First semester

I can be seen around campus walking in my ripped jeans, with a dopy grin on my face, and a notebook and pen in my hand. I try tricking students into thinking I am a student. They make memes of me, it’s great fun. Here are some memes that a student in solid mechanics, Mr. Acosta, made.

This is a post that may help aspiring assistant professors to evaluate whether they actually want this job or not. Keep in mind that I joined a large state school in a big city so my experience may differ vastly from other types of institutions. My department of mechanical engineering has about 25 faculty members (8 assistant, 6 associate, 13 full professors, as well as 4 instructional faculty members). We have around 1000 undergraduate students, and an increasing number of master and PhD students. We on average teach one course per semester (Fall and Spring), alternating between undergrad and graduate levels. Almost all potential PhD applications come from aboard.

One of the first things the department chair told me was that we are all colleagues, and that we don’t report to anyone. Further, we all sit in one physical together, in one wing of the building, so we (me and a National Academy of Engineering person) are all neighbors. This is very different from the Swiss system where each group is run like a start-up with completely separate spaces. I don’t know what is better or worse yet. The experience does feel like running a start up (my lab) with some initial capital (start up funding) in more ways than one. Extending that analogy, my (future) tenure committee members and by extension, the department, the college, and the university are my shareholders who want to see if my return on investment is adequate.

It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper

I was given many advices, and I picked up a few things along the way in my career. I was told to say no to as many things as I possibly can. To ask for advice before saying yes to anything. To remind myself that my time is finite (there are only 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week), and to delegate as much as I can. The second thing, I kind of figured this out on my own, is summarized in the above quote (she is a four star general!). I follow it religiously and I have pissed people off doing it. Though, I think overall it is something I will keep doing. This is further reinforced by something I learnt. If it is an easy problem, everyone would be in agreement. If the thing for which I am asking permission is ambiguous to me, it is likely ambiguous to everyone because no one really knows the answers to many (non-scientific) questions (they just pretend, as I do). Besides, what’s the worst that can happen? Consequences be damned, if I get told off, I apologize. The last piece of advice, is to do a piece of work that I actually enjoy, at least for part of the week. This may be doing some experiments instead of writing proposals.

There are several things that I needed to do immediately and concurrently, 1) order things (I’ve got two years to spend the start-up funding.), 2) hire students, 3) start writing the first proposal, 4) figure out teaching, 5) make friends.

For any starting faculty members (experimentalist especially), staff members are my life line. They can make my life miserable, frustrating, and depressing, or they can smooth most kinks out. As there are usually only one or two people with purchasing power in a department, and I literally need to order hundreds of items, it is no easy task. The best way, if possible, is to get the department’s credit card info. Short of that (since they apparently don’t trust me), as I had some Swiss money, I bought everything large and small myself, and got reimbursed. It is critical to apply for tax exemption immediately for all the major consumer retailers (e.g. Amazon, Best Buy, Home Depot and others). They all have a standard procedure but not the procedure is not immediate. Professional suppliers already expect the tax exemption notice. It is difficult to get the tax reimbursed… This strategy lasted for about 3 months before I bottomed out and began 1) to fill out purchase requests, 2) to get purchase order forms, 3) to actually place the orders. So… there is an optimal level of annoyance one should be to staff members, be nice and courteous; bug, but not too much. There also seems to be a line in the sand that suggests distance.

In terms of teaching, I started by giving a lecture on solid mechanics to a room full of junior level students (~110 in all), in the first semi-post-covid semester. I was working out of a conference room because I didn’t yet have my own office. Lecture notes from previous iterations of the course were graciously shared with me. For the first half of the semester, I can fairly say that I was barely staying afloat. I didn’t have the bandwidth to think about a teaching philosophy for this particular course. There was no guidance, with the assumption being if I don’t ask for help, all is fine. When I do ask for advice, the faculty members were extremely helpful without any exception. The first couple of classes were particularly nerve wrecking. My expectations of what they should know coming into the course vastly mismatched with what they actually knew. The lack of physical demonstrations hindered my delivery, or their understanding. As the weeks went on, I got a bit less stilted. I bought a meter stick from Amazon, and used it every class to explain the different ways one can torture a 1D beam. I started actually looking forward to teaching. I learnt several things that were quite effective, 1) Use the online discussion board, there were actually over 1500 posts over one semester, 2) giving bonus points to students who complete the course evaluation.

95% of the applicants I received are from aboard. The vast majority of them came from Iran, India and Bangladesh. I got one Chinese application and one from the UK (that I solicited), they both turned me down despite my begging. It is almost impossible to evaluate a candidate over zoom, I also don’t have a base line to evaluate candidates with. The ones I eventually decide to extend an offer, have all found greener pasture elsewhere. I will extend this section in a year’s time.

From what I see, grant proposals are a mix bag. I have put together proposals in a weekend to have some accepted. Then I realized I didn’t really want to do that work… I will write more on this when I know more.

Making friends with my colleagues. As a post-doc in EPFL, we were all around the same age, the interactions felt unforced. Now, the faculty body ranges from people my age to those who are close to retirement. The vast majority though are adults with young children. They have large houses in idyllic suburbia with great public schools. They drive 30 minutes or an hour to work every day. The ones I interact with are unfailingly courteous, encouraging, friendly and honest. They are also overworked. From what I hear, this is a lucky situation. I go out with the younger folks on a semi-regular basis. The department chair organizes happy hours once or twice a semester. I take VIPs (invited speakers and faculty candidates) to lunch and dinner.

To conclude, I am tired. It takes energy to constantly switch my brain between drastically different topics on an hour basis. It is equally hard to focus on one thing at a time without being distracted by those other topics that are swimming in the back of my brain.