Center for Relativistic Laser Science

http://nanotube.skku.ac.kr/weekly.html 에서 옮김

2010.12.26 21:02:20


Now the fall semester is almost over. Not yet over because some did not get the grade back yet. Some are happy because they got good grades but some are not happy because they did not get good grades. This is particularly more serious issue for foreign students. It reminds me of my student period during my Ph. D in USA. I was very nervous in the first semester because the grades affected the next appointment of scholarship, which is critical for survival. I was scared at the beginning because I did not get good grades in the mid term in some classes. When I heard I got all A, I was very very happy and released. So the first semester is very important because then you know what to do in the following semester.

We recently have many foreign students. Perhaps now a half the members are foreign students. Foreign students are usually working harder than domestic students. One reason is of course they are better prepared than Korean students. They did extra effort to come to study abroad. There is another reason however. Foreign students are basically isolated from their family. This is tough situation in general. On the other hand, this is certainly advantage because they can concentrate on only studying. I remember this period in USA and I now realized this is very important period for me to improve myself without being bothered by other tedious business. Contrary to this, Korean students are overwhelmed by many other events such as going to bar with old friends, visiting relatives, going for friends' wedding ceremony, participating for all kinds of birthday party, funerals.... This short period of time, I would say 5 years for Ph. D to be short compared to the life time after Ph. D, is very important so that one can really focus on developing themselves by cutting all unnecessary things in personal life. Otherwise one cannot be a professional.

One of the main concern for the beginner to start research is how to do research. They mostly spent time in the classroom and do not have experience in the laboratory. They are scared to try lab equipments in the beginning. As time goes, they get familiar with equipments and see other senior publications which make them wonder if they can do that for themselves. Of course, many guys catch these with time and they can start publishing papers. Sometimes, this process takes really long. Some are lucky or they work hard to get somethings done. We all know the best reward of all our efforts is the paper. So when we publish paper, we are all happy no matter how important the paper is. Each paper has one's all the effort of sweat and long time patience. Some are lucky to publish in high-tier journal. Some are unlucky. Some one published before his is published. This is the worst case actually and really painful to accept. This is the reason that one cannot be lazy to get the results. Someone is working with the same subject. Competition is here in the research society. There are millions of other people as smart as you are and working hard as much as you are. Well, you perhaps say 'Oh I have other opportunity that is easier than this job and I can do much better without competition and perhaps lucky enough to be more relaxing and more pleasant.' Well, that may be true but I can ensure from my experience there is no such a job in this world with so many people for high quality life.

During this training process, students sometimes have no patience. This of course comes from competition pressure. Our competitor or some other seniors are really doing great... He is publishing a lot of good papers but I cannot... I worked hard and cannot get any good results... I am not qualified to be a scientist... How come others are so effective to do many things simultaneously, multitasking but I cannot even finish one topics... This kind of feeling is really killing us.

But I would say, nothing is easy. Although you look others doing so easily, this is not true. In order to get some results, one need some latent period to publish. Some needs higher pressure to explode it and some may need less pressure. Everyone has his individual limit in knowledge and intelligence. I strongly believe that if you come to this far to the graduate school, you are qualified to do anything. What you need is a 'patience'. Like an airplane to take off, so many things are required. Loading fuels, checking if there is anything wrong..., so many people are working for it... Life is like that.,.. We are here to prepare for take-off.. Don't be disappointed when you do not get expected results. You will have to reconsider over and over what is wrong in the middle of the experiments. Check all the possibility of getting wrong... Repeat until you are 100% sure. Don't complain you don't get the answer immediately like others. Other good guys have also gone through the similar suffering procedure although he looks good in the end. I would say there is no genius in science. Patience and perseverance are the highest virtue to be a scientist. Cheep up! Don't give up but keep moving forward! You will see the light in the end. Don't forget there is someone always watching you and back you up!