KIDS THESE DAYS

Tonight's bedtime story was Where the Wild Things Are. My five-year-old is beginning to read words, so he wanted me to show him the words on the cover.

They're all in capital letters:

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

"That's shouting," my son said.

"Huh?" I said. I mean, there was some shouting earlier (thus the book), but we hadn't been shouting right then.

"The letters. That means shouting."

"Did your dad tell you that, or did you learn it at school?"

"My teacher told me. All capital letters means shouting."

They're teaching netiquette in kindergarten. (Maybe he'll learn not to feed the trolls, too. Either that, or they will start making LOLcats in art class.)

Sometimes it's good to be the department Luddite...

I have a confession to make. I teach on a chalkboard. With chalk. You know, that white stuff that gets all over your hands and clothes (and fizzes with HCl, though I don't do that in most lectures). I'm gradually building a set of powerpoints, especially for images that I can't draw by hand (photos, maps, cross-sections...). But for the most part, I like chalk.

I like to write student responses on the board during discussion. I like building sketches little by little, explaining things as I go. I like the way chalk forces me to talk more slowly. (One of my students asked me if I grew up Out East. It wasn't my accent - I just talked too fast to be from around here.) Even when I use powerpoint, I find myself drawing on the chalkboard. (Last week I had a beautiful picture that illustrated the places where water is found, and I ended up drawing a lame-looking duplicate on the chalkboard, so I could add labels, and so that I could model Really Bad Drawing for students and show them that they, too, could draw pathetic cartoons in their notes to help them understand and remember the discussion.)

So I was mostly amused when something broke in the campus network today. No faculty could get onto the network. No e-mail, no file servers, no course management pages. Hard drives if the computer was already running. The web, if the computer was already running. But the computers in the classrooms? Nope.

I actually had a powerpoint ready for class, though I intended to spend more time having my intro students compare and contrast some samples. But when I couldn't get onto the network, I just reverted to my old Luddite ways. Chalk, ball-and-stick models of mineral structures, boxes of rocks, and group brainstorming.

I hope the systems comes back, though. I'm having my intro class create their own glossary (because the textbook doesn't have one), and I'm curious whether it has helped them read the book more carefully. (And I'm curious what they say about my new Google Earth exercise, too.)

But if it doesn't come back... well, I've got chalk.

(And someday I'm going to learn how to use a sliderule, because some of my older colleagues claim it is a great way to think about orders of magnitude.)

What kind of compass do you prefer?

I see that eight nine people have already voted in the poll I put up yesterday, even though I haven't found time to blog about it until tonight.

I'm putting together my classes for this semester. (I don't start until Sept. 1, so I've got a few more days.) One of the classes I'm teaching is our sophomore-level field methods course. The title might be misleading - the course is an introduction to geologic mapping, and leaves out many other things that geoscientists do in the field. (In fact, my intro class will be doing some of them in their stream lab.) On the other hand, geology isn't just a set of technical skills that one is trained to do - a geologist should be able to imagine what's hidden underground*, as well, and the skills in this class are designed as one step towards developing the ability to think spatially.

Geologic maps show what rocks are found near (or at) the surface, but they also provide the information needed to make a good guess at what might be hidden underground. That information comes from the orientations of layers of rock, and of fractures and cleavages and faults. And to find that information, we still use big, clunky, old-school geologic compasses. (GPS is great for figuring out where you are, and we use those, too. But the compass is still a basic piece of equipment.)

When I was young (*shakes cane*), I learned to measure bearings by measuring angles from north or south:



If that arrow in the middle of the circle was... oh, let's say it's the direction a current used to flow. I would have measured the direction of the arrow as being 45 degrees east of south (or in my field notes, S 45 E).

But that's not the only way to measure angles. A circle can be divided into 360 degrees, and compasses can measure bearings around a circle, starting with north and then spinning through east (at 90 degrees), south (at 180 degrees), and west (at 270 degrees), and finally getting back to north, if they didn't get dizzy and fall down in the meantime. Those kinds of bearings are known as azimuths. They're easier to deal with mathematically, because they're one number, always measured in the same direction. They confused me when I first dealt with them, because I'm lousy at memorizing numbers. (I hate combination locks.) I've gotten used to them, though, because I've worked with people who prefer them.

I always used to think that quadrant measurements were more intuitive. I think about directions as "southwest", not as "a bearing between 180 and 270 degrees." And I carry a protractor that measures angles between 0 and 180 degrees easily, but which requires me to subtract larger numbers in my head. (And I make mistakes when I do arithmetic in my head.) I prefer to make my maps in the field - they are tools for helping me think about what's going on, and if I wait until evening (or later) to compile them, I might have to hike miles and miles back to the same spot to collect more data. And that means that my favorite compass is one that gives me numbers less than 180 degrees.

