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Lessons I wish I had been taught (1996)

alumni.media.mit.edu

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Re: Lessons I wish I had been taught (1996)

#51

Post by randomsearch »

justinzollars wrote: post #4

> My late friend Stan Ulam used to remark that his life was sharply divided into two halves. In the first half, he was always the youngest person in the group; in the second half, he was always the oldest. There was no transitional period. Agree.

Find this such an odd assertion, it doesn’t make sense.

If you have peers around your age, and you continue to spend time with them (as friends, colleagues etc) then surely this is false.

I wonder if it’s more of a reference to academia? Most people figure out academia and quit, others want to stay but don’t make it, so the pyramid scheme leads to only one of a cohort surviving?

Re: Lessons I wish I had been taught (1996)

#52

Post by afc »

randomsearch wrote: post #51
justinzollars wrote: post #4

> My late friend Stan Ulam used to remark that his life was sharply divided into two halves. In the first half, he was always the youngest person in the group; in the second half, he was always the oldest. There was no transitional period. Agree.

Find this such an odd assertion, it doesn’t make sense. If you have peers around your age, and you continue to spend time with them (as friends, colleagues etc) then surely this is false. I wonder if it’s more of a reference to academia? Most people figure out academia and quit, others want to stay but don’t make it, so the pyramid scheme leads to only one of a cohort surviving?

I'm not in academia, I'm in the industry, and I find the claim very accurate.

Sure, my ol' peers are around (sure, the sentence is false in the strict/pedantic sense), but the vast majority of people around me changed instantaneously. Replace "always" with "most of the time" and "instantaneous" with "much quicker than one would think" and such.

In any case, if the claim doesn't make sense to you... it might some day.

Re: Lessons I wish I had been taught (1996)

#53

Post by [deleted] »

Diesel555 wrote: post #49

> My late friend Stan Ulam used to remark that his life was sharply divided into two halves. In the first half, he was always the youngest person in the group; in the second half, he was always the oldest. There was no transitional period. I now realize how right he was. The etiquette of old age does not seem to have been written up, and we have to learn it the hard way. It depends on a basic realization, which takes…

[deleted]

Re: Lessons I wish I had been taught (1996)

#54

Post by mdp2021 »

zw123456 wrote: post #45

My new word for the day: incunabulum

Subtle in the context: not just a "testimony of knowledge in a priceless form", but also an "in-the-cradle" ('incunabulum' - the term conveys "immaturity"), a relic of old times predating current state-of-the-art practice (the printing press). Both sides of value are in a museum piece.

Re: Lessons I wish I had been taught (1996)

#56

Post by badpun »

paulpauper wrote: post #29
kamaal wrote: post #5

>>10 Be prepared for old age Like my dad adviced me. As you age worry only about four things: Health, Relationships, Side income and Free time. Forget about career, accolades, titles, awards or recognitions, nothing is really remembered in this world where kids can't remember their parent's birthday or what they had in dinner yesterday.

If you cannot see your legacy, then why do anything. What difference does it make if others don't remember if you cannot witness it anyway. I understand the part about family and relationships, but success sure feels good too even if no one cares after you are dead.

> success sure feels good too even if no one cares after you are dead.

Success is nice, but too often it comes at great cost. How many successful people's lives are essentially barren wastelands, because they had to move too many times, had to work ultra hard for years on stuff they don't particularly enjoy, had neglected friends and family and/or health. Not to mention that many of them, after attaining success, have learned that it doesn't matter all that much to them, and they'd rather have a full and balanced life instead (or, even worse, they feel bad but can't even articulate why - they haven't reach the necessary level of self-awareness) - only now it's too late for that.

Re: Lessons I wish I had been taught (1996)

#57

Post by BlueTemplar »

zabzonk wrote: post #14

> Blackboard Technique Use Whiteboard. Worst teaching experiences in my life have featured blackboards. Ooh that scree of the chalk and the eraser that does no such thing. Mind you, I haVE bad experiences with whiteboards too, particulary when the previous user defaced the board with non-whiteboard markers

My experience is that whiteboards are the worst, because checking that the markers work properly is almost never done before the course.

Also they tend to be much smaller for some reason.

Re: Lessons I wish I had been taught (1996)

#59

Post by retcon »

It's Rota's 10th point, on ageing, that's ringing in my ears. I'm the oldest person in the room far too often (and the population growth of recent decades serves to increase the effect and maybe even accelerate its onset) and I can absolutely attest, with the benefit of belated hindsight, to Rota's observation that this transformation happened overnight in a simple erasure of a former life. I'm searching for any indication whether I can see how to formulate any potential insights from my recollection of my time prior to this moment, for the purpose of possible improvements in approach before this life event, but I'm rather lost in thoughts about my experience with the latter half of the ageing phenomenon which has never been so succinctly put.

Rota encourages you in your increasing age to enjoy being regarded as a institutional being. Possibly this needs to be updated in countries where there's been institutional and government scaling creep, because being perceived as institutional and bureaucratic (which effects I could already create too long before qualifying for Rota's advice) in my recent experience creates more difficulty than value with younger folk.

Edit: forgot now inserted that what I have been reflecting on is whether there's better ways leading up to becoming a overnight old aged institution .

Re: Lessons I wish I had been taught (1996)

#60

Post by watwut »

paulpauper wrote: post #28

If someone like Gian-Carlo Rota took the International Math Olympiad how well would he do? Would someone with a PhD in math and some published papers find it easy? Or do Olympiad problems require a separate technique to solve them efficiently compared to dissertations and papers. Olympiad problems seme to be heavy in combinatorics, symmetry, and 'tricks' to find ways to simply them.

Unless your PhD is very special, Olympiad requires different knowledge then what you do when doing PhD in math. Plus, Olympiad trains you to be proficient at solving known issues in 4 hours span. PhD trains you to be good at solving unknown issues for months/years.

If you are good in Olympiad style solving problems and have that months/years long endurance, you are likely to do well at PhD. (I know a guy who was good at Olympiad and completely sucked at anything that required longer attention span and was not fun to him as Olympiad was).

If you are good PhD student, you could likely train for Olympiad and do reasonably well. However, it may be quite possible you wont never be as fast or that you will find it not fun.

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