Here are some personal profiles of the wonderful speakers in this session. Get to know them on this blog and then take some time to speak with them on their topics.
Speakers:
Elizabeth Mynatt Ga Tech
Erika Poole Penn State
Jane Prey Microsoft Research
Beth
Industry first then Academic. Researcher by day, toothfairy by night. Professor in Interactive computing, previous research staff member at Xerox PARC, Mom, Wife, Daughter.
My favorite point of Beth’s was that you need to have an “insecurity buddy” there needs to be at least one person in your life that you can go to and say “I’m having one of those days”. I feel that this is one of the most important things being a PhD Student or a student in general. If you don’t have that one person your insecurities seep into your professional life and this is not ok. With this person you should be able to tell them your irrational fears and they can help you through them. Then when the time comes you can do the same for them.
Erika
One month out of graduate school is now teaching. talked about things you shouldnt do in graduate school, she’s done all of them feel free to chat with her later. New professor she is looking for students technologies that are used by families.
The point that Erika made about keeping a list of ALL of your hair brained ideas really spoke to me. With these online communities and blogs you should make a private list maybe a google doc and put in it all of your good and bad ideas. Along with them put some dates. This list you should keep forever and in a few years go back to it and you will see all of these disconnected dots that you can now connect into a coherent idea. We have no idea how smart we are and when we have the global view it changes our perspectives on ideas from the past. Plus you will not remember it if you don’t write it down, so give it a try!
Jane
Academic first then went to industry. “Still deciding what she wants to do when she wants to grow up” this is why she did both research and industry. Mom with grown kids (she beat the whip hard enough and so her three kids are in tech 🙂 ) she’s on a year to year contract with her husband 🙂 and she is also a daughter (sandwich generation).