Re: Why I picked University life (dictated into my MAC) If

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dave Wilson <dave () wilson net>
Date: May 3, 2009 10:09:38 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Why I picked University life (dictated into my MAC) If

As a former journalist (I mention that I'm a former journalist to make
clear that I'm not sucking up and looking for good quotes in the
future ;-) ) I'd like to note your wonderful and continuing commitment
to help reporters -- and thus the voters -- understand complex issues.
People don't realize how important is for reporters to be able to
reach people who are knowledgeable, articulate, and authoritative;
your educational influence has gone well beyond your students sir.

-dave

On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 9:05 PM, David Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:
> Sometimes I look back and wonder why I chose the academic path. In  
> my early
> years I had my pick of almost any organization in the United States  
> to go
> to. I think what became the most important issue to me was the  
> interaction I
> had with students. Every four years a new set of students arrive.  
> Many of
> these students would challenge my ideas and  my directions and  
> often, at
> least occasionally :-) ,they were correct. They kept me young  
> intellectually
> and help me inspect fields of research that I would never have  
> attempted.
>
> Many of my graduate students especially have been non-standard in  
> the sense
> that a normal graduate admissions procedure would have rejected them
> period!! Many of the undergraduates that I worked with were motivated,
> hopefully by my impact, to go on and get advanced degrees and to do
> exceptionally well in their chosen fields. I insisted and continued to
> insist that students choose their own research directions. I will  
> certainly
> suggest to them interesting topics but I'd rather them find topics  
> that they
> think are interesting and then to convince me that in fact they  
> should work
> on those topics.
>
> I try to teach them, hopefully by example, how researcher operates.  
> When I
> was at Bell laboratories, often potential employees would have no  
> real idea
> of what they were going to do once they completed their thesis. I  
> wanted my
> students to understand how to find problems .
>
> One of the greatest rewards I've had is to sit on a panel at a good
> conference with the  other panelist including two or  three of my  
> former
> students. I also take pride in a comment that one of my better  
> students made
> to me several years after he graduated. He said when he graduated he  
> was not
> sure what I contributed to his research. He then said after several  
> years he
> realized what I had done and how I had helped him and molded him   
> and he
> hoped he could do the same for his future students.
>
>
> -------------------------------------------
> Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
> RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
> Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com




-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com