I think George W. Bush was overheard in the Oval Office yesterday telling the Iranian Ambassador, "You will now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!"
. . . that they don't follow in Nigeria's footsteps. The last thing we need is for some Cuban to start emailing our grandparents asking for help to get some hidden money off of the island into an American bank!
DEAR AMERICANO - I HAVE BEEN LIVING CUBA SINCE 1951. MY FATHER HAS STASHED AWAY 500 MILLION BILION CUBAN PESSOS IN BASEMENT HERE IN HABANNNNA. HE ALSO HAS LARGE SUPPLY OF CUBBAN CIGARILLOS THAT HE BEEN QUIETLY TAKING ONE PER DAY SINCE 1962 FROM CIGAR FACTORY. HE NEEEDS HELP GETTING THEM OFF OF THE ISLAND INTO AMERIKA. PLEASE SEND YOUR BANK ACCOUNT INFORMATION AND WE SPLIT THIS, GIVE YOU 10% OF PROFITTS. GRACIAS!
A cabbage patch kids game? Are you kidding me?!?! Was it packaged in bright pink packaging that had OMG PONIES!!!!!!!!!!1 on it, too? Maybe there was a reason it was never released,. ..
On the bright side, I bet CowboyNeal would probably play it (and enjoy it),. . .;-)
No offense, but it is highly likely you will be doing nothing but grunt work.
This will depend on the school that you're at. A lot of "research intensive" institutions may not have as many opportunities for undergraduates, particularly because there's so many graduate students, and the best work goes to them. So yes, there, the grunt work will go to the undergrads, and they're at the bottom of the food chain. Unless you're some kind of supergenius who's 8 years ahead of schedule, then you might get to do more cool stuff.
Often, schools that aren't major research institutions may actually offer a better experience and be more educating for undergraduates than some of the top-tier schools. For one, professors focus more on undergraduate teaching as a general rule, and aren't bogged down with too many NIH/NSF grants and such, and as a result, can spend more time with students. Many still do have grants, though, but the grants specifically focus on undergraduate research, so that's the point. There's also fewer graduate students, which is good because there's less of a chance of them stealing away the best projects, so there's more for undergrads to do and learn. Often, undergrad-focused schools may only offer up to a master's degree in some areas, which eliminates a lot of the grad students. So overall, there's more of a chance for undergrads to shine, which increases their chances of getting into a top-tier graduate school when they're done, which is what's more important in terms of your career -- when you add graduate school to your resume, fewer people care where you went for undergrad, as long as it's an accredited school.
I spent some time working in the chemistry department at Northern Arizona University recently, which isn't in the same caliber school as the University of Arizona in Tucson, or Arizona State in Tempe. Nonetheless, there were (and still are) some top notch undergraduates there, and they actually do a good amount of the actual research, and even get to present research at meetings, and publish, too (though often not as first author, but it is often, a first publication for them with their name on it). Students educated their as undergrads are currently in some outstanding graduate programs, too, like the University of Texas at Austin, University of Arizona, University of Louisville, and others.
Since somebody mentioned the janitor here, I just thought I'd mention that 9 times out of 10, it's actually well worth your time to get to know the person that regularly cleans up your lab. Seriously. Many of them are very friendly and helpful, and they talk to people. The better ones talk to professors, department chairs, deans, grad students, undergrads, techs -- virtually everyone. While they generally don't have much of a scientific background or anything, they often do have a general interest in what's going on with research, and often can provide all sorts of useful and interesting bits of wisdom that a lot of professors often forget about. I've been at several universities now and a good portion of the cleaning staff are very helpful. Plus, if you treat them well, they won't bitch as much if you make a mess in an accident or something,...
First of all, I think it's excellent that you're going to work in a laboratory early on, as an undergraduate (I am assuming that you're not just going to work in a university lab with a high school diploma, and that you plan to take courses at the school you're going to work at). If I had to do things over again, I certainly would have done more research at the undergraduate level -- you learn a heck of a lot more there than in the classroom alone, not to mention that you make a lot of important connections with faculty and staff. While you're there, make sure you take advantage of every opportunity to get to know people -- don't just show up for work, do what's asked of you, and leave at 5 pm every day. Ask questions, talk to people, take advantage of opportunities to present your research (poster presentations, oral talks at conferences) as much as you can. If you do this while an undergrad, graduate school will be a zillion times easier.
Take good notes, keep a good, organized laboratory notebook. Become very familiar with the instruments and/or software that you will be using. If you know how to use this well, and you become well known as an expert at a particular experiment/procedure, professors will love you for it, and you'll be a valuable resource to them later on (they may even ask you to come back a year or two later, if you're available, and pay you to do a particular experiment or train someone how to do what you've done).
