There are two things about
grad school that I find funny:
People sleeping in public
places - I don't know why I think it's funny when I walk by a certain office in
the IST building and hearing snoring coming out of it in the middle of the
afternoon.But I do.And often times I will run and grab my
officemate and bring her over to hear the snoring too.We both giggle.
People complaining about
deadlines - I had a professor who wanted to move a weekly assignments deadline
from Saturday night to Sunday night.Students
complained that they didn't want to work on assignments on Sundays so they didn't
want to move the deadline. ?
Things I find funny, in general, and use to
keep my sanity:
*NOTE: I would like to note that I wanted to include some video clips of my favorite shows here, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to embed video on this stupid blog site. If anyone can share that process with me, I would appreciate it.
There are two things about grad school that I find funny:
People sleeping in public places - I don't know why I think
it's funny when I walk by a certain office in the IST building and hearing
snoring coming out of it in the middle of the afternoon.But I do.And often times I will run and grab my officemate and bring her over to
hear the snoring too.We both
giggle.
People complaining about deadlines - I had a professor who
wanted to move a weekly assignments deadline from Saturday night to Sunday
night.Students complained that they
didn't want to work on assignments on Sundays so they didn't want to move the
deadline. ?
Things I find funny,
in general, and use to keep my sanity:
There is no doubt that graduate school is different from undergraduate studies. In fact, my advisor told me when I was starting this crazy adventure "You'll like graduate school much more than undergrad, I did... I really enjoyed it." Huh? Seriously... you enjoyed this? I can think of much better things to do with 13 hours on a Sunday than read journal article, after journal article trying desperately to understand how Marxist Philosophy has any relevance to Information Science. But we've all agreed to make this journey, so we mine as well band together, support each other, and "get'r done"!
Based on the three articles we read, here's what I found to be most helpful:
From the article by Ronald Azuma, "So long, and thanks for the Ph.D!" I liked the information on interpersonal relationships. As far as these relationships go I think there are three requirements: smile, play well with others, and do good work. There's no use in being difficult, or fighting the system (barring situations of flagrant abuse of course) just focus on getting your work done well, and don't worry about what everyone else is doing. Alice Domurat Dreger also points this out in her blog post entitled Grad School Survival, where she says "when you suffer some travesty of graduate school....try hard not to act as if your life is over." I also like Dr. Dregers advise on staying out of debt. With the current economic crisis spreading like wild fire around the globe, that's just good advice for anyone, but it's especially true for graduate students. If you'd like more information on getting (or staying) out of debt, I recommend a book by Dave Ramsey called the Total Money Makeover.
He offers common sense advice and basic plan. (If you interested in the book, let me know, I have two copies, I'd be glad to lend.) He also has a daily radio program that is quite entertaining on a local AM station 1390AM WRSC from 2-3pm.
Finally, I have a couple of other books that I have found to be helpful in the last few months. The first is called The Craft of Research.
As an undergraduate, I did not perform any "research" much beyond looking up some references in Wikipedia. Therefore, I struggled without a plan, in my first research project here at Penn State. This book offered some very clear steps for choosing research topics, forming research questions, evaluating sources, and writing. The Craft of Research provided a roadmap that I have found to be essential in my first research endeavor.
The second book that I have found to be useful is called On Writing Well. The
first few chapters of the book provide some basic information on principles and
methods of writing that will make any person a better writer.In addition, I should thank Dr. Isaac Brewer for lending me his very own copies of these two books, until I could get my own.Thanks Indiana Bravo!
I am going to join a reading group based on decision
making.A fellow graduate student
started this group and asked me to join because the topic is in my area of
research interest.Our first meeting is
next Monday at 7pm.We will start by
reading and discussing Gary Klein's Sources of Power and then each week find,
read, and discuss other books and articles on this topic.If anyone reading this blog is interested in
decision making and has the time to dedicate to this group, please feel free to
contact me, we'd love to get as many people involved as possible.
I am very excited about this reading group for a couple of
reasons.First, this gives me a way to
collaboratively explore a topic that I am interested in.Second is for an opportunity to spend time
with senior graduate students.In this
way, I will have the opportunity to learn and interact with people who have
more experience than I.Finally, I'm excited about this group because while
the topic is decision making, each of us has a different context (or field) in which
they are applying decision making.This
will allow for rich discussion that stems from examining a topic from various
points of view.
There are also other groups that I have been a part of in
the past such as:The Penn State
Filipino Association, The Penn State Ballroom Dance Club, and Women in IST
(WIST).I am also looking forward to
checking out some of the other groups that were mentioned in our colloquium discussion
today.
