Many of my students, who are now doing PhDs abroad, come back to see me. Today was one such day. This student completed his M.Sc with us, was keen to go abroad to do PhD. Of course the GRE did not work out so he looked at alternative pastures. He got in a PhD program in Germany.
I asked him about his experiences. He said that he has to work very hard because when his boss says that the data has to be on his desk in the morning, it has to be there, no excuses accepted.
That of course is the difference. Here they would saunter in at 10 in the morning, go for a cup of chai, then think about doing the experiments. Deadlines are never met. There are so many excuses to trot out. The electricity was not there, the instrument was no available, the instrument was not working, I fell sick, and so on and so forth. There is no rush to do anything. Not even when there is a deadline for a paper resubmission. I have a paper sitting on my desk that needs to be resubmitted. It has been two months. The student concerned first made an excuse that these experiments proposed by the reviewers cannot be done. Since he has been trotting out this excuse since the day he joined the lab, my colleague and I refused to accept it. Beaten down, but not defeated, he did the experiments. Of course it worked but he refuses to acknowledge that we are right. But to complete the experiments, he needs one chemical. He knew from the beginning that he would need it but his argument was why we need to show so many proofs? Isn't one sufficient? Finally, after yelling at him, we got it ordered. Now, we are waiting for the delivery. Or rather he is waiting calmly and patiently. It will arrive one day. If not today then tomorrow. If not this week, next week. What is the hurry? My colleague and I are like cats on hot bricks- hopping impatiently. The editor is not going to wait, can you please chase the chemical? Can you find if any other lab has? Can you borrow?
The student is not bothered...
No comments:
Post a Comment