Over the years I have heard many opinions from graduate students about going to talks not related to their research interests. My impression is that more and more students feel that they should skip such talks because:
- The talk is in an area that they are not familiar with. (”This talk will be way over my head.”)
- They have more important things to do. (”My adviser will not go to such talks either.”)
- Many talks are usually difficult to follow. (”It’s easier to directly read the paper.”)
As some of you may know, recently Avi Wigderson gave a talk in STOC 2004 about why we should listen to talks in other areas. He really seems to have some convincing arguments about why knowing other areas can help your own research. I won’t repeat them here.
And even though the opinion of a small potato like me doesn’t carry any weight, let me add to his list from a less utilitarian perspective (I do not claim Avi’s talk was utilitarian but the motivation he gave in his talk was certainly targeted to convince you of the benefits):
- Manuel Blum once told me that “a PhD should be someone who knows everything about something and something about everything” and I believe him.
- I feel that even very productive graduate students should have more time than their advisers.
- As a community (if it ever existed), we should show up to community events, even just to show our support and appreciation to the speaker and the community itself. (I know this is mostly a culture thing. I am a Chinese and we treasure fellowship.)
What do you think?
P.S. I am spending the last 25 minutes to write this post because today one of our weekly “community event” scheduled at this time has been canceled due to various reasons. I don’t blame anyone for this. We all have our priorities and I respect that. (I lament only solely because there is a lack of free food. You believe me, right? :P)
14:16 on April 27th, 2005
I am a big proponent of breadth, in fact I believe ideas outside of mathematics can often be helpful in one’s work. Many times, I have gained far more insight by a well-written philosophy article than an esoteric STOC/FOCS paper.
Concerning seminars, I typically work at very odd hours. (E.g. I was awake until 7am this morning.) Eventually I will have to start keeping normal hours again, but for now the bizarre schedule seems to help my research thoughts. If a seminar is before 1pm, the chances of my attending are about 50/50 regardless of the talk’s abstract. (Tonight I will probably take a sleeping pill for Khot’s talk tomorrow!)
18:00 on April 27th, 2005
I found your set of reasons to NOT go to talks more convincing than your reasons FOR going talks
I think it is a good thing “philosophically” to go to talks but sometimes it seems like a luxury, especially when your own research is not going that well and you need to optimize the cost/benefit ratio as much as possible.
Personally I at least try to be aware of all the talks that are going on but if a talk sounds like it is “for specialists eyes only” then I will most likely skip it.
Of course there are many other factors that go into the decision such as quality of the speaker, if there are “hot” new results and (as Ryan mentioned) the time of the talk. I am much more likely to go to a Friday afternoon talk than a Monday morning talk.
8:55 on April 28th, 2005
Robert, indeed I sometimes feel like I am a Catholic Father hard-selling a philosophy that is about “sacrifice” (especially the last point about community). I can only hope that one day some all-mighty being will tell me that I was right.
I really hate those “specalists” talks given in a Theory seminar, whatever the actual event is. Some speakers claim that their subjects are so deep and hard that it is impossible to present them to a general Theory audience in an hour.
I don’t buy that argument. It just shows that they lack the motivation to do so. I have yet to find a job candidate claiming that his/her research is too sophisticated for the faculty to understand and there is no way for him/her to convey the essence across to allow the audience to appreciate the content of the talk (although over the years I have certainly witnessed many such failures, oh well).
BTW, I really thank you for sharing your opinion. These days it’s hard to find someone who’s willing to speak up.
11:58 on April 28th, 2005
My three cents… I seriously doubt I would read a paper outside of my area if I were not interested in attending a talk related to it. Papers usually take much longer to read, and give a much lower-level view. It is true that it is hard to find a well-given talk, but nevertheless, I always learn something from any talk I attend — if only the fact that some given problem exists and is being studied.