Following your fascinations for a fulfilling future!
How chasing his curiosity fulfilled a 13-year-old’s dream
From the moment I realized the significance of the sequence of events I am about to narrate, I wanted to save this story for my thesis defense speech. As I start the 6th year of my PhD, however, I can’t contain the excitement anymore. When I learned this blog post would be read by hundreds […]
How to train your robot
Cool research is built on a series of rather uncool moments.
It’s late on a Monday night, and as usual, I’m standing in the middle of a large playroom filled with a bunch of pretend tools. There are toy hammers, plastic wrenches, and even a pretend drill, all strewn across racks, tables, and bins. I walk around the room, running a final check to make sure […]
A kind of person, or kind-of a person?
Disentangling identity from work in graduate school
I close my eyes and imagine a world where I am only this: a violinist on a stage, where the music becomes my everything. I often play this way, temporarily blind to the reality that, after my final note fades, I will spend the rest of tonight staring blankly at a blinking terminal cursor. Music […]
Why I left the tech industry for grad school
“Why are you leaving your job?” “Don’t you make enough money?” “Why would you leave a big tech company?” “Are you going for a bigger paycheck? You must be stuck at the same level.” “What?! You said you’re completely leaving the tech industry?” “Oh! PhD? Don’t you already do research at work? Everybody learns at […]
First-year reflection
Is a PhD really for me?
More than once in our career, most of us will find ourselves asking whether we made the right decision. Often, this questioning is triggered by setbacks, “less-than-ideal” circumstances or a mediocre environment. Without a doubt, the majority of graduate students will probably face this kind of uncertainty during our journey (especially for PhDs, as 5 […]
