June 2006

Random Thoughts

June 5, 2006 22:51

I am a paradox.

This is my 17th year of school. It will take me 20 to finish school.

I scored higher on my verbal than my math for my GREs. The grad school equivalent of the SAT. So I’m an engineer who knows a little something about words but can’t do math.

Oh yes, my thesis is all math. More math than any other student in my department, actually. With lots of computer programming and statistics tossed in to keep life amusing.

I officially moved into Dante’s Inferno nine months ago when I passed my thesis proposal. The lease expires in three years.

My family is proud that I earned my M.S. degree. My colleagues in med school and grad school are more impressed by the 4.0. All I care about is that I made it through fifteen calculus courses.

I work hard for my accomplishments, but I don’t particularly care about being recognized for them. Recognition bores me. I care more about looking at myself in the mirror later on and being able to say that I did the best job I could. My family thinks I have a few screws loose in my head. All that work, they say, and you don’t want people to know?

Come on, when’s the last time the news was about how engineers make the world run?

The secret of my teaching success? It’s the blue jeans. I can teach the exact same material to my undergrads, repeat the same lecture delivered to them by the professor, and they will understand perfectly. Really. It’s all about the blue jeans.

The science of obtaining the Ph.D. is the art of making everything that was once comprehensible impossibly obscure.

I was an excellent teaching assistant. My undergrads loved me. The other grad students thought I was insane, that I would spend so much time teaching. My advisor reprimanded me for being too dedicated. My undergrads are now being paid quite well in industry. That’s right, who will I look to in 3 years when I need a job?

3.7 GPA during the undergrad years. A warm and fuzzy 4.0 in grad. "Summa cum laude” is an honor reserved for the undergrads. Someone had it backwards...

That's right, yours truly. Certainly not the college admin.

Pressure brings out the occasional genius in me. Whenever I don’t have deadlines, my work stagnates. When they surround me from all sides, I am capable of doing wonderful work. But I usually collapse after the third all-nighter. In spades.

I am the only student in my department who will see a baby deer, then spend twenty minutes driving to/from home to get my camera, and return to take a picture of it. My peers live in the world of machines, chemicals, and occasionally drinking games. No room in there for nature appreciation. Or for playing a wonderful instrument in the violin.

Yes, I am quite different from my colleagues. I celebrate my uniqueness. I am me. What a thoroughly philosophical statement from a philosopher-in-training.

It is now 2:30 AM. I’m seriously considering driving back to my empty lab to practice Bach’s Partita III. For the third time in the past week.

Um, wait. I have a meeting with my advisor in about seven hours. And my MIT undergrad probably needs me to show up as well.

Preferably awake.

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Surviving the Ph.D. journey with the violin!

June 4, 2006 00:48

Hello all =)

I started playing the violin when I was 11 and, 14 years later, still look to it as my ever-present friend. None of my other friends have ever been able to accomplish this feat. Although, to be fair, none of my other friends have resided in my room/apartment 24/7 for the past 14 years. And it can be difficult to find a friend willing to talk or be with me at 3:00 AM. They generally follow the socially acceptable behavior of being asleep at this hour (as they should!). For this 4th-year Ph.D. student, 3:00 usually means I'm debugging my thousand-line computer programs. And just when I'm ready to go look for a hammer, I see my violin and wisely decide to start burning off energy on it. So, for another night, my computer's life is spared.

So, I spent my childhood in Texas, attended Texas A&M for two years before getting my B.S. in chemical engineering (2001), and then worked for ChevronTexaco in New Orleans immediately after. In September 2003, I moved cross-country to start Ph.D. work at Rutgers University in New Jersey. The free way to earning a M.S., though at at a heavy price. 5 years is a long time and there's a reason why so few people pursue the doctorate. Who wants to still be in school after 25?

It's a long, mostly frustrating journey, and chances are that most people (read: friends, family, people at random social events) won't be able to understand even the fundamentals of what one's thesis work is based on. It's a lonely journey. At the same time, the promise of additional job security is alluring. At 20, I was earning just under 60K working for ChevronTexaco. At 27, with the Ph.D., it will be $65-80K.

When I was 18, I was told that it took exceptional talent to be a professional violinist who could command salaries competitive with what I eventually earned as a process engineer. Somehow I doubt I could have earned this much at my respective ages of 20 and 27...Does anyone know what the average salary is for a prof. musician? Is it a realistic scenario for a professional violinist to command a salary in the $50-80K range while still in their 20s?

Seven years later, I don't regret my decision to pursue chemical engineering instead of music. I of course kept my violin, practiced whenever I could, and learned new music styles as my life took me to New Orleans and New Jersey. Both Cajun and Irish fiddling are very enjoyable ways to spend an hour, though it's really quite an interesting experience to play a Baroque, Romantic, and fiddling piece without any breaks in between.

Example: Earlier this evening, I tried the Vivaldi A Minor (Suzuki 4), Perpetuo Mobile, Accolay A Minor (Solos for Young Violinists, 3), and a Cajun fiddling piece J'Ete au Bal (I Went to the Dance). Three styles of music, same instrument, same bow. One of the best practices I've had in a long time =)

Technically, I'm able to play pieces at the Suzuki 7 and Barber 3 level. I'm guessing that the technical aptitude varies among all the bloggers here, so hopefully my own technical competency falls somewhere within this range - it certainly would be nice to meet a community of other violinists with whom I don't feel completely outclassed in ability, even though I might not fall under the usual categories of the people posting (e.g. high school, music major, professional violinist, teacher).

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June 2006

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