Greetings From Edmonton
It is done. I have survived my first full-on academic interview. And boy, am I tired. In fact, it is 11:29am (1:29 Ontario time), and I am still on Lynne's couch, under the duvet, watching TV and surfing the web. I haven't really moved. I have a stain on the front of my PJ shirt, but I don't care enough to get my ass off the couch and do anything about. And so it shall stay.
To say that yesterday was a long day would be an understatement. I was picked up from the hotel by the department chair at 7:30am, and left dinner with the hiring committee (+Honey) at 8:30pm. And it was packed in between. Arranged meetings with people, discussing the program, how my research would fit in, everything is a bit of a blur now. I also had an hour and a half panel interview that I did not realize that I would have until I was actually sitting down for it. Probably best that way, as I would have become ridiculously nervous if I had've known about it before-hand.
And everything went great.
I am very jealous of Lynne's working environment. The people here are fantastic and everyone is enthusiastic about what they do. The Chair is great... he really seems to have the interests of all of his department members as his upmost priority. The way that they are developing their new honours program is also really, really cool (again, largely thanks in part to the devotion of Honey herself). There is a very, very heavy teaching load, but I am up for the challenge. Bring it on, I say, bring it on. Since there is no-one that does perception here, I would become the resident expert, a rarity in the academic circles these days.
My talk went well... thankfully everyone here has general interests, and so they seemed to not only follow my research talk but actually enjoy it (*shock, gasp*). While I was nervous for the first 10 minutes or so, the sight of Honey's bobbing grinning head from the back row gave me confidence, and the talk ended up being more of a discussion. Again, I think this will help in the long run as it showed that I could talk TO and not AT people. Oh, and the fact that the 'external' member of the 5 member hiring committee was an engineer didn't hurt matters either... we talked Matlab, and even discussed the possibility of introducing a course in Matlab in one of the departments. This would be especially useful, as they are planning on having honours students select their 3rd and 4th year courses on recommendations from their honours advisor (who will be selected at the beginning of their 3rd year). I could then develop a system of programming minions. And work towards my eventual goal of taking over the world.
And so now I must wait. They will be making their decision at the end of next week. Now it will all depend on my competition, and whether or not the department is willing to risk hiring someone who has never taught before. Everything else should be working in my favour. I have tempered hope.
And now I get to spend the next 48 hours with Honey. Brilliant.
To say that yesterday was a long day would be an understatement. I was picked up from the hotel by the department chair at 7:30am, and left dinner with the hiring committee (+Honey) at 8:30pm. And it was packed in between. Arranged meetings with people, discussing the program, how my research would fit in, everything is a bit of a blur now. I also had an hour and a half panel interview that I did not realize that I would have until I was actually sitting down for it. Probably best that way, as I would have become ridiculously nervous if I had've known about it before-hand.
And everything went great.
I am very jealous of Lynne's working environment. The people here are fantastic and everyone is enthusiastic about what they do. The Chair is great... he really seems to have the interests of all of his department members as his upmost priority. The way that they are developing their new honours program is also really, really cool (again, largely thanks in part to the devotion of Honey herself). There is a very, very heavy teaching load, but I am up for the challenge. Bring it on, I say, bring it on. Since there is no-one that does perception here, I would become the resident expert, a rarity in the academic circles these days.
My talk went well... thankfully everyone here has general interests, and so they seemed to not only follow my research talk but actually enjoy it (*shock, gasp*). While I was nervous for the first 10 minutes or so, the sight of Honey's bobbing grinning head from the back row gave me confidence, and the talk ended up being more of a discussion. Again, I think this will help in the long run as it showed that I could talk TO and not AT people. Oh, and the fact that the 'external' member of the 5 member hiring committee was an engineer didn't hurt matters either... we talked Matlab, and even discussed the possibility of introducing a course in Matlab in one of the departments. This would be especially useful, as they are planning on having honours students select their 3rd and 4th year courses on recommendations from their honours advisor (who will be selected at the beginning of their 3rd year). I could then develop a system of programming minions. And work towards my eventual goal of taking over the world.
And so now I must wait. They will be making their decision at the end of next week. Now it will all depend on my competition, and whether or not the department is willing to risk hiring someone who has never taught before. Everything else should be working in my favour. I have tempered hope.
And now I get to spend the next 48 hours with Honey. Brilliant.
posted by Anderson at 10:29 AM
2 Comments:
Yay for Geek.
Yay for Honey.
Yay for Friday.
Yay! Yay! Nay, thrice Yay!
hee hee.....you almost sound like you're still on the interview. Glad to hear that it went well and that the place felt like a fit for you. I have my fingers crossed for you! They'd be silly not to want you.
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