The GEARS Lab

The other main reason why I haven't blogged as much as when I started nor as much as I've wanted is because the GEARS lab has had unchecked growth and has turned into (at times) an unwieldy monster. Over 2 years ago, I wrote a post about the difference between 18 & 27 which can be summed up as: You might as well dive into the tenure track position because you're not going to be successful by being timid. In hindsight, I cannot tell if that is bad advice or good advice, but I can tell you it really sucks at times. I think when I wrote that post I was having delusions of grandeur where I would go 5 for 5 on the 4 DoD YIPs and the NSF CAREER and demonstrate to the world my awesomeness. Fast forward 2 years and 0 for 5 later, my awesomeness has clearly been overlooked by program managers and reviewers. That's not to say I haven't had success with funding. I'm actually closing in on 7 figures of externally funded research as PI or coPI, which I think is a good pace to be on. I just don't know how the hell I'm going to sustain it without getting a bigger award.

The GEARS lab currently has 10 graduate students, a handful of undergrads, and I'm an informal faculty advisor to about 7-8 other students, which has left me strapped for time to get all of the other things I need to do done. Because I have been successful on the funding front, I've picked up twice as many students than in my original plan, which is basically like grabbing the tail of a lion. You can only hope to hang on at times, let alone corral it. I mentioned advising 10 students to some faculty at UGU, and their response can be summarized as "what the hell are you thinking?!?".

The good news is that I have a nice mix of students from three different departments that are all hardworking, dedicated, intelligent individuals. Most are either writing their first first-author paper or waiting to hear back from reviewers (fingers crossed). That's pretty awesome. I also have some good undergraduates that I think should be able to write a patent on their work and then submit a paper on it. That too has been pretty cool. We've had a couple of patent applications and invention disclosures too, which I think has been some pretty good output so far. And probably the best thing, at least individually for me is that my book was finally published and I have received a copy in print. I've even had a random cold-call question from someone who has actually bought it and read it.

Basically I've been spending 10-12 hours a day, sometimes 6-7 days a week on [trying to] maintain this for a while. It is pretty daunting, frustrating, and mentally taxing but does have its moments when it is all worth it. Now, I haven't had one of those in a while, so I think I'm in a funk right now, but I'll save that for the topic of another post.

So... I've been unmasked

And that unmasking was in spectacular fashion, might I add. Some of you may have caught the tweet, which was poorly phrased but I think got the point across. We have a tradition of a student-faculty roast where the students get a chance to poke fun at the faculty. Well, the students decided it would be hilarious (and it was) to recite all of my tweets, especially the ones about me drinking and writing proposals, or me drinking and grading papers, or me drinking and working on lecture notes. I'm pretty sure the rest of the faculty either thinks that I'm an alcoholic or well on my way to being one.

It turns out that the students found out about my blog almost immediately upon my arrival to SnowU and they all had the intelligence to resort to blog/twitter stalking me without actually following me. The fact that they held off for two years was pretty impressive. But now that I've been unmasked, I've been hesitant to blog more. So this brings up the question: How does a tenure track faculty member express their thoughts/musings/opinions about their current position, but not in the manner to upset their colleagues?

I've been mulling over this question for some time now, hence my reluctance to blog. The pile of work I have to do isn't helping either, but I digress. I know of a couple of  people that blog under psueds and they have managed to keep things under wrap decently well. I guess it is quite timely that I attended a seminar today on Big Data and how all sorts of public repositories for pictures can be used to mine just about everything about a person so I shouldn't be shocked to find out some undergraduates discovered my blog.

I guess going forward I'll have to walk a finer line about what I post and don't post, as well as the type of topics that I broach . For posterity's sake, I'll state again that the opinions expressed here are those of my own and not SnowU, and I'll stay away from singling out individual students and faculty, or particular one-off events.  

I've found the perfect cutoff filter!!!

I had an epiphany the other day. I've realized that I have discovered one of the holy grails of engineering and it has been right under my nose for a while. I've found the perfect cutoff filter!!!  It turns out that cutoff filter is Nanogears! No matter how much energy I have going into her bedtime, I have no energy left when I walk downstairs after tucking her in. Lately, her bedtime also involves her getting up out of bed a few times for a drink, blowing her nose, her Teddy is missing, just because, or a myriad of other reasons that a 3 year old can conjure up. (I think my favorite is when she is yawning and rubbing her eyes while emphatically telling me she is not tired.)