I've seen more and more students who are at least as comfortable with azimuth measurements as with quadrants, though. And at least three of my colleagues prefer them. (And I've got a sinking feeling that I'm just hideously old-fashioned for carrying a quadrant compass.)

I'm not going to trade in my compass. It was expensive, and it still works, and I'm capable of converting the different measurements. (I can almost do it in my head. If I practice enough. Grading 20 labs every week gives me lots of practice.) And I always make students convert their measurements back and forth. (I still need to do the math in my own head, though, to check them.) But I'm curious what the current trends really are. Does anyone prefer quadrant compasses, or are people switching entirely to azimuth? Are the azimuth people primarily geophysicists? (Paleomag is easier in azimuth, I believe.) Are azimuth bearings easier to handle in GIS?

And if I carry a quadrant compass, should I carry a sliderule, too?

*Yes, I realize that may be a structural geologist's bias, but you know... in grad school, I could have been a geochronologist or a metamorphic petrologist. I've become a structural geologist by necessity, because my departments needed someone to teach spatial thinking more than they needed someone to unravel the exhumation histories of metamorphic rocks.

The academic job search... circa 1992

I've moved, I have internet access (and - gasp - TV), and I'm finally unpacking The Office. In the process, I found a box of Important Life Information that I accumulated between 1989 and 2000. Old credit card receipts (including one for slide film from 1994), information about an internship at the USGS, a letter welcoming me to my first graduate housing (received about a month before it was closed by the Loma Prieta earthquake)...

...and advice for getting an academic job, in the form of two brochures from Stanford's Career Planning and Placement Center (CPPC). (Yes, a photocopied brochure. What do you mean, didn't they have a web page?)

So I give you: the advice and the reality, circa 1992-1993. If you are currently freaking out about job searches, the take-home message is that advice is all well and good, but sometimes you've just got to make your own way.

The advice (mauve, because even in 1992 it was clear that jobs weren't as easy to get as the advice implied):

ONE YEAR BEFORE ACTIVE CANDIDACY

• ...Give a paper, poster session, or organize a panel at a national conference.
• Read job announcements in your field.
• Learn all the possible sources of job announcements.

The reality:

• Give a talk at a regional conference in which you work around to a conclusion that your data are really excruciatingly bad.
  

AUGUST UNTIL THE TIME YOU BEGIN TO APPLY

• ...Work on a draft of your CV and a basic letter of application.
• Think of who your good reference letter writers will be.
• Get employment file packet from the CPPC and set up a reference file if your department does not assist graduate students this way.
  

(Reality..)

• Spend late nights in the argon lab, trying to nail down some data that are actually worthwhile.
• Spend other late nights in the probe lab.
• Go to see the Grateful Dead at Shoreline.
• Start work on a paper for a special volume built around the session at the regional conference.

SEPTEMBER TO DECEMBER

• ...Start applying - you may need to request transcripts from the Registrar's office.
• Attend the CPPC programs on the academic job search or see videotapes of former programs at CPPC or check these out from the Center for Teaching and Learning.

NOVEMBER TO DECEMBER (OR LATER)

• Practice interviews with peers or faculty.
• ...Prepare and practice a job talk.
• ...Keep a list of questions by the phone to ask when you are called for an interview.

(Reality...)

• Decide with advisor that the one paper should be two papers.
• Submit abstract to an international meeting, in hopes of meeting people who might be good to know in a year or two.

FEBRUARY THROUGH SUMMER

• ...Don't immediately accept the first offer, unless you are sure it is the one you want most.
• Find out more about what to negotiate from your advisor or recently appointed faculty in your field.
• Don't despair if you don't get the offer you want - some tenure-track and one year positions come up late in the year.
• Talk with your advisor and CPPC counselors about best strategies for waiting until next year's job markt --
• OR accept the best offer and thank everyone who helped you!

(Reality...)

JANUARY

• Meet with committee to discuss progress. Tell them about paper #1 (submitted) and paper #2 (being revised). Ask for advice about what to do next. Be told to "finish."
• Freak out.
• Frantically flip through job ads listed on bulletin board. (I wasn't subscribed to EOS or Geotimes.)
  
• Find an ad for a temporary job at a private liberal arts college in a cool place. Apply.

MARCH

• Get a call from the chair of the search committee, saying that they only want to interview one person, and that person is you.
• Frantically prepare job talk. Hope that slides are readable on first try. (No powerpoint yet.)
• Buy dress suit. Find shopping at Macy's more traumatizing than anything in grad school so far.
  
• Go on interview.
• Totally blow interview. Be confused about what courses are involved, give an awkward talk, screw up a question that's personally important to the interviewer.

