[HN Gopher] Things you are allowed to do, academic edition
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Things you are allowed to do, academic edition
Author : Topolomancer
Score : 73 points
Date : 2021-11-18 17:25 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bastian.rieck.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (bastian.rieck.me)
| jarenmf wrote:
| I've had great luck with cold emailing scientists with
| interesting questions or asking for code, I almost always got
| interesting and lengthy answers even from famous scientists in
| the field whom you'd expect to be super busy.
| decsser wrote:
| This is often the case but I would never expect a response. I
| used to work with some PhD CS / MD / IITians / TED speakers.
| By-and-large, top people tend to skew towards celebrity-like
| personalities: bifurcating into highly-socialized or
| misanthropic. Most are highly-socialized as it's academia.
|
| My general rule-set is "impose as least as possible, ask
| something only they would know, and don't waste anyone's time."
| btrettel wrote:
| I recall once that I emailed someone who wrote a paper I liked
| very much congratulating them on the excellent paper. I didn't
| get a response until probably around a month later. They thanked
| me, said that my email made them very happy, and apologized for
| the delay, saying something along the lines of "Your email was so
| positive that I didn't know what to say in response."
| dhosek wrote:
| I make a point of sending complimentary emails whenever I read
| a story or poem I really enjoy. As a writer of fiction and
| poetry, I know that most of the time, there's no indication
| that anybody ever reads our stuff, so it's always nice to find
| out that someone does.
| j7ake wrote:
| Are there any success stories of people becoming a mentor to
| someone because of a cold email? That sounds like a lot to ask
| for considering how much time it takes to mentor.
| Topolomancer wrote:
| I am mentoring at least one researcher because they reached out
| to me like this. But it's a good point; I'm not sure how
| successful the strategy is overall
| Cd00d wrote:
| 8 months after graduating college, I realized I missed solving
| physics problems.
|
| I drove to the nearest university, walked into the physics
| department office, and asked to speak to the chair. The chair
| was busy, but the vice-chair was more than happy to chat for 20
| minutes.
|
| The vice-chair then took me to a researcher's office, and we
| chatted for half an hour. That researcher then introduced me to
| a group professor, who offered my an unpaid-technician job a
| few days a week.
|
| After a couple months happily toiling in the lab, often
| alongside the PI, I was asked to change to a full-time paid
| position.
|
| A year into that the PI asked me to join the graduate college.
| I earned a PhD from the group 6 years later.
|
| It all worked very nicely for me, and every person was lovely
| and encouraging through the whole process - regardless of my
| audacity in asking for the chair!
| JackOfCrows wrote:
| I haven't been formally mentored but at work and in school I
| have had a lot of luck with "what you do sounds interesting and
| I would love to know more about it," including with the Dean of
| my department who (I assume) is pretty busy.
|
| I imagine there are jerks out there but honestly for a lot of
| people this is something they have poured a lot of themselves
| into (especially in academia) and its nice when someone is new
| but actually really interested.
| ISL wrote:
| If you're an undergraduate at a research institution, the odds
| are extremely high (>>20%). Similar if you're a graduate
| student/postdoc. Almost every undergraduate I've taken on has
| been the result of a cold email with clear intent/interest.
|
| If you're coming in from outside academia, be prepared to have
| useful skills/knowledge to bring to the collaboration and a
| clear ability to commit enough time to be valuable. Expect a
| much lower conversion-rate. Most people that academics
| encounter with cold emails (at least in physics) from the
| outside are insufficiently prepared or advancing a pet (usually
| demonstrably-incorrect) theory.
|
| If you email the right person with,
|
| "Hi, ISL!
|
| I'm j7ake, and have a ton of experience with X (link to resume)
| and am really interested in learning more about experimental
| gravitational physics. I've read several of your papers
| [1,2,3], and your work is really interesting.
|
| It looks like you might be able to use X to improve your
| results with Y -- might you have a little time to answer some
| questions about your group's work and see if there's a way I
| might be able to help you put X to good use?
|
| Thank you!
|
| j7ake"
|
| you'll get replies.
| dorchadas wrote:
| I hope. I'm waiting for replies from two professors I emailed
| asking about advice for a PhD and how to pursue it. I even
| included my proposal and how I'd go about it. One of them, at
| least, mentioned taking PhD students and the other is at the
| school that'd be best for it (due to proximity to where I'd
| be doing field work). Both mentioned a research interest in
| the topic too. I even emailed from another university in the
| country's account.
|
| I've also emailed another academic over a month ago about an
| article he wrote abiut a type of non-profit I'd love to set
| up, and haven't heard back. Though when I emailed him last
| year it did take 6 weeks to respond. I just wrote this to say
| I feel it's very hit or miss, depending on the academic in
| question.
| decsser wrote:
| This correlates with my experience. I hustled my way into a
| only paid undergrad research assistant role that didn't
| previously exist at a top-tier infosec lab doing IPS/IDS work
| and helping grad students fix their code. It was necessary as
| there were too many applicants for too few menial campus
| jobs.
| bachmeier wrote:
| > Ask someone for a potential collaboration.
|
| I have received many cold emails asking for this over the years
| (many more after becoming an editor for obvious reasons). Given
| my schedule and my research backlog, I'm unlikely to accept such
| an offer. What I find odd is that the requests almost always
| involve topics nowhere near my research expertise.
|
| The worst ones include something like, "After going through your
| publication record, I see that you are an expert on this
| topic...". You should not expect a response. I create a new email
| filter to be sure I never spend time on your messages again.
| mmmmpancakes wrote:
| This matches my experience. Collaboration is a serious
| undertaking and commitment. It is very unlikely that a
| collaboration formed out of thin air will be productive enough
| to justify the investment of time and effort.
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