I
have admittedly not given a lot of thought to this topic, but I guess it's
about time to do so.The venues I have
chosen are the venues that most of my research documents have come from... I
think that makes sense, publish in what you've been reading right?So here goes:
This
journal is a technical journal related to Information Security but with a
business flavor to it.It has been
published for 21 years and is aimed at a variety of professional positions from
Organizational Managers, to Security Officers, to Industrial Psychologists.In addition, it strives to satisfy the needs
of both the corporate community as well as the academic community.
I
feel that my research would fit well into this journal because I believe my
research tries to bridge the gap between computer security and business management.I strive to bring the people aspect into the security
field to find effective IT solutions.In
effect, bridging management, security, and psychology just as this journal aims
to do.
Much
like the Computers & Security Journal the Journal publishes article related
to information, security and business management.Specifically focusing on how to use
technology to empower business and create systems that enhance the business
environment.The journal's audience is
practitioners, managers, academics, consultants, and senior executives.
This
journal fits my personal outlook of technology as a tool to drive efficiency.Like my research, it focuses on technology as
a tool used by people to make their work more productive.In addition, the articles are practical and
useful as I hope that my research becomes.
For the description of this
journal article, I borrowed the one they have on their website, it is short and
succinct so I figured I couldn't get it any better than they did.So here it is:
The
American Journal of Psychology (AJP) was founded in 1887 by G. Stanley Hall and
was edited in its early years by Titchener, Boring, and Dallenbach. The Journal has published some
of the most innovative and formative papers in psychology throughout its
history. AJP
explores the science of the mind and behavior, publishing reports of original
research in experimental psychology, theoretical presentations, combined
theoretical and experimental analyses, historical commentaries, and in-depth
reviews of significant books.
As
for why I would want to publish in the AJP, my research interests lie in
understanding the motivation and behavior in humans to better design
technology.In this way, I feel that my
research is simply an application of psychology so by publishing technology
related information in a psychology journal I could begin to bridge the gap
between the two.
For this
blog assignment, I had the great, great pleasure of interviewing my friend, the
one, the only... Phil Ayoub.Phil is a
third year graduate student here at Penn State whose research interest is in
understanding how innovation happens in corporations.This, he considers, is a blend of
organizational management and information science. In a nutshell, Phil studies the evolving
nature of work by looking at five things:People, Management Style, Tools & Technology, Work Tasks, and Work Flow.
Phil began
his academic career at the University of Wisconsin studying Psychology before
coming to Penn State to earn his masters degree in Industrial Engineering. His Penn State experience was so fulfilling,
he decided to join us here in IST and work toward a PhD.Along the way, Phil published some papers mainly
on the topics of Organizational Psychology, Health Care, and Human Factors.In addition, he normally ties to attend 1 to
2 conferences per year.(He prefers the
conferences in exotic locations with large mountains to be climbed nearby ...)
As we sat
outside of Starbuck's yesterday afternoon, Phil summed up his academic outlook with
these three quotes:
"Work hard, play hard"
"If you're not having fun, you
should be empowered to change"
"I don't sit still very well"
We sat and
talked, covered topics of group dynamics, project management, and time
management.He offered tips on studying
with groups for classes and the candidacy exam.And we discussed the importance of playing to your own strengths.
Finally as
we walked back up the hill toward IST, Phil gave me this very important piece
of advice:He said "You can't be afraid
to look stupid in front of the people you trust.Research is iterative, often times the first
time an idea comes out it is stupid, but you work with your peers, your
colleagues, your advisor to refine that idea into brilliance (or a dissertation)."
When
Dave Hall graduated from Penn State with a degree in Astronomy and Astrophysics
in 1976 he planned to begin his career as a professor.Life however had another plan for Dave and he
found himself not working for a university but instead working in the Defense
Industry.Throughout his "defense" days
he held many positions from Research Manager at Computer Science Corporation to
Director of Research and Development at HRB Systems, to Associate Direct of the
Applied Research Lab.Finally, after
almost 20 years, he finally did make it to academia in 2001 with his
appointment in the College of IST.
In
IST, Dave has taught a number of courses which include:
IST 440:
IST Integration
IST 590:
Graduate Seminar
IST 497:
Information Systems Project Management
IST 597: Information Fusion
It was in
my IST440W class during the Fall of 2007 that Dave began to convince me to
pursue a graduate degree.
