VMD-L Mailing List

From: Axel Kohlmeyer (akohlmey_at_gmail.com)
Date: Sun May 15 2011 - 16:47:40 CDT

On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 3:42 PM, Gianluca Interlandi
<gianluca_at_u.washington.edu> wrote:
> Hi Axel,
>
>> positions for computational work. but then again the emphasis is on "work"
>> and "results", not so much developmental work (which can even be poison
>> for a career). one can easily see this from the type of questions on the
>> list.
>
> I agree with you. Are you saying that these days obtaining "results" has
> become more important than deeply understanding what you are doing?

you have to qualify "more important". if you mean more important to be
successful in getting a degree or getting a job or advancing your career,
then - i am afraid - the answer is yes. research has become a business
and for most it is more important to maximize the value of your shares
than doing "the right thing(tm)", since the latter doesn't pay off that well.

the same goes for educating people that are new to the field. i am constantly
disappointed by how little many advisors these days (can) help their students,
and as i said the root causes for problems lie often in the years before, where
students are not properly educated in how to learn and how to acquire a skill.
all that is typically done is to educate them how to pass an exam.

again, the driving force is economics. it is just not efficient to invest too
much effort into teaching, as it takes away from research, which is the
yardstick that you usually get evaluated with.

for me personally, of course, the answer has to be no. but that has
as a consequence that i often have to deal with students that are
confused by the assignments that i am giving them.

cheers,
    axel.

> Thanks,
>
> Gianluca
>
>
>> cheers,
>>    axel.
>> 

-- 
Dr. Axel Kohlmeyer
akohlmey_at_gmail.com  http://goo.gl/1wk0
Institute for Computational Molecular Science
Temple University, Philadelphia PA, USA.