Don't expect to work in one lab too long. You'll probably end up working in 1-3 different laboratories as an undergraduate, move on to a different one (or different school) for graduate school, maybe another lab for a PhD, and another one for a post-doc. That's the typical route -- expect it. There's not too much advancement in laboratory work without some type of graduate school, unless you want to end up maintaining equipment or working in IT or something. But if you start undergraduate research as a freshman in college, there's no reason why you shouldn't have a PhD in 7-8 years, easily.
A lot of your coworkers will not be American. A good number will be from India, and more from China. Don't let this be a reason you avoid them. The US has some of the top research universities in the world, and we usually get the cream of the crop in terms of foreign students and researchers (even some of the smaller, less well known American schools can be well known and well respected overseas). Their English may not be all that good, but most of them do know their shit, and can be quite helpful. And most of them do want to learn more English and become better at it, so talking with them will help them out as well as you.
Anyway, good luck to you. I'm not sure where you're going to be, but if you're going to be here, I might run into you,... Cheers!
I really don't mind advertisements built into television shows . . . provided that it doesn't degrade the quality of the entertainment. Overdone, this sort of thing gets really, really cheesy quickly. But done right, it can actually be a positive thing that will both add some sense of reality to the show while at the same time bringing in more dollars. Plus, with built-in advertisements, it goes hand-in-hand with the bittorrent model of distributing television shows -- since most of them are stripped of all advertisements anyway, the product placement ads can't be stripped and they don't lose money, so they can't complain about "piracy".
I used to think that Yahoo answers was just far too ridiculous for anyone to actually take that crap seriously. But now I'm beginning to wonder, having encountered many people who probably believe it. Case in point; one of my relatives emailed me with problems with her computer, and my response was, "try taking the battery out of the laptop and rebooting it", to which I got the response, "my laptop has a batter! OMG! I didn't realize that! where is it?"
Hmm, good point. My mother and even my brother (two years younger) both think I'm performing some kind of weird magic when they see me connect my computer to the television,... But I do it on an almost daily basis now, so it's really no big deal.
Until people realize how ridiculously simple it is to connect a S-Video out cable from the PC to their TV. It seems like most of the decent mid-range to high-end video cards are coming with this option these days,... only the low-end, budget PCs with integrated graphics don't have S-Video.
Now that most of the television content producers are putting their stuff on the internet these days, I'm seriously contemplating just getting another computer solely to use for the television connectivity. Seriously. Who needs cable or special blockbuster, potentially DRMed, set-top boxes?
Slashdot Mirror
I think George W. Bush was overheard in the Oval Office yesterday telling the Iranian Ambassador, "You will now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!"
Sales of Macs would skyrocket! Plus, DNF might actually run!
Who needs a girlfriend, when you can store that much porn! ;-)
I'm holding out for Internet42, which will contain the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
Dammit, CowboyNeal! I told you to steal Rick Astley's web server!
Don't let the chair hit you in the ass on the way out, Ballmer!
DEAR AMERICANO - I HAVE BEEN LIVING CUBA SINCE 1951. MY FATHER HAS STASHED AWAY 500 MILLION BILION CUBAN PESSOS IN BASEMENT HERE IN HABANNNNA. HE ALSO HAS LARGE SUPPLY OF CUBBAN CIGARILLOS THAT HE BEEN QUIETLY TAKING ONE PER DAY SINCE 1962 FROM CIGAR FACTORY. HE NEEEDS HELP GETTING THEM OFF OF THE ISLAND INTO AMERIKA. PLEASE SEND YOUR BANK ACCOUNT INFORMATION AND WE SPLIT THIS, GIVE YOU 10% OF PROFITTS. GRACIAS!
The problem with the train ride thing, is that if it's a subway, you won't have service, more than likely,...
This could go down in history as the world's largest beowulf cluster . . . EVER! =)
or "Seagate: Providing a repository for Spam since 1979"
2. File patent claims on the ones that are available.
3. Dodge chair(s) thrown by Ballmer.
4. ???
5. Profit!!!!
On the bright side, I bet CowboyNeal would probably play it (and enjoy it),. . . ;-)
This will depend on the school that you're at. A lot of "research intensive" institutions may not have as many opportunities for undergraduates, particularly because there's so many graduate students, and the best work goes to them. So yes, there, the grunt work will go to the undergrads, and they're at the bottom of the food chain. Unless you're some kind of supergenius who's 8 years ahead of schedule, then you might get to do more cool stuff.
