherwise, unless you’re superhuman, you’ll become so stressed by the middle of the quarter that even cheese won’t sound appetizing to you. Cheese! Your favorite!

In an effort to divert my attention from the impending terror of next week, I’ll explain a little about how great Engineering Career Services (ECS) is in helping with the job search. I’ve heard students complain that it’s good only for students looking to stay in Ohio – not true. My interviews are in Texas, Indiana, and…okay, Ohio. A lot of the companies are located all over the country, and yes, a lot of them have branches in Ohio, but many hire for all of their locations. Another benefit of ECS: they bring the interviews to you. I suppose this is hard to appreciate unless you’ve had experience pounding the pavement, hunting for a job. Trust me, not having to drive all over the place for interviews is amazing. And when it comes time for on-site interviews, the companies usually foot the bill for travel. Finally, the staff at ECS is super-helpful when it comes time to make your resume look all buff and toned. Also, if you give the counselors an idea of what you’re looking for job- or internship-wise, they’ll keep an eye out for any special work prospects that come their way and encourage you to pursue those opportunities. The job database is exhaustive, and once you pay your one-time $25 fee, it’s yours to peruse whenever you so choose. You can go hog-wild and apply for any job that’s looking for employees with your credentials, or you can be more selective and just follow the companies in which you have a keen interest. In essence, ECS is well worth the time, effort, and money.

No one can take it away from you

The professor I TA for is a very colorful character and quite quotable. I’m working with him about twenty hours a week this quarter – which will translate into approximately twenty-seven group presentations that I’ll have to watch during the last week of the term (gulp!) – but he keeps things entertaining with his unique wit and the occasional malapropism. I’ve also recently discovered that a good indication of the need for me to cut back on my hours is when the little voice in my head begins to speak with a Hungarian accent like his.

Anyway, here are some words of wisdom that he imparted to the class today:

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you make a mistake, be proud of it. You should be proud of your mistakes. It is your mistake! No one can take it away from you!”

I don’t know about you, but that makes me feel a lot better about all those times I wore my hair crimped back in the ’80s.

How to succeed in school without really trying

Since I’ve been in school for, oh, forever, I thought I’d offer up some words of wisdom in honor of the beginning of the school year. I TA a freshman-level engineering class (hello, past and future students!) and over the last couple of years, there are a few trends I’ve noticed and have tried in my excruciatingly subtle way to bring to an end, to little avail. So now I’ve decided to lay it out there for the entire world to savor.

Don’t talk back to the instructional staff

There’s no faster way to cause your teacher to avoid helping you than talking back to him or her. Perhaps the other TAs and I are a bit passive-aggressive when it comes to this, but seriously, we won’t answer your questions if you’re going to act like an entitled, smart-mouthed brat. Chances are good that your classmates aren’t going to want to put up with your behavior either.

In other words, college is a great time to make friends. Don’t miss out.

Dress and groom appropriately

Ladies, don’t dress for class as if you’re going out clubbing. Especially if you’re giving a presentation in class, cover yourself up. Yes, people will remember you if you don’t cover up, but they will remember you for the wrong reason.

Gentlemen, please shower. Please, please, please. At least every other day, “whether you need it or not.” Don’t walk around the classroom in your bare feet, and please don’t rub your bare feet all over the chair, desk, computer, etc.

Girls and guys, if your pants don’t cover your underwear on their own, please invest in a belt. I don’t want to know everyone’s underwear preference before I know everyone’s name.

To extend this topic to internships, here are some words of advice from my co-op mentor from two summers ago: Dress not for the job you have, but for the job you want to have.

I can’t believe I need to address this

I seem to have this problem only with the guys, so guys, please keep your hands where we can see them when you’re in class. It’s awkward for me to have to yell, “Hand check!” when you call me over to your desk to ask me a question. Also, the disclaimer, “Don’t worry – I’m just tucking in!” doesn’t make things any better. There are restrooms available in every building on campus – please, take advantage of them.

Take responsibility for your own education

Be proactive in class. Ask questions when you really don’t understand something or feel that you’re falling behind in class. Visit your professors in their office hours and come prepared with questions or comments for them regarding the class. I remember that at my freshman orientation session, the professor who spoke advised us not to discount the importance of visiting our professors in their office hours. That’s the primary way an instructor is able to associate your name with your face and the fact that you are intellectually curious (which is always a trait they like to see). Also, professors get lonely during their office hours when no one visits them. Go introduce yourself – and hope that they don’t already know your underwear preference.

