Stu One's main strengths are his talent and his technical prowess. He is very smart, pedantic in his work, loves theoretical physics as well as numerics, so he is equally good at both the pen-and-paper and the coding parts of the work, and he thinks extremely deeply about the problems at hand. The work that he has done in my group would not have been doable by almost any other among my current crop of students, except maybe one. So, on purely technical merit, I would rank him somewhere above the 95th percentile when I compare him to all the other graduate students at various institutions whom I know enough to judge their technical prowess.
Now, the areas that need improvement are quite important; they probably weren't nearly as important some 30-40 years ago, but times have changed. Stu One's spoken and written English (grammar, vocabulary) are both very good (he's an international student), but his writing and presentations make me want to pull my hair out. He writes very dry text, with no concern for the reader; whatever is in his head gets on the paper. He may have spent many months distilling a technical insight and he doesn't seem to realize that no one who reads the material or hears the presentation has spent quite as much time on quite the same minutiae and thus cannot trivially understand where certain conclusions come from. People need to be told what it is you are doing, and why, and how. Repeatedly. We have had several papers together and they were all very difficult to edit and he was very resistant to changing the text. Also, it takes him foreeeeever to produce a draft. Taking long would not be an issue in and of itself if the draft were in tip-top shape, but it's not. You can either take a short time for a rough draft or a long time for a polished draft. Not forever for a very, very rough draft.
Similar issues arise when he gives presentations. When I argued that something was unclear and needed to be made clearer, instead of making a correction he would proceed to argue why in fact it was supposed to be clear in the original form. Quite exhausting. His fairly poor time management skills, routinely leaving his work on the slides till the last minute and then giving talks essentially without preparation, do not help the presentation. All my other students would be ready for a dry run a week prior to a conference, he would show with a uselessly rough outline of a presentation, which obviously irritated me and didn't look good in front of the other students. He was under the impression that he gave bad talks and that there was nothing he could do about it; I said bullshit, that giving talks is not an immutable quality, that he simply needed to give himself more time to prepare slides and practice, and that he could become as good at presenting as he wanted to be. I tried different things to get him to manage his time better, such as setting special multiple dry runs for him so I would force him to go through the final product before prime time, and by the end he became better... I think the issue is that he still does not believe writing (well and fast) and presenting (well and engagingly) are as important as I know they are if he is to get a faculty position .
On the other hand, we have Stu Two. Stu Two is a good friend of Stu One and originally wanted to be a faculty member, but has changed his mind because he feels he is not nearly as good as Stu One. He is right to a point -- Stu Two is a very good student, smart, hard-working, and has been working on an interesting project, making good progress. I don't think there is anything wrong with Stu Two's talent or abilities. He is one of the group's top performers. He just seems not to be quite as brilliant as Stu One, but I would rank Stu Two still near the top of the crop, maybe 80th percentile in technical ability, maybe higher. He's pedantic in his work, and good at both math and coding.
Stu Two, however, has wonderful communication skills. He's also an international student (same as Stu One) and his spoken and written English are both very good. But, in contrast to Stu One, Stu Two makes wonderful, visually appealing presentations. Not only are the figures and the overall color-schemes etc very tastefully chosen, he naturally has a knack for organizing the talk so that it flows, the audience is aware of why things were done and how, as well as what is new and important. He clearly spends enough time on his presentations and there is not too much intervention I need to do on his presentations after dry runs.
He is similarly talented when it comes to writing. He writes fluid prose and writes fast, so he produces very good drafts very quickly and doesn't seem as tortured by this predicament as Stu One. As a result, Stu Two will probably have quite a few more papers than Stu One by the time he's done with his PhD, because everything in the writing process moves along just so much faster and with less frustration (for everyone involved) than with Stu One.
