Thursday, February 23, 2012
Black Tie Ben
You would hardly know it to look at me, but at some point over the past few months I underwent a curious metamorphosis. For most of the past five years, I was a graduate student. When I informed people of my choice of profession, the news was met with a mixture of reactions, ranging from polite to confused to derisive. Above all, they thought of me as a *student*, i.e. someone in need of further education.
What a difference a degree makes!
Now, instead of being "that guy who works on...something related to electronics, I think?," since defending my dissertation I have apparently transformed into an *expert*. Despite the fact that I really haven't become that much smarter in the months since my dissertation defense, during that time I have been approached to review articles, join conference panels, and perhaps most surprising of all, provide information for a newspaper article.
This last bit merits further elaboration. A few weeks ago while I was conducting an oral history interview for my postdoctoral fellowship, I received an email from a reporter. Apparently several key figures from my dissertation had been awarded a prize for their research, and the local paper thought it might be worthwhile to talk to someone who knew a little about what they did. So they sought out an *expert*, which is to say...me.
Normally, that might be the end of the story. But in this case, things got more interesting.
Following my discussion with the reporter, I decided to contact the organization offering the award to learn more about the ceremony. During the course of these conversations, I was able to leverage my newfound status as an *expert* to procure a ticket to the big event, a black tie dinner held in Washington, D.C.! During the ceremony, I had the chance to meet all of the prize winners and deliver (electronic) copies of my dissertation to the individuals whose work made it all possible in the first place. And as if that weren't enough, one of them agreed to sit and chat with me about his work for an hour after the ceremony ended. All in all, it was one of the more memorable evenings of my brief academic career.
Such are the benefits of being an *expert*! If I had only known, I would have skipped the whole grad school thing and just jumped to the fun part...
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You would hardly know it to look at me, but at some point over the past few months I underwent a curious metamorphosis. For most of the past five years, I was a graduate student. When I informed people of my choice of profession, the news was met with a mixture of reactions, ranging from polite to confused to derisive. Above all, they thought of me as a *student*, i.e. someone in need of further education.
What a difference a degree makes!
Now, instead of being "that guy who works on...something related to electronics, I think?," since defending my dissertation I have apparently transformed into an *expert*. Despite the fact that I really haven't become that much smarter in the months since my dissertation defense, during that time I have been approached to review articles, join conference panels, and perhaps most surprising of all, provide information for a newspaper article.
This last bit merits further elaboration. A few weeks ago while I was conducting an oral history interview for my postdoctoral fellowship, I received an email from a reporter. Apparently several key figures from my dissertation had been awarded a prize for their research, and the local paper thought it might be worthwhile to talk to someone who knew a little about what they did. So they sought out an *expert*, which is to say...me.
Normally, that might be the end of the story. But in this case, things got more interesting.
Following my discussion with the reporter, I decided to contact the organization offering the award to learn more about the ceremony. During the course of these conversations, I was able to leverage my newfound status as an *expert* to procure a ticket to the big event, a black tie dinner held in Washington, D.C.! During the ceremony, I had the chance to meet all of the prize winners and deliver (electronic) copies of my dissertation to the individuals whose work made it all possible in the first place. And as if that weren't enough, one of them agreed to sit and chat with me about his work for an hour after the ceremony ended. All in all, it was one of the more memorable evenings of my brief academic career.
Such are the benefits of being an *expert*! If I had only known, I would have skipped the whole grad school thing and just jumped to the fun part...
