FROM FIONA: Your reply cordially requested

[pegkerr]

Tomorrow, as part of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work, Fiona is going to be visiting Rob's store and spending the day with him, learning about his job. The last two years, she has spent this day with me at my office, learning about my job.

I'd like her to give her the chance to learn about a lot of jobs. Specifically, your job.

Won't you tell Fiona about your job, so she can get an idea of the vast possibilities in the World of Work out there?

If you can, please leave Fiona a comment by tomorrow night, telling her about your career. Something like:

What your job title is, and what that means

A description of a typical day

What you need in the way of training/education/experience to do this job

Why you like it and (if you dare)

Why you dislike it

What sorts of things can go wrong at your job?

What kind of person thrives in your job

Anything else you can think of that would give her an idea of what it might be like to choose your career?

I'd like her to get as many replies as possible. Thanks ever so much!

Cheers,
Peg (and Fiona)

Comments

[brooksmoses]

Hello! I found this via piranha_gooroos, and it's been a fun thread to read, so I'll add to it.

What your job title is, and what that means

I don't think I have a title, as such, beyond "Graduate Student". As that says, I'm a student in the Mechanical Engineering department, working towards a doctorate (Ph.D.) degree. I've been doing this for about four years, and am a little less than a year from finishing. At this point, it means that I've finished all of the classes that I am going to take, and am working full-time on doing research that I will write up as my final dissertation (a book-length writeup that's sort of the equivalent of a final paper for a class).

Also, I could claim the title of "Research Assistant", which means that I get paid for doing the research that I'm doing.

A description of a typical day

I'm not sure that there's a typical day; instead, I'll describe some of the things that I do. The research that I am doing is in "Computational Fluid Dynamics", which means that I work on ways to use computers to calculate how liquids and gasses flow. Sometimes this means sitting in front of a computer and writing programs (or, more often, debugging them), and sometimes it means using a pen and paper to do mathematical calculations to figure out what to put into the program. I also do a lot of reading scientific papers, to see how other people have done similar things and to get ideas for how to solve the problems I'm facing, and I do a lot of writing scientific papers of my own. Most of this is sitting at a desk in my office....

Occasionally, I go to conferences to "present" my papers, which means that I talk about my work for 30 minutes to an audience of usually about 40 people, and listen to them talk about their work. These are fun, because they're often in interesting far-off places, and I get to talk to people who are excited about the same sort of work that I'm excited about.

One of the great benefits of being a graduate student is that I have almost infinite flexibility. I meet with my advisor (the teacher who oversees my work) every couple of weeks or so, and tell him what progress I've made. Other than that, I can work when I want to, and to a large extent on what I want to as long as it's making progress towards the end goals we've set. The downside is that sometimes I need to work long hours to get to those goals, particularly if there's a deadline for a paper coming up. Usually I work pretty normal hours, though, although something like 10am to 7pm instead of 8-5.

What you need in the way of training/education/experience to do this job

A doctorate degree is what comes after an undergraduate (bachelors) degree, and a masters degree, so you need both of those. Often, the process of getting a masters degree is considered the first step of getting the doctorate, though, so those are sort of the same job. Most people get their undergraduate degree in the same subject that they're getting their doctorate degree in, but you don't have to do that.

Why you like it

Mostly because I like figuring things out. The particular problem that I am working on is one that's been challenging people for a hundred years, and while I certainly can't solve the whole thing (it's far too complex for that), I hope to make a small dent in it. And, as a result of my work, people will be able to calculate things that they couldn't calculate before. And, on a personal level, it's a challenge of puzzles to figure out.

I also like having the flexibility of a free schedule, and being able to decide what I think is important and follow that path without needing to ask someone else if I can do it.

(continued)

[brooksmoses]

(continuation)

and (if you dare) Why you dislike it

Sometimes, the freedom can be a problem. I'm slowly learning to be better about scheduling my time, but I do have weeks where I don't get much done, and weeks where I have to work long hours to make up for it.

Also, even though these results will eventually change the world (a very little bit), right now they're just interesting to me. That means that, until I get finished and get things written up and tell people about them, there's nobody to say, "Here, I need this! Please finish it!" So I have to be completely self-motivated.

What sorts of things can go wrong at your job?

Lots of little things, mostly. Writing large computer programs is a deceptive task, like climbing a large mountain. It doesn't look that big when you start, but when you get to where you think you ought to be finished, there's still more to go. Most of that's debugging; sometimes there's a typo, sometimes the idea you had about how to write the program just didn't work out and you have to change the ideas and start over.

Actually, that's a sort of large picture of what can go wrong. People doing research often remind themselves that research means that you ask questions, and look for the answer, without knowing what the answer is. Sometimes the answer is that it wasn't a very interesting question; sometimes the answer is that it's not an answerable question. So it's possible to spend a lot of effort and find out something not worth the time.

A lot of the time, though, the answer is a combination of an answer and a half-dozen more unanswered questions. This means things have gone very well indeed.

On a different level, one of the things that can go wrong is that a doctoral degree isn't something that takes a set number of years; instead, you work until you've finished a piece of research and answered a good-sized question, and sometimes the question that you start out working on turns out to be bigger than you thought. And so it can take longer than you expected before you get done. (Sometimes you have to make the question smaller or change it.)

What kind of person thrives in your job

Someone who is very curious, and can be self-motivated about pursuing that curiousity. Also, someone who is reasonably good at mathematics and (in my case) computer programming. And someone who enjoys putting together things and making them work just for the challenge of it.

Anything else you can think of that would give her an idea of what it might be like to choose your career?

Well, this isn't quite a career yet -- graduate school lasts for five years or so, and then you have to go out into the real world and find a new job. I haven't quite started doing that, so I don't know what it's like yet!

I think I've put most of what I know to say about it in the other answers, so I guess I'll close here.