Often, schools that aren't major research institutions may actually offer a better experience and be more educating for undergraduates than some of the top-tier schools. For one, professors focus more on undergraduate teaching as a general rule, and aren't bogged down with too many NIH/NSF grants and such, and as a result, can spend more time with students. Many still do have grants, though, but the grants specifically focus on undergraduate research, so that's the point. There's also fewer graduate students, which is good because there's less of a chance of them stealing away the best projects, so there's more for undergrads to do and learn. Often, undergrad-focused schools may only offer up to a master's degree in some areas, which eliminates a lot of the grad students. So overall, there's more of a chance for undergrads to shine, which increases their chances of getting into a top-tier graduate school when they're done, which is what's more important in terms of your career -- when you add graduate school to your resume, fewer people care where you went for undergrad, as long as it's an accredited school.
I spent some time working in the chemistry department at Northern Arizona University recently, which isn't in the same caliber school as the University of Arizona in Tucson, or Arizona State in Tempe. Nonetheless, there were (and still are) some top notch undergraduates there, and they actually do a good amount of the actual research, and even get to present research at meetings, and publish, too (though often not as first author, but it is often, a first publication for them with their name on it). Students educated their as undergrads are currently in some outstanding graduate programs, too, like the University of Texas at Austin, University of Arizona, University of Louisville, and others.
A tie?!?! Are you on crack?!?! Most professors don't even wear those!
Take good notes, keep a good, organized laboratory notebook. Become very familiar with the instruments and/or software that you will be using. If you know how to use this well, and you become well known as an expert at a particular experiment/procedure, professors will love you for it, and you'll be a valuable resource to them later on (they may even ask you to come back a year or two later, if you're available, and pay you to do a particular experiment or train someone how to do what you've done).
Don't expect to work in one lab too long. You'll probably end up working in 1-3 different laboratories as an undergraduate, move on to a different one (or different school) for graduate school, maybe another lab for a PhD, and another one for a post-doc. That's the typical route -- expect it. There's not too much advancement in laboratory work without some type of graduate school, unless you want to end up maintaining equipment or working in IT or something. But if you start undergraduate research as a freshman in college, there's no reason why you shouldn't have a PhD in 7-8 years, easily.
A lot of your coworkers will not be American. A good number will be from India, and more from China. Don't let this be a reason you avoid them. The US has some of the top research universities in the world, and we usually get the cream of the crop in terms of foreign students and researchers (even some of the smaller, less well known American schools can be well known and well respected overseas). Their English may not be all that good, but most of them do know their shit, and can be quite helpful. And most of them do want to learn more English and become better at it, so talking with them will help them out as well as you.
Anyway, good luck to you. I'm not sure where you're going to be, but if you're going to be here, I might run into you,... Cheers!
I stopped watching infomercials when I cancelled my cable tv subscription last year,... I would highly recommend it. Infomercials suck.
I really don't mind advertisements built into television shows . . . provided that it doesn't degrade the quality of the entertainment. Overdone, this sort of thing gets really, really cheesy quickly. But done right, it can actually be a positive thing that will both add some sense of reality to the show while at the same time bringing in more dollars. Plus, with built-in advertisements, it goes hand-in-hand with the bittorrent model of distributing television shows -- since most of them are stripped of all advertisements anyway, the product placement ads can't be stripped and they don't lose money, so they can't complain about "piracy".
Forget the twin ion engines, dude! I want a fracking beowulf cluster of 'em! :-)
are you sure the kid's name isn't Wesley Crusher?
Hmm, that's funny. The same logic hasn't stopped the MAFIAA.
I used to think that Yahoo answers was just far too ridiculous for anyone to actually take that crap seriously. But now I'm beginning to wonder, having encountered many people who probably believe it. Case in point; one of my relatives emailed me with problems with her computer, and my response was, "try taking the battery out of the laptop and rebooting it", to which I got the response, "my laptop has a batter! OMG! I didn't realize that! where is it?"
Hmm, good point. My mother and even my brother (two years younger) both think I'm performing some kind of weird magic when they see me connect my computer to the television,... But I do it on an almost daily basis now, so it's really no big deal.
Now that most of the television content producers are putting their stuff on the internet these days, I'm seriously contemplating just getting another computer solely to use for the television connectivity. Seriously. Who needs cable or special blockbuster, potentially DRMed, set-top boxes?
Wow! A beowulf cluster of graphics cards! That certainly ought to be enough to run Duke Nukem Forever!