High five, emphasis on the “five”

My internship ended on Friday, and I’ve spent the weekend settling in back in Columbus. There are few things I hate more than moving (circus peanuts, centipedes, and the inappropriate use of apostrophes being three of them), but my moving day went pretty smoothly: one hour of strategically loading the car, two hours of driving, and then one hour of hauling my stuff up a couple flights of stairs. I’m still not sure where everything is – being away from my apartment for three months has disoriented me – but I figure that everything will turn up eventually. Or I’ll just end up with three large boxes of raisins in my cupboard…ahem.

The last day of my internship was uneventful. I spent most of the day working with another batch of those marshmallowy pieces I worked with at the beginning of the term. I began to get annoyingly sentimental as the day wore on, all “This is the last time I’ll walk down the blue aisle of the shop floor!” and “That was the last time one of the shop floor guys is going to say something really strange to me!” not to mention, “That’s the last time I’ll hear the guy on the other side of my cube screech ‘CAW! CAW!’ out of nowhere – oh, no, wait a second, he just did it again.” Two Mikes and a Not Mike gave me a going-away present of a story-laden lecture about what I can expect as I embark on my latest career choice. Words of advice from Manager Mike: “Keep your expectations low.” I totally needed to hear those words one day earlier. The incurable optimist in me will be working on that concept.

Last summer, near the end of my internship, I happened to slice my index finger open on the abrasive saw. To be clear, it wasn’t actually the saw that cut me, it was the housing of the saw. I put a little too much weight into the wrench as I tried to pry the nut off the wheel, and the next thing I knew, I was thinking very calmly, “Oh crap, I’m going to need stitches.” I wrapped a wad of paper towels around my finger and applied pressure, trying to subtly elevate my hand above my heart without drawing too much attention to the fact that oh-my-God-my-fingertip-was-going-to-fall-off. Unfortunately, one of my favorite heat treat guys came in then and started chatting with me, and if you’ve ever seen me talk, you know that if I wasn’t allowed to wave my hands around or make any facial expressions, I’d have nothing to say. So there I was, talking with my hands and trying to play it cool, my bloody and mummified left index finger tucked firmly into my left fist, and all the heat treat guy could do was watch my left hand and wonder what I was hiding. Luckily, he didn’t ask any questions (or report me to our militant EHS lady) and instead, left me to contend with my finger. I’m happy to report that my finger didn’t fall off, nor did I require stitches (even though it may have been a good idea – but I’ve been terrified of stitches ever since the whole stitches-up-the-nose incident in grade school), and it took only three months before my fingernail looked normal again. So the moral of this story is: wear gloves when working with machinery. The buffer zone between torn nitrile gloves and missing fingertip is smaller than you think.

It’s a twofer!

Like Buster Keaton, only not

The other day, I was deburring some metal samples on the belt sander at work. I was working with a piece that was fairly small, sanding away at the little metal splinters left from cutting the piece off with an abrasive saw, when suddenly the sample disappeared. I stood staring at the belt sander in disbelief for a moment before it registered in my mind that the sample was not going to loop around on the belt and reappear on the opposite end as if I were in a cartoon, and I finally turned the machine off. I’d never had to plunge into the bowels of the sander before, so I inspected its exterior to figure out just how I was going to open it up. Prying the side of the machine off, I crouched down to get a closer look and was met face-to-face with, and I believe this is the technical term, industrial gunk. Before I realized just how wet and thick the gunk actually was, I stuck my hand in there (gloved, of course – do not discount the importance of wearing gloves around machinery!) and pawed blindly for my sample. This got me nowhere pretty quickly, although I did find a chunk of metal that had probably been marinating in there since 1978. Anyway, I spotted some wide tongue depressor-ish things on the workbench nearby, so I grabbed them and then went at the gunk like I was a grade school nurse checking students’ scalps for lice. After accidentally flipping the sludge on myself, I located my sample and rescued it from the depths of gunkdom. Upon standing up, I smacked the back of my head into some ventilation piping that was coated with industrial fluff. Figuring that I was now sporting a sizable amount of said industrial fluff in my hair, I reached up to scoop it off and caught myself just before I applied a layer of the gunk, which was still coating my gloves, to my hair. Who knows – maybe it would work as a deep conditioner. I don’t want to be the one to find out.

