Thursday, April 23, 2009

Progress!

After nearly 8 months in this job, three critical things have happened in the last week.

1) The lab attended a small regional conference last weekend and both of my students gave talks that were well received. They were surprised and excited by the amount of positive feedback they got based on the fact that their projects are in the formative stages. I think that gave them a boost just we're heading into the summer and they have more clearly defined short and long term objectives in their heads as a result.I can tell them what the steps are, but everyone needs to see it for themselves before they buy in and get excited.

2) After months of playing with several techniques to get some critical data, things finally seem to be starting to work. I don't know what is different or whether it has to do with the students being more comfortable or confident, but I have already seen some really promising results this morning and it's giving me hope that we might have broken through a log jam.

3) The final touches are being done to the new lab space so that it should be almost complete by the end of the week. You know it's getting close to being finished when they are hanging the white board and asking about the aesthetic details. As soon as that is done we'll actually feel like we have a finished home rather than a construction site.

I can't think of a better way to move into the summer, with my last class to teach tomorrow.

8 comments:

  1. That sounds f'ing great! The logjams are always so hard to muscle through - there's a moment right before they break where you're about to say, "Screw this crap", and then whammo! Data! Good for you (& your students)!

    Now if the northeastern weather would feel more like summer...

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  2. Yeah, the nonlinear rate of progress can be such a mental killer. Especially since it does alway seem that there's nothing pinpointing why things improved.

    Great to hear that the dProgress/dt is increasing!

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  3. We'll see on the data, it's still a little early to tell. But it LOOKS good, which is better than we have had.

    DGT - Summer will yet arrive. The weekend is supposed to be great.

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  4. Sounds awesome. I hope that my own logjam will one day magically disappear. Maybe you got on the good side of the Science Fairy Godmother?

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  5. That sounds awesome! Congrats on your progress :)

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  6. Yay!! It is such a nice feeling when that happens. But I'm going to be Debbie Downer: I feel this way about every other week, alternating between this and feeling like everything sucks--plus, everytime you get something working, something else will break.

    WAHHH WUUHHAHAAAAAHHHHHHH

    :(

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  7. "I don't know what is different or whether it has to do with the students being more comfortable or confident"I've learned not to question why things start working, but rather to just be grateful that they do. Congrats on the progress!

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  8. PiT - Thanks, I hope it continues.

    Arlena - We'll know this week if it's all false hope. Either way, at least the students are becoming better with the methods and I can trust them to get it done on their own.

    MH - I hear ya.

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