July 2018
I decided to take part in a Summer School on Decision Making in Engineering Systems jointly organized by the National Science Foundation and Neely Center at the University of Southern California in June 2018. My advisor forwarded me an invite last year and I applied hoping to learn something new that can later be applied to my doctoral research. I got accepted but wasn’t sure what to expect from such a workshop. 20 other Ph.D. students were selected to attend from all over the country. Off I went to Los Angeles, the city of Angels with a lot of expectations. This was my third trip to LA. So, I was not excited about the city but was eagerly looking forward to being at USC.
On the first day, I was a little nervous as I did not know anybody there. I lost my way in the campus and met Dr. George Hazelrigg who was also lost and came to attend the workshop. He was very experienced and had been with NSF for many years. Together we found the right building. We became good friends in that short ten-minute walk. That first tryst with him gave me a sigh of relief and I felt confident. The workshop started with a little introduction to the decision-making methods currently used by researchers in the design community. Then we moved onto methods that seemed to be valid in some cases but fail under a lot of practical circumstances. Though sometimes I felt that Dr. Hazelrigg and Dr. Ali - the organizers of the workshop – were pushing the envelope by being too critical of some methods, they later presented evidence to prove it. Without taking any side, I understood that I should be more critical and evaluate for myself to know what holds true and what does not for different cases. We also had guest lectures everyday by distinguished professors from engineering and business schools at USC. Those were the best part of the workshop as every guest speaker tried to engage us by asking us to make decisions based on what we learnt, in a given hypothetical situation.
I realized on the first day that connecting the participants was one of the major objectives of the organizers. I got a chance to go out in the evenings with my new friends. We went to UCLA, Santa Monica and Downtown LA. I got to know most of the other students personally. We bonded well. In fact, more than the technical knowledge, I gained from these relationships.
Something quite interesting became clear to me following my summer school experience. Though I had a lot in mind about what I will learn, the reality turned out to be entirely different. It is just a matter of how I looked at the situation. And it is more important to take away something beneficial from such endeavors rather than force oneself to fit the bill. Asking questions is also important. But to avoid getting drained out of energy, you should learn to gauge the situation and ask only the right questions, the ones that hold some value to you. I have started practicing this in my everyday academic encounters. I definitely feel more confident the way I deliver and listen to lectures now. This quality I believe is especially important for students who aim to be in academia.
Having learned so much in just a week, I am eagerly looking forward to similar workshops in the future.
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Varuneswara Panyam
Varuneswara is a Ph.D. student in the College of Engineering studying Mechanical Engineering
On the first day, I was a little nervous as I did not know anybody there. I lost my way in the campus and met Dr. George Hazelrigg who was also lost and came to attend the workshop. He was very experienced and had been with NSF for many years. Together we found the right building. We became good friends in that short ten-minute walk. That first tryst with him gave me a sigh of relief and I felt confident. The workshop started with a little introduction to the decision-making methods currently used by researchers in the design community. Then we moved onto methods that seemed to be valid in some cases but fail under a lot of practical circumstances. Though sometimes I felt that Dr. Hazelrigg and Dr. Ali - the organizers of the workshop – were pushing the envelope by being too critical of some methods, they later presented evidence to prove it. Without taking any side, I understood that I should be more critical and evaluate for myself to know what holds true and what does not for different cases. We also had guest lectures everyday by distinguished professors from engineering and business schools at USC. Those were the best part of the workshop as every guest speaker tried to engage us by asking us to make decisions based on what we learnt, in a given hypothetical situation.
I realized on the first day that connecting the participants was one of the major objectives of the organizers. I got a chance to go out in the evenings with my new friends. We went to UCLA, Santa Monica and Downtown LA. I got to know most of the other students personally. We bonded well. In fact, more than the technical knowledge, I gained from these relationships.
Something quite interesting became clear to me following my summer school experience. Though I had a lot in mind about what I will learn, the reality turned out to be entirely different. It is just a matter of how I looked at the situation. And it is more important to take away something beneficial from such endeavors rather than force oneself to fit the bill. Asking questions is also important. But to avoid getting drained out of energy, you should learn to gauge the situation and ask only the right questions, the ones that hold some value to you. I have started practicing this in my everyday academic encounters. I definitely feel more confident the way I deliver and listen to lectures now. This quality I believe is especially important for students who aim to be in academia.
Having learned so much in just a week, I am eagerly looking forward to similar workshops in the future.
---
Varuneswara Panyam
Varuneswara is a Ph.D. student in the College of Engineering studying Mechanical Engineering