I’m thinking it might be time to start selling tickets to watch me using the cut-off saw and belt sander.

What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate

Sometimes, when one works in an office setting, conflicts arise. Sometimes, people don’t communicate clearly, or frequently, or respectfully, or at all. Sometimes, this makes it very difficult for jobs to get done when and how they need to get done.

Don’t be one of those people.

I suppose one has the right to spend his or her days belching negative chi into the atmosphere. But like the modern-day quest to offset one’s carbon footprint, what about offsetting one’s contribution to the world’s lousy mood? Be kind, people. Be kind.

Only at Ohio State

When people comment on the size of Ohio State and wonder how students get through their time here without being swallowed up by the masses, rather than launch into my recruitment shtick (I used to work in recruitment), I like to tell stories about some unique experiences I’ve had while at OSU. (Quasi-recruitment shtick: While OSU is large, the MSE department is small, which gives it a fun, mostly-non-dysfunctional family dynamic. I’m sure I’ll write something about the adorable MSE family sometime down the road, but for now, I’m going to focus on OSU as a whole.) Here are a few of my favorite stories:

I’ve been up in the (haunted?) tower of Orton Hall twice. As a member of Chimes Junior Class Honorary, part of the induction ceremony involves heading up into the bell tower, signing one’s name in a book, and then playing Carmen Ohio on the chimes. Usually the bells play the standard Westminster Chimes every quarter hour, so hearing Carmen Ohio on repeat for an hour is pretty unusual. I was historian the year that I was part of the outgoing Chimes class, so I kept watch in the tower, taking photos of each new member as they played the chimes (and secretly hoping that the ghost of Edward Orton would appear – it didn’t). At one point there was a lull in the stream of students coming into the tower, so I decided to set the earth reverberating with a rousing rendition of the Peanuts theme, “Linus and Lucy,” as any responsible Vince Guaraldi fan would do. I’m still curious if anyone walking across campus while I played recognized the song and wondered what was going on.

I shook Hillary Clinton’s hand. In February 2008, Sen. Clinton stopped at French Field House for a political rally during her quest for the Democratic presidential nomination. I vaguely remember not having any problem sets to work on that evening, and I’d never been to a political rally before, so I braved the bitterly cold wind and walked over to the field house after work. I managed to get there early enough that I was ushered to the infield, only three rows away from the front of the tiny stage. I stood there reading a book for the few hours while I waited, and then Sen. Clinton finally arrived, with Sen. John Glenn, Gov. Ted Strickland, Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman, and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones in tow. I stood just a few feet away from them, starstruck. At the end of the speeches, all of the politicians made their way down to the floor to move along the ropes, shaking hands and talking with people. The crush of humanity pushing toward the politicians moved me up a row, so I just HAD to stick my hand out. Sen. Clinton took it in hers and, smiling at me, said, “Thank you!” (And then I was snubbed by Sen. Glenn, but I still love him.)

On my way home, I called my parents on my cell phone. “Mom, guess what I just did?”

“I give up.”

“I just shook the hand that beat the crap out of Bill Clinton!”

“No way.”

“Yes way!” I replied. “It sounded like she was working on a cold, too, so if I rub my eyes right now, I could get Hillary Clinton’s cold!”

“DON’T RUB YOUR EYES.”

I salsa-danced with OSU President E. Gordon Gee. I took a social dance class in the autumn of 2007, and President Gee showed up to one of the classes to take part in that evening’s lesson and, more importantly, to mingle with the students. All of the great things that people say about President Gee are completely true – he’s a really enthusiastic person who truly loves his job. Not only that, but HE asked ME to dance. It was almost as if karma was trying to make up for all those middle school dances I spent standing next to the gym bleachers, awkwardly bobbing my head to Smashing Pumpkins. Even though President Gee warned me that he was probably going to step on my feet as we danced, he was a fine salsa partner. And I’m not just saying that so I can get a bow tie cookie.

This is just a sampling of some of my fondest memories of Ohio State. Within each anecdote you’ll find some words of wisdom for the academic careers of prospective students and current students alike: get involved, take some fun classes in addition to your engineering course load…and don’t rub your eyes.

Corrosion can be beautiful

Photo taken along the Xenia to Yellow Springs bike trail.