trial by fire

[Chris Hitchcock]

As a grad student, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to 
develop my scientific presentation skills in a weekly lunch seminar
group. I didn't appreciate until much later how lucky I was, and 
how helpful it was. 

We were a smallish group -- 3 faculty, 1 long-time researcher and instructor,
a couple of lab techs, and a handful of grad students and post-docs. 
Each week, someone got up to talk about work they had done, or work they
were going to do. The expectation was that we would all be engaged with 
the seminars, that we would ask questions to clarify, and that we would
offer criticism of the basic experimental idea, the interpretation of the 
data, or, sometimes, the presentation style. The criticism was always
meant to be helpful, and we grew to know not only how to give a better talk,
but also how other people think when they hear a talk, and what kind of 
criticisms people may have. 

Early on, most grad students were pretty nervous. But people gave one or 
two of these a year, and professors took risks as well, putting out 
ideas that were still germinating, and offering one another help with 
the development of the ideas. It was a good model of how to build a 
supportive scientific community, and it was clear that we all cared 
about the science, and cared about one another doing the best science 
we could. That is something that I wish there were more of in science.
Too often, questions at seminars seem more about male-male dominance
displays than about constructive criticism.

I agree, that it is important to equip students to think well on 
their feet. I also think it is a good idea to ease them into it, and,
once they have a good idea of how to handle well-meaning criticism,
then start thinking more about the less helpful stuff.

Was this hazing? No, it felt like building and nurturing scientific 
competence in students. And it was really neat to watch people get better
over time, and a good way to know what everyone was doing.

I figured everyone had that chance, but then did my post-doc and moved 
to other places, and discovered that it wasn't always so. 

What other successful experiences have people had? As I read this, I think 
that it might also have been useful to talk about the departmental seminars
and how people asked questions, and what worked well and what didn't.

	Chris.