If the lack of blogging is proportional to the amount of shit I have to rant about, then this term must have gone by pretty smoothly. I hardly made any entries. I guess that means stuff is moving along as expected....or I just ran out of time to sit and express my feelings....or there were no feelings to express. Who knows really?
Maybe I've just been able to control the stagecoach, get all the ponies in line and have them stop before they went over the cliff. Maybe I've just decided to pick my battles and care less. I dunno.
I do know that I'm starting to re-evaluate this whole idea of university-level teaching. Although I'm a straight shooter, I don't put up with crap, show students the need to think for themselves and get a lot of compliments on my teaching style, I don't think I can put up with the whole atmosphere of teaching.
Don't get me wrong, I love the actual part of teaching, getting up in front of the class, putting on a one-woman-show, showing students how to explore and learn and watching them go through the ah-ha! moment. I think those little light bulb moments are some of the most gratifying things to experience. I love it when students come to me for advice, or help, or whatever. It shows me that they trust me enough to put their lives in my hands. That's a pretty awesome feeling. I'm starting to doubt if I want to be a Prof. for the rest of my life though. Gotta say "Professor Burnett" has a certain ring to it, but I'm not sure if I want to put up with all the "other bullshit" that goes with teaching...like marking, feeling like a robot, feeling drained, whiny students, students fishing for marks, students second-guessing your evaluations...and all the crap that comes with the position. I don't think the light bulb moments and the trust is enough.
I've always learned to take the bad with the good, and to understand that not everything is perfect (except bone :P) and there will always be negatives. But with teaching, I'm starting to feel that the negatives are starting to outweigh the positives. My research is starting to suffer. I'm not behind, but I'm not able to perform at my peak. I don't feel like I've progressed in the last 3 months, mostly because I've been distracted by teaching...and stats, but that's another dragon I'm working on slaying.
I want to stay at a University. I love the atmosphere and the challenges. I love trying something new, maybe failing, maybe falling flat on your face, but most of the time discovering. I love that I'm appreciated in my research group. I'm vital to the success of some of the projects that I'm working on, simply because my knowledge is so specialized...even if I don't totally understand what's going on. I don't think I've had a job where I've felt so appreciated and so essential. I feel valued.
If there were a way to get around the teaching, that would be great. I'm sure a lot of other professors and faculty members would agree with me.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Holy, ignore blogging much Batman!?
Hmmm....I think a "once a month" update is trending here.
At least it's been a busy month. Teaching, puppies, writing about research (or consequently not writing about research), not running, more teaching, marking...and LOTS of meetings.
I had the first "formal" meeting of the term with my supervisor last week, and somehow I had to explain that I had no idea where the last 6 weeks went, and I'm no where near where I want to be. He felt the same about where his last 2 months went as well, so we just shook it off and kept on going. It helps that he's so laid back and lets me "fight out the issues" so I can catch my own footing. I feel like I'm actually learning and accomplishing shit that way.
My side project in Vet Med is going really too. The surgeon I'm working with is putting A LOT of faith and trust in me, mostly because we're working on pretty much a pure materials engineering problem and he has no idea how to interpret the data or make sense of how to set up the experiment. He just wanted to get one paper out of the project, the way we're going, we should be able to get 2 or 3....which would be really cool. It turns out I designed an entire failure analysis, just like I used to do in industry, but because it has yet to be performed on this particular limb, in this particular layout.....I can publish a pretty awesome paper....as first author. Shit, if I can come up with this stuff in after an evening of thought I should maybe consider staying the the Vet Med world and the "token engineer' on an ortho research team.
Speaking of "token engineer", I was a little worried about my Ph.D. - where I would end up, how I'd get funding etc, etc. I'm smart, but not brilliant, so my chances for prestigious scholarships are slim to nil, and if you can bring in your own funding to a Ph.D. program, you can pretty much do whatever you please. Bottom-line, I thought I was going to have to start looking at other research teams and other schools to do the Ph.D. to be eligible for scholarships. Turns out that engineers are hard to come by in surgical and orthopedic research areas and I have some Profs. in Kinesiology "calling dibs" over my expertise, as well as an invitation to continue to work with the Large Animal Surgery team as the "token engineer". I'm really hoping that one of the opportunities will lead to something full-time, but only time will tell I guess. Bottom-line....Opportunities APLENTY! Just keep swimming.
At least it's been a busy month. Teaching, puppies, writing about research (or consequently not writing about research), not running, more teaching, marking...and LOTS of meetings.
I had the first "formal" meeting of the term with my supervisor last week, and somehow I had to explain that I had no idea where the last 6 weeks went, and I'm no where near where I want to be. He felt the same about where his last 2 months went as well, so we just shook it off and kept on going. It helps that he's so laid back and lets me "fight out the issues" so I can catch my own footing. I feel like I'm actually learning and accomplishing shit that way.
My side project in Vet Med is going really too. The surgeon I'm working with is putting A LOT of faith and trust in me, mostly because we're working on pretty much a pure materials engineering problem and he has no idea how to interpret the data or make sense of how to set up the experiment. He just wanted to get one paper out of the project, the way we're going, we should be able to get 2 or 3....which would be really cool. It turns out I designed an entire failure analysis, just like I used to do in industry, but because it has yet to be performed on this particular limb, in this particular layout.....I can publish a pretty awesome paper....as first author. Shit, if I can come up with this stuff in after an evening of thought I should maybe consider staying the the Vet Med world and the "token engineer' on an ortho research team.
Speaking of "token engineer", I was a little worried about my Ph.D. - where I would end up, how I'd get funding etc, etc. I'm smart, but not brilliant, so my chances for prestigious scholarships are slim to nil, and if you can bring in your own funding to a Ph.D. program, you can pretty much do whatever you please. Bottom-line, I thought I was going to have to start looking at other research teams and other schools to do the Ph.D. to be eligible for scholarships. Turns out that engineers are hard to come by in surgical and orthopedic research areas and I have some Profs. in Kinesiology "calling dibs" over my expertise, as well as an invitation to continue to work with the Large Animal Surgery team as the "token engineer". I'm really hoping that one of the opportunities will lead to something full-time, but only time will tell I guess. Bottom-line....Opportunities APLENTY! Just keep swimming.
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