Last week, the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS) paid tribute to the contributions of more than 170 members of the 黑料吃瓜网community during its Postdoctoral Fellows Research and Appreciation Day.
Postdocs at Dal are completing the last necessary step before they begin their academic and research careers. They spend many hours in their labs, working on the cutting edge of their fields, but sometimes their enormous contribution to campus research doesn鈥檛 always get noticed, says event coordinator Alicia Kirk, grad student services and postdoctoral fellows clerk with FGS.
Hence, the idea of a campus-wide Appreciation Day. In the past there has been separate days for appreciation and for research, sometimes in different faculties, but this year the coordinators brought the events together, to 鈥済ive postdocs the opportunity to come together and socialize,鈥� said Kirk. The research portion of the event was coordinated by Adrian West, Dal Postdoctoral Society president, who also collaborated with FGS on the entire Appreciation Day event.
The full day of activities featured presentations of some of the fellows鈥� innovative research projects, a barbecue with music from Dalhousie鈥檚 own Daniel Boyd and his band No Longer Hip, and keynote speaker Jorge Cham, creator of the web comic sensation PhD Comics.
Laughing at the power of procrastination
Dr. Cham鈥檚 comic 鈥� the PhD in the title doubles as 鈥淧iled Higher and Deeper鈥� 鈥斅� is a humorous online account of grad student life. He writes from experience: Dr. Cham has a doctorate in engineering from Stanford and a resume that includes working in Robotics at Cal-Tech.聽 The comic was born out of a theory Dr. Cham developed while at Stanford: the "Unified Theory of Procrastination in Academia," or UTOPIA, as he quips. 聽
The talk resounded with the audience as he made light of the day-to-day stresses of the grad-student experience: worries about surviving one-on-ones with advisors, TA sessions, etiquette and oral exams 鈥� all part of what he jokingly called the 鈥済lobal misery phenomenon.鈥� 聽
Dr. Cham cited a Berkeley study of grad students that found that 95 per cent have felt overwhelmed during their studies. 鈥淚n academia, it never ends,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here is always something you could be doing more of.鈥�
This is where 鈥渢he power of procrastination鈥� becomes essential. According to Dr. Cham, procrastination is our mind鈥檚 way of reminding us that we cannot work 24 hours each day.聽 Everyone should 鈥渞elax, enjoy and listen to your inner procrastinator.鈥�
Dr. Cham ended his talk on a more serious note, emphasizing the practical application of the postdoc education. In grad school, he said, you learn 鈥渢o be an independent self-learner, to break things down, to see the big picture and to communicate it to others.鈥� Dr. Cham stressed the last point, reminding the postdocs that they can have an impact on the world around them.
A successful event
As the day came to a close with a barbeque for the fellows and their families, a valuable sense of community was cultivated. 聽
鈥淚 heard several postdocs commenting on how they met some people doing really interesting research that they had no idea about previously, which is great,鈥� said Kirk. 聽
With such an overwhelmingly positive response, FGS hopes to make the day an annual event.