Seminar

Rob Weiss, Ph.D.

"Get the Most Out of Graduate School: Preparing to be an Academic Biostatistician"

In graduate school, I prepared for a career as a biostatistics professor. Mostly by accident; little of what I did was purposeful for becoming a professor. I did things I wanted to do; not things to prepare me for a career. Only rarely did someone actually show me tools or information that was specifically useful for my future career. After graduation, I became an assistant professor (another accident), and learned more about how to be a biostatistician. I learned a lot through trial and error and plenty from the learn-to-swim-by-being-tossed-in-the-pool school of training. Now I teach many of those same lessons to each new dissertation student. I still use the trial and error approach to learning for myself, but I really don't approve of tossing students into pools unprepared. There is lots to graduate school besides course work. I outline a number of issues/subjects/tools not overtly covered in courses. Arguably, much of this is more important than course work for later career success. I give an overview of a number of topics:

o What important subjects you need to learn;

o How to
- learn;
- read journal articles;
- think;
- listen to a talk;
o Communicate:
- write,
- lecture;
o Organize:
- what you know,
- what you don't know,
- a paper,
- a talk,
- your life;
o Tools statisticians use in - research,
- computation,
- writing;
o Jobs: What actually happens there?
o Personal survival & happiness.

This is far too much to go in depth in a single talk; I point these issues out to allow you to be aware of them and to encourage you to be pro-active in prepping for your career.

Seminar Date:
October 3, 2007