Although
Dave's academic career did not begin
until 2001 that does not mean that he hasn't been publishing journal articles
and attending conferences since the 70's!His early papers dealt with satellite navigation and then moved on to
project management type papers in the early 80's.By the mid 80's Dave began publishing papers
in the area in which he would later become "the godfather" of... Data
Fusion.In fact, Dave has authored two books in realm of Multisensor Data Fusion:
In addition he has written MULTIPLE
(i.e. too many to count, the man's CV is 24 pages long!) book chapters and
journal publications for Journals such as IEEE and ASME.And as if all this writing doesn't keep Dave
busy enough, he also regularly attends several different Data Fusion
conferences such as:NATO Workshop on Visualizing Network
Information, International Conference on Intelligent
Agent Technology, International Conference on Computational Intelligence for
Homeland Security and Personal Safety, Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and
Ergonomics Society, and National Symposium on Sensor Data Fusion (NSSDF).And let's not forget technical and
professional meetings as well!With all
these conferences, it's obvious why Dave lists "travel" as a hobby.
As
anyone could see from this blog entry, it's clear that Dave Hall is a busy
guy.His vast experience in both the
defense industry and academia is one of the reasons that I choose him to be my
advisor and with all of this travel, you can bet that Dave always has a good
story to tell.
I really enjoyed the presentation given by Dr. Wijekumar in IST 590. Her views on technology for the sake of technology are exactly in line with my thoughts. In fact if you read my entrance essay for graduate school I believe I covered the topic of designing technology without meeting the needs of the users. The difference between Dr. Wijekumar and I is that she has effectively channeled her frustrations into the educational arena whereas I am just still ranting for change.... (save us Obama?)
I also enjoyed her brazen rejection of powerpoint, a strategy I tried to employ two weeks ago in IST 531 but was shot down. I don't know if I would have been able to come up with all the funny stories and I'm pretty sure there is no room for dinosaurus in the Illusion of Control, but I vow to you all, readers of this blog, I will break the dependence upon [foreign] powerpoint.
On a serious note, I hope to be able to look at Dr. Wijekumar research and career path to help guide me to a place where I can really effect change rather than just ranting like a lunatic.
My advisor, Dave Hall, is originally from a tiny little town
in the midwest called Blockton, IW.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockton,_IowaIn fact, if you spend any time with
Dave you will no doubt hear a story or joke about Blockton. He attended the
University of Iowa majoring in Physics and Math, and then went on to complete
his masters degree and PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics here at Penn State.About this time, the Vietnam War came
along.Dave signed up for the US
Air Force and found himself stationed at Buckley Air Force Base working on satellite tracking (yes, satellites were invented back then but imagine programing them with punch cards!).After the Air Force, Dave moved east settling in the Washington D.C.
area where he worked for a few years before returning to Happy Valley.
Back in Happy Valley Dave began working for a local company
called HRB Singer.(Same company that my Dad worked for...hmmm connection?)From HRB, Dave started his own business, then moved to ARL and
finally IST.Here at IST Dave has held many position including the Associate Dean of Research. Currently, he is the
head of the Center for Network-Centric Cognition and Data Fusion (NC2IF).
Dave lives in State College with his wife Beth
and their dog, a boxer/lab mix named Molly.In Dave's spare time he likes to travel, read science
fiction, write stories of his own, and watch his favorite TV shows like South
Park and Big Bang Theory.
I have been lucky enough to have known Dave for some time
now and what I can say about him is that he is friendly, approachable, and
caring.Dave and I have had
conversations about important issues such as my future and fashion.We've talked about pets, cars, and
family as well as the future of intelligence analysis and of course...data
fusion (pictures on cocktail napkins included).As an advisor his
experience in both industry and academia is invaluable and as a friend his
support and sense of humor are treasured.
In my
opinion, IST does not have a flavor because it was built from scratch.What it represents to me is a bridge between the
technical and business side of industry.My father and other worthy engineers from the Defense Industry used to
tell me that it was difficult to get the business people and the technical
people to sit in a room together, let alone communicate.I see IST as Penn State's answer to this
problem, creating "hybrid" people to bridge the business/technical gap in
industry.
Well,
at least that was what I thought undergrad was about.
Now, I
have begun the grad program and I am realizing that IST is more than just a
plug for a hole in industry.I realize now
that IST is a bridge but not just
between business and engineering.It is
a bridge across many fields of study that bring together the waters of people
and information.
My
place in IST is on the people/information sides of the triangle.I am interested in understanding how people
make decisions, what kind of information affects those decisions, and what
kinds of technology could facilitate those decisions.To do this, I will bridge people
(psychology), information, and technology (engineering).
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