In summary, Stu One is technically brilliant, but does not write well or fast, and does not give particularly good presentations, both of which he could potentially rectify with effort, practice, and most importantly -- some attitude adjustment. Stu Two is technically very solid but not quite the caliber of Stu One; however, he is a gifted writer and presenter, doing both fast and very effectively. So Stu One has outstanding technical skills, but poor "soft" skills, which he could work on. Stu Two has very good/excellent technical skills, which he could also improve, and outstanding "soft skills".
Both students are perfectly aware that, in addition to a strong record and pedigree, there is a great deal of luck involved in landing a faculty position, and they are both more than ready and able to go to industry instead. But here are two hypothetical questions for the blogosphere:
31 comments:
It sounds like Stu One would be ideal for an industry research lab. If he cannot communicate, and doesn't wish to learn how to, academics is not for him. He's wasting his time.
It is sad, but true that Stu2 has a better shot at TT position. What science need is Stu1 kind of people which can solve science problem. Many of the great scientist from previous century were of this kind (I just finished reading Dirac's biography), but those people can not make it to the academia in today's world.
Wow- I sincerely hope these poll results are not being skewed by a spammer/whishful thinking, since I think I fall closer to Stu Two's skill set than Stu One.
I don't think it is sad at all that Stu2 has a better shot - successful people need to communicate, and successful professors even more so. I certainly wouldn't want to take a class from or fund the research of someone who doesn't give a shit about actually publishing that research. Technical brilliance locked away in somebody's head doesn't do anyone else any good.
Stu One is so much like my husband, trapped in a senior post-doc. Stu two is more like myself, a tenured prof at a teaching-intensive university.
Echoing what PUI said -- Stu One sounds like a perpetual postdoc/research scientist in academia, or a staff scientist in a national or industrial lab. He can only continue to do science if someone else takes care of everything but science -- i.e. someone else ensures that there's money for paper and toner and computers and the chair and the desk and his salary and travel etc.
Today's PIs at research institutions run small businesses. They are supposed to single-handedly ensure the financial stability of their programs and the success of many people. One successful Stu Two can support multiple Stu Ones (students and postdocs), one Stu One is good for no one but himself.
I totally agree with Anonymous at 11.34. Stu One needs to be in a position where his technical skills are highly utilized but where someone else (PI or collaborator) can decipher his work and and write brilliant papers and give understandable presentations. I think they would make a great team together since Stu Two though not as brilliant would be able to present Stu One's work to the wider world. (I picture Stu one as a machine chugging out data and Stu Two sifting through and thoughtfully organzing it)
"Technical brilliance" has little to do with becoming a professor and succeeding at running a research laboratory. Frankly, "brilliance" is way overrated in all professions. There are a number of other character/personality traits that greatly outweigh "brilliance" in predicting the productivity of a scientist, physician, author, lawyer, musician, businessdouche, journalist, athlete, etc.
CPP, could you give us a list of ten most important traits for success in academia, in decreasing order of importance, according to your experience? Assuming we are talking research-intensive institutions. Thanks!
(1) Multitasking
(2) Persistence and sustained effort
(3) Depth of literature knowledge
(4) Fast effective writing
(5) Fast effective reading
(6) Listening skills
(7) Empathy
(8) Focus and concentration
(9) Attention to detail
(10) Organization (calendaring, listmaking, task scheduling, etc)
(These are not in order of importance.)
There are definitely many traits that are important besides just "brilliance," but I'd say natural talent is still important. If I trained as hard as humanly possible I don't think I'd be a good sprinter; I don't have the natural ability to do that.
I think the problem is that "brilliant" and "talented" people sometimes have their egos inflated too much, to a point that they just think they are above all the other skills needed, and believe they are invincible. I know a lot of "talented" people who never learned persistence and how to deal with failure because they were always top in everything, but these traits are super important to success in any career path.
CPP: All your listing is actually a trait for a successful manager. No wonder this society pays maximum to managers and CEO and want to see them everywhere, even in science. You can run a small business with these traits what PIs are doing, but you can not come with ground breaking discoveries using this method.
The most interesting thing about this article is that...
