Snippets from GHC2010 - Part 2: Five reasons to participate in the PhD Forum

One of the many ways you can participate in the Grace Hopper Conference is through the PhD Forum. The PhD Forum is intended for PhD students in their last year of the program to share their thesis research.

Why should you participate in this forum when you already have other technical conferences? I participated this year and found it more beneficial than I imagined. I didn't know what to expect because this was my very first GHC. In five bullet points, this is why you should participate in the PhD Forum

• The forum is split in several sessions. This year each session had 3 presentations. Each session has a mentor assigned that helps you through the presentation and before and after the event. My mentor was the amazing Patty Lopez from Intel. Patty was extremely useful before, during, and after the presentation, and after the conference was over. I am happy to have found such a mentor!
• The audience is from a wide range of technical backgrounds. Unlike most presentations we give during grad school, this time around I was presenting to students from outside my area of expertise, people from industry and even undergrads. I found it challenging and fun to present to such a diverse audience, but, beyond all, it made me think about how to distill my research to its fundamental concepts that can be explained to anyone with some technical computing background.
• GHC in general is a very friendly community and place for mentoring and networking. I was very impressed with the questions from the audience, both in technical content and interest in the work. I also presented my research during a poster session, which allowed people that were interested in more details to drop by and chat some more on the subject.
• This was the very first time when I received written anonymous feedback on a research presentation. I was overwhelmed with the response: people took the time to write thoughtful comments and provide written feedback on the technical content, the presentation delivery and the appealing factor of my research. I remember one of the comments that made laugh: "cool idea, I can't wait to see it in my next processor!" :)
• Several people from industry got interested in my research and asked me whether I am interested in internships. Unfortunately, I'm planning to graduate soon and I couldn't take advantage of such opportunities, but it's important to know that such opportunities exist and GHC is the place to "grab" them. One person in particular made my day when she came after lunch that day to let me know that her academic department is hiring and they could use more computer architects! 

If you participated in a PhD Forum at GHC what are your five reasons to encourage others to take advantage of this special opportunity?

Update: Somehow, I forgot one of the most useful aspects of submitting your work to the PhD Forum: when you submit your work, you are required to provide the name of several reviewers that get to read your proposal and give you feedback. When I received my reviews for my PhD Forum proposal, it was such a boost of confidence to see what others thought about my research. Who doesn't need a boost of confidence?! You may think that it requires time to apply for the PhD Forum, but it is time very well invested! 

In Memoriam: Irina Athanasiu

I am indebted to a lot of professors that I've had throughout the years. They all encouraged me in my studies and inspired my love of learning and teaching.
One of these very special professors was Irina Athanasiu. Unfortunately, cancer took her away. I miss her. While she was still alive, I didn't dare to talk to her as much as I would have liked, even when friends from back home said that she used to mention my name quite often. I didn't want to bug her with my own issues and worries...

If I were to say only one thing about Irina was that she was the most straightforward person I've ever met. She really said it like it was, even when it wasn't pretty at all. I have a couple of emails from her from a tough period in my life and I can't help to smile when I read them. She says something like this: "what I have to say is not pretty, but here it is". I miss her advice. She had this rare skill of thinking about things from your own perspective, but with her years of experience and her very particular wisdom.

For the people that did not meet her, it's hard to describe her. And then for those that were lucky to know her, any word does not mean much compared to the experience of interacting with her. She touched the lives of an unbelievably high number of students!

It was is her birthday today. And I wanted to do something to remember her. She used to write a column in one of the Romanian IT magazines. I want to translate one of her articles. I read them again and again and never get bored with them. Her ideas are fresh even years and years after being published. This is my little offering for today. This way, hopefully more people will read her words. And I may repeat the experiment with other articles of hers in the future. The original can be found here in Romanian. I tried to really translate it and not adapt it such that I don't transform her words.

Shall I Be Proud?
          by Irina Athanasiu

"You must be really proud to have so many former students that are now employees of Microsoft US"... someone told me recently. There are two assumptions behind this statement. First, the fact that someone works for Microsoft in US is an accomplishment in itself. Second, students' accomplishments are ascribed to their professors, and school, in general.

Why is it that if someone works for Microsoft US is a bigger accomplishment than if they work at Google in US or if they work for Microsoft Romania or Freescale, Oracle or IBM Romania? What if someone works in a company that does not have an international reputation, does it count less? Should I have considered that the ones that developed RAV during the time when the first R meant Romania and not Reliable, in other words when the product was not renowned internationally, valued less than now when they are employed by Microsoft and RAV became just a memory?

Getting hired by a company like Microsoft means passing successfully a suite of interviews that are not easy, but that are just exams, probably more difficult than the ones in school. It's about knowledge and ability testing, in other words it's about testing some premises not certifying some accomplishments. Someone that is successful during the interviews becomes one of the thousands of employees in a mechanism developed in such a way that it does not depend on the deviations of each employee from the average one (not the ideal one). The number of those that have indeed a way to influence the Microsoft products is very small, irrespective of considering technical or marketing aspects. Now I can remember only two names from the top of my head: Toma Tudor and Crisitan Petculescu.

Speaking about accomplishments, I think that George Ciprian Necula getting the Grace Murray Hopper award for the best young researcher of the year in 2001 (http://awards.acm.org/hopper/) and Ion Stoica obtaining the ACM prize for the best PhD thesis in CS (http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1014887) are reasons to be proud for these two. I also think that my former student Daniel Bogdan, one of the two founders fo IPDevel (www.ipdevel.ro) have reasons to be proud, given the spectacular evolution of the company started in 2000 when Daniel was still a student.

How much of students' accomplishments are due to their professors is a question that I will answer with my favorite answer: it really depends. Recently, one of the graduates, Vivi, wrote me an email to let me know that he passed successfully all interviews and he will start working for Google USA starting this fall. In the same email, he reminded me that he worked during his undergrad studies and he didn't finish the most difficult major in our department. In other words, he was successful for what he wanted while not following the advice that I always give to the students. Does that mean that Vivi succeeded without the school's help? For me, the fact that Vivi felt the need to write back to me means that he heard and he wondered if I were right or not. I would be proud if all students that I talk to would listen to what I have to say and think whether I'm right or wrong. If then they act according to their own conclusions, it would mean that at least part of my job description was covered.

What part of the multiple successes obtained by our Computer Science and Engineering Department team of students (http://icpc.baylor.edu/past/icpc2005/finals/Standings.html) in international competitions are ascribed to the school? What if these students were studying at a different university in Romania or abroad, do you think they wouldn't have obtained the same prizes? Probably the merit of the school is that because it's renowned, it attracts a lot of very good students that you can build winning teams with. Also, the group of professors and TAs that manage every year to select and advise a group of students is a contribution of the school. Does this mean anything about the whole school in general?

To be proud of someone else's success, you must have done something to contribute to this success. Otherwise, of course we've always been and ar proud of Nadia Comaneci's* successes.

* Nadia Comaneci is a famous Romanian gymnast that got the first full 10 in the Olympics Games for gymnastic.