APRIL

• Begin to wonder what happened about that one-person interview thing.
• Get a call from assistant search chair, explaining that another person was hired, and suggesting that you apply for jobs at research universities, because you don't appear enthusiastic about teaching.
• Go into another grad student office and sob for a while. Get a very useful pep talk.
• Start looking through job postings again. Apply for three more jobs.

MAY

• See one more job ad that appears written with you in mind. Apply for it, remembering to express as much enthusiasm as possible without exclamation points.

JUNE

• Get a call from chair of the department from the last ad. Ask lots of questions about courses to be taught.
• Run into advisor who says "Department Chair X called and wants to know if you are going to finish this year." Ask advisor if she lied for you. (Advisor answered that she told the truth: I had two papers finished and could defend this summer.)
• Study the Geologic Map of Vermont instead of going to graduation.
  
• Go on interview. Ask lots of enthusiastic questions about roadcuts. Make a point to say "yes, I can do that" to all questions.
• Fly home. Answer phone before putting down suitcase. Accept job offer on the spot.

JULY THROUGH AUGUST

• Find one day in which all committee members will be in town.
• Revise tables.
• Try to get figures to print.
• Revise tables again.
• Kick printer.
• Go for run.
• Kick printer again.
  
• Defend.
• Deliver dissertation to Kinko's.
  
• Go to Phish show in Berkeley.
• Pack.
• Move.
• Prepare for classes with three days to go before term begins.

I wonder how much the advice and the reality have changed. Probably there's more advice to do post-docs before applying for jobs. And advice about checking out possible jobs via the web. I don't know whether the advice matches the reality any more than it did fifteen years ago, though.

Mysteries of technology

Our campus has entered the Age of Course-Management Software. (That would be what comes after the Age of Mammals, I'm beginning to suspect.) We're using Moodle, which is an open-source tool. That would be cool, if I programmed php. Which I don't. But I've never used WebCT or Blackboard, so I don't have anything to compare it to.

I've been messing around with it over break, and after backing up and restoring my work a number of times, I've got one question:

Why, exactly, is it possible to assign a due date of 1970?

So you're applying to graduate school...

Female Science Professor has posted a very useful discussion of e-mails to potential graduate advisors. If you are an undergrad applying to graduate school, you might want to check out her comments - it isn't often that you get insight into what grad school faculty want to hear from applicants! The comments also give a view of the range of opinions about pre-application e-mails.

(My experience... well, I had to walk uphill both ways in a snowstorm just to search a paper copy of the Directory of Geoscience Departments to find out which universities employed metamorphic petrologists. I suppose I could have sent pre-application letters via the Pony Express... *shakes cane* So, anyway, I'm glad to hear what faculty at research universities think of the now-traditional e-mails.)

Edit: Female Science Professor has added a new post discussing applications of MS vs PhD students. It's a useful read, as well. But keep in mind that she teaches at a major research university - there are a range of types of institutions out there, and for some of them, the terminal MS degree is the most advanced degree offered. If you are primarily interested in going into industry rather than academia, an MS degree might be the way to go - especially right now, when both the oil&gas and mining industries are hiring geologists. (They are also hiring people with PhDs, but PhDs take a lot longer to complete, and the job market can change a lot in five years.)

Back in the day, we used to walk uphill both ways to use a computer...

One of my senior thesis students is using some freeware written by an academic for her senior thesis research. Now, I love freeware, and I am in great debt to people like Rick Allmendinger and Frank Spear and Rod Holcombe and others who write software and then let the rest of us sponge off their hard work and programming expertise - for free.

But occasionally, relicts of operating systems past appear and confuse the heck out of undergrads used to web apps and commercial software packages.

(Image credit: Wikipedia)

Today's relict was PostScript. Now, I confess that I've never known much about PostScript, except that it was associated with printing, and that my maps in my dissertation always gave me a "PostScript error" when I tried to print them out. (That was back when we had to walk uphill both ways to the laser printer... *shakes cane at young whippersnappers who have just finished dissertation drafts, hooray!* ) Well, in the process of figuring out how to view the images (open them in Adobe Illustrator, and then edit them to our hearts' content), I ended up looking up the history of PostScript, so I could explain why a piece of software that I first encountered in 1990 would use that particular image format, rather than formats she had heard of.

And that led to stories about using a Mac that didn't have a hard drive.

And at that point, as my student looked at me in horror, I realized it.

I have become one of those people who talks about how it was in the "old days."

(And this was just a few weeks after a student looked at my eighteen-year-old solar-powered pocket calculator and teased me about it, and I threatened to give him a slide rule instead.)

Postscript: You know, I still don't think anything with a GUI interface ought to count as "old technology" - after all, when I was little, I drew pictures on the punch cards that my dad brought home from work, and I remember a computer the size of a small building, complete with flashing lights and beeping sounds. *shakes cane some more*