1. Stu One is pursuing a career in academia and the poll results suggest that Stu One will not be successful as a PI.
2. Stu Two is not pursuing a career in academia and most people feel that Stu Two would be a great PI.
Why is it that my department is full of Stu One professors and researchers?
Why do all of the Stu Twos leave?
While I do kind of lament that faculty are asked to be managers and fundraisers rather than scholars, much of CPP's list is also important for being a good teacher, mentor, or coach. Even if I were evaluated solely on the intellectual growth of students in my classes and research group (a very pure approach to work in an educational institution) I would still need to juggle the multiple projects and students and classes, master a lot of information quickly, produce written documents to disseminate and synthesize information, and pay attention to people and details.
CPP: All your listing is actually a trait for a successful manager. No wonder this society pays maximum to managers and CEO and want to see them everywhere, even in science. You can run a small business with these traits what PIs are doing, but you can not come with ground breaking discoveries using this method.
You are fucken delusional. Groundbreaking discoveries in the experimental sciences can only occur in the favorable contexts created by effective management. Put a "brilliant genius" in a shittily managed environment, and they will be unable to make "ground-breaking discoveries".
This is one of the things that staggers me the most about delusional "kill all the managers" fuckewittes. Who the fucken fucke do you think is gonna keep the goddamn fucken lights on for the "brilliant" snowflakes to make "ground-breaking discoveries" if you kill all the managers?????
I'd actually like to see how long it would take the "brilliant" snowflakes to melt into helpless puddles if all the managers, administrators, etc, that either lead or serve the scientific enterprise went "Galt". I'm guessing about five minutes.
Being an effective PI is all about creating a physical and intellectual environment in which "brilliant" young scientists can do "ground breaking" research. That is what the job is!
CPP: No doubt you need effective managers to create the atmosphere for doing science. Just don't call them scientist. You need both, brilliant scientists and managers, for creating a good science. In current atmosphere, all you have are managers and their support system, but the real people who do the science can not survive the game.
Who says PI's are not scientists? The point is that you must have these managerial qualities -- or develop them, and fast -- if you want to be a successful independent faculty member. There is certainly a minimal threshold for "brilliance" or talent or whatever you want to call it, which is necessary for success and which many PhD students easily clear (both Stu One and Stu Two appear to be above the threshold). In other words -- sure, you have to be smart/talented enough. But from there on, it's all about these other skills; if you don't have them, you will only ever be a good cog in the execution of a small part of someone else's vision. If you have them, you get to be independent and work with many smart young people. The best people are brilliant AND have excellent skills that CPP lists. The very good PIs are very smart and still have excellent skills that CPP lists. In contrast, many perpetual postdocs have only technical strengths, and will never be independent because they never developed some (or all) of the critical skills on CPP's list.
If this means that PI's are not "real scientists" whereas a perpetual postdoc is a "real scientist" than thankyouverymuch, I don't care to be called a scientist. I am fine being called a manager.
@Anon 9:37:
The most interesting thing about this article is that...
1. Stu One is pursuing a career in academia and the poll results suggest that Stu One will not be successful as a PI.
2. Stu Two is not pursuing a career in academia and most people feel that Stu Two would be a great PI.
Why is it that my department is full of Stu One professors and researchers?
Why do all of the Stu Twos leave?
Anon, I don't think your department is full of Stu One's. Even the best academic departments have only a handful of truly brilliant people, the rest are simply very solid, smart, and successful.
I think the results of this poll show, more than anything else, that most people view themselves as Stu Two -- it's easy to assess how much we work, it's not easy to assess if we are actually brilliant. I think most successful PIs would say they are smart but that they have met smarter people than themselves, so they could not possibly be that brilliant. "Impostor syndrome" anyone? Also, Stu One may be brilliant, but he was depicted as pigheaded and misguided -- most people don't want to identify with him. Especially in the US culture, where the prevalent attitude is that with hard work you can do nearly everything, a successful hard-working person will likely underestimate the effect of their own talent. Also, they may overestimate the talent of others (as you seem to be doing in your comment) because they are not actually aware how much the other person actually works.