Actually, that's kinda sad too. Even on the nights when DrWife and I go through the normal routine without a hiccup and she stays in bed, I still end up with no energy when I get downstairs. I'm not really sure if I know why. The only thing I want to do then is veg on the couch. (Somehow this relates to the tenure track. Don't worry, I'll get there shortly.) Below is a chart of my typical energy level throughout the day. Basically, if it is before 8 AM, I am ridiculously efficient and have a ton of energy. But after that, my energy level just plateaus until Nanogears' bedtime where it falls off a cliff. 

When you're on the tenure track, there's always something you should be doing. For instance, right now I should proofreading any of the 3 papers sitting on my desk, submitting invention disclosure forms, or working on at least one of the two NSF proposals due next week. But I don't have the energy to do any of that. I would rather get up at 4 AM and start working then than stay up late and get next to nothing done. I guess in that regard, I'm a morning person (obviously). 

I routinely get emails late into the night from my fellow faculty members. I'm pretty sure I've traded emails with another faculty member who was just finishing their night at around 4:30 AM while I was just getting started on the next day at that time. But at the same time, I know other faculty members that do the same thing that I do: get up early and get some work done before everyone else in the house is up. 

Is this the norm for other professions? I'm not too sure about that. Some of the industry folks I work with are night owls while others are morning folk.

The odd thing about this is I have no problem staying up late into the night. Most nights I don't end up doing that simply because I get up early in the morning. But there are times when I've woken up at 4 AM, did a whole day of work, and then had to take a long drive for a family trip where we drive well past midnight. And I end up fine the next day. Nanogears gets up at 6:30 or so, and I'm basically no worse off than normal. 

So what do you think is the norm for faculty? Stay up late or get an early start on the day? Which do you prefer?

Hi Internet! Long time... did you miss me?!!?!

No, seriously... Did you miss me? If you didn't, that would make me very sad. Ok, enough pitying (for now). Actually, I'm the one that feels kinda sad because it has been over a year since the last time I blogged and frankly, I miss it.

If my absence of blogging wasn't proof enough, the tenure track is hard, time consuming, and at times, very frustrating. I started this blog after I accepted the tenure track position at SnowU and then kept up with posting during my first year. Year Two, I basically fell off a cliff in terms of work load and I'm only now beginning to climb back on to level footing. I still have bitten off more than I can chew and still cannot say "no", but I do feel like blogging gives me a form of release that I missed during Year Two.

Year Three has started and it's been a hectic start to say the least. I've decided to teach my undergraduate lab class and my graduate class during same semester. This gives me an overload on teaching now but will hopefully give me more time during the spring semester to get more real research done. Also, last year at our Faculty Roast, GEARS was outed in a very public (albeit funny) forum. I didn't really expect that no one would be able to find out who I actually was, although apparently most of the students were twitter-stalking me without following me for at least a year so I wouldn't know that they knew. (Hi Students!) I'll have to be a little more cagey about what I say but that's not a big deal.

I'll share some more details and recap Year Two in the coming weeks.

New versus Junior

DrWife said something very interesting to me, which I thought warranted a blog post. First, some background. 

Yesterday, I was part of a large planning meeting involving multiple universities on a research consortium where I am the greenest person in the room. Unlike most junior (emphasis will make sense shortly), when I'm asked to be part of a meeting, I actively participate, give feedback, ask questions, etc. I really dislike just sitting in the corner, acting like another n00b prof, where its seems like I'm either too timid to join in or too worried about pissing people off while I'm untenured. I figure that if I'm asked to be a part of a meeting, then expect me to be participating in that meeting. Otherwise, it's a waste of everyone's time.

The problem with this philosophy is that I have a tendency to either 1) get dragged into tangential arguments, 2) end up putting my foot in my mouth, or 3) get "worked up" where I can't let things go. (Number 3 I know is going to be my downfall in the future unless I can get a handle on that.)

Well, in the course of the meeting, I did overstate a few things and realized that I was going down a path that was going to get me kicked out of the consortium, regardless of whether my point was correct or not. 

Later in the evening, I was filling in DrWife on the details and she said something that was pretty profound, at least to me. "Remember, you're the most junior person in the room by a long shot. It's not like me at my SuperAwesomeSauce Company. At SuperAwesomeSauce Company, I may be a new employee, but I'm not a junior employee. Academia is still a hierarchy. You may be part of the faculty, but you're junior faculty." (emphasis is mine)

Her statement really hit home, hence my post on it today. I'm not sure what do or say, if anything, about it. I feel like I am a contributing member on both of my faculties and I feel like I'm doing all of the things that a faculty member should do (research, teach, service). But I'm a junior faculty member as opposed to a new faculty member....