I will say this again, because it bears repeating. Maybe "brilliance" matters in hard-core theoretical sciences where lone scientists think really, really hard and thereby come up with major new advances. In the experimental sciences, "brilliance" is not among the most important character traits for making major important advances. In my experience, the people who spend time dissecting who among their colleagues is "brilliant" and who isn't and criticizing highly successful scientists who have participated in the making of important advances as "not really that smart" tend to be ineffectual disgruntled losers who can't figure out why their own "brilliance" hasn't been rewarded.
"If this means that PI's are not "real scientists" whereas a perpetual postdoc is a "real scientist" than thankyouverymuch, I don't care to be called a scientist. I am fine being called a manager."
Tell me if you would not have a feeling of satisfaction if you could do some of the work your post-doc is doing by your hand. My question is why the system have to deprive scientist from doing work thye are trained for and push them for only managing. Those factories with many people in the group are not about science at all. They are about money and big egos and there can be no ground breaking discoveries coming out of them.
Nobody makes groundbreaking discoveries in vacuum. Even the lone theorist better be able to talk to peers to distill/improve the brilliant but raw ideas and they better be able to write these ideas up in a coherent fashion, so they don't get kicked out of prestigious journals as gibberish.
I admit, I sometimes envy my grad students in the trenches because they are able to do the nitty-gritty work. But most of the time I don't. Being a professor/PI enables me to be involved in many more projects than I would be able to do on my own. Much more science is getting done that benefits from my expertise, experience, and vision/ideas than I would ever be able to pull off alone. And working with smart young people is very enjoyable. No, it's not an ego trip -- it's about an efficient way to do more science than one person could possibly do by themselves and it's about training young people along the way. The senior person who has the big picture and the most experience also gets to ensure the young people have what they need -- in terms of resources and advising -- in order to succeed. That's the job description, as CPP said above. I don't understand why being closely involved in the design, analysis, and writing up of many different projects means you are no longer a scientist. Science does not equal gathering data, it's much more than that.
Those factories with many people in the group are not about science at all. They are about money and big egos and there can be no ground breaking discoveries coming out of them.
You (assuming that this is the same anonymous) continue to be fucken delusional. Go look up the science Nobel prizes for the last ten years, and come back and tell us how big the labs were that the Nobel discoveries were made in when they were made.
Again GMP: Would you not enjoy if you would not have to worry about paying yourself and your team and in some way university would take care of it and you would write grants only to gte money for your research and spend your energy in thinking about science. This model has been working in Europe, Canada and Australia.
CPP: In my field, most of the Nobel prizes are from small labs, people doing ground breaking work with a small group of dedicated people and they are from Europe.
Again GMP: Would you not enjoy if you would not have to worry about paying yourself and your team and in some way university would take care of it and you would write grants only to gte money for your research and spend your energy in thinking about science. This model has been working in Europe, Canada and Australia.
CPP: In my field, most of the Nobel prizes are from small labs, people doing ground breaking work with a small group of dedicated people and they are from Europe.
My question is when the professors whose job was to find a new knowledge and mentor students became a manager controlling lives and money. Why they accepted such trade and rat race?
Again GMP: Would you not enjoy if you would not have to worry about paying yourself and your team and in some way university would take care of it and you would write grants only to gte money for your research and spend your energy in thinking about science. This model has been working in Europe, Canada and Australia.
Anon, sure, that would be nice -- someone else shelling out the money while I can devote myself to research with my students. But wishing doesn't make it so. That's simply not how the science in the US is funded these days, and successful people have adapted to this reality. I don't know about the funding system in Australia, but in my understanding you certainly apply for grant funding in Europe and Canada. Based on the massive amount of European grant proposals that I get to review, they have been increasingly moving to grant-based national or EU-wide funding for science (as opposed to internal/university funding that you speak of). I encourage European, Canadian, and Australian readers can chime in here with more details on how funding works and what is covered by internal funds versus external grants.
Even if faculty didn't have to raise money, and even if they ran small groups, their jobs would still look fairly managerial. If you're advising multiple trainees (from undergrads to postdocs) that means multiple main projects. That means multiple side projects (every good trainee has one, and if I have time to work on science "in the trenches" then I have one too). That means at least one exploratory project that might or might not become a future direction. That means monitoring the progress of multiple people, following the relevant literature, critiquing data and presentations, looking for new directions on multiple projects, etc.
In utopia it would be a less money-oriented job, but it would still be a managerial job.
And I say this as a theoretician who mostly works with undergrads.
This model has been working in Europe, Canada and Australia.
Well, not, not really, not here in Europe (and when I say Europe, I have personal experience in several countries and friends in others). The only thing that is perhaps different is that there is no tenure and that academic positions are permanent from the start (equivalent to TT track), but if you want to get postdocs, phd students and any kind of other help (technicians, research admins, etc.) you need grants. All of these positions are soft money and when you submit grants, up to 70% of your own time can also be charged to grants (depending on granting agency).
I'm an Australian physicist and I can tell you we certainly spend lots of time apply for grants down here! (I'd also be very happy for that to change and someone to give me large piles of cash.)
Also, the LHC finding the Higgs seems in marked contrast to claim that big labs don't make important discoveries. CERN's was pretty big last time I visited.
I think Stu2 is likely to succeed as (s)he seems to demonstrate a better understanding of the big picture. Once you're a PI your technical brilliance (in carrying out experiments or calculations) is irrelevant as you don't have time to do them. What matters is the quality your ideas and this is often (though not always) linked closely with the ability to write and speak clearly.
Being in the 95th percentile isn't enough to get by on "brilliance" alone. You need to be a Dirac or a Wilson or a von Kiltzing - i.e., well into the top of the 100th percentile. (Or is 99th the best percentile?)
Anon at August 27, 2012 11:40 AM: " This model has been working in Europe, Canada and Australia."
Muhahahahahahhahah. As an academic researcher in one of these places you mentioned here, let me assure you Anon that you are living in a pure fantasy land. Just like the US (I know because I was trained in the US and still have close ties), the universities do not provide research funding to support your postgrads and postdocs. In fact, the startup research support is typically a fraction of what is considered standard in the US. So how do we support the people who are needed to get the research done? Write grants and more, of course.
I am not sure if you are in any of these countries that you mentioned, but if I have to hazard a guess then I think you are in the US and looking at these countries and imagining a relaxed research culture well supported by the universities. This picture is far from true.
Another pet peeve of mine when I hear from US collaborators is typically "oh you have such an easy life, no pressure, looks at the success rates of your funding agencies, upper twenties, so nice." While the situation at where I am is nowhere as intense as US, people often fail to realize that large success rates in funding agencies can be disingenuous. Example, our main funding agency (equivalent of say NSF) places a limit on maximum grants one can have and can apply for at any point. So if you already have one, you can only apply for one grant a year in the hope that you will manage to get it. Plus, there are fewer sources of funding than the US.
Finally on that point Anon, if you really are working at a place where the university is supporting all the postgrad students and postdocs you need for your research, then I wanna know how you got your gig. That would be lovely and I want one too. And also, if you could tell us how you managed to achieve that just by being a brilliant scientist, that'd be great!
First let me say I left academia while still a grad student, so I don't know much about what it takes to get a TT job.
But the qualities you mention for Stu 2 are WAY more desirable for working in a tech company as well. People would certainly trade a little bit of "brilliance" for someone who actually gets the work done in a timely fashion and can communicate. (And it's not like you're saying Stu 2 is stupid.)
The other thing this made me think of was a Malcom Gladwell essay about job interviews. The decision isn't made in the interview so much as in that split second after you meet someone and decide if you "like" them or not. Everything else that comes later is just justification of that decision. My guess is Stu 2 has a much better chance of this happening.
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