It's that time of year...again

Every year in later part of June our group organizes affiliates meeting in which all of us present our annual progress. It's the time for our sponsors to evaluate us and make decisions about funding. Needless to say it's a very important meeting as it's directly connected to our scholarships.

Every year our adviser send us an email around this time, reminding us the importance of the meeting. I understand the importance of this meeting as well as the pressure on him to show results. And every year the few weeks after his mail are the most productive weeks for our group. Most of the research in our group is done in these few weeks.

Yesterday we got his mail. It said:

By February 1, I need each of you to send a description of the papers that you plan to have ready for the report volume.

For each paper, put together 4 or 5 sentences describing the problem, approach, and type of results that you are aiming for.

I want to remind you that these are tough economic times. The University and our sponsoring companies are making cutbacks in their budgets, some of which are causing us to lose funding. It also means that the companies might be offering fewer jobs. The best thing that I can suggest you do protect yourself is to produce excellent research -- lots of results, excellent and rigorous science, and meticulously written papers. I feel quite a bit of pressure from the tight funding, and I intend to share that pressure with you. There won't be any free rides.

Please make the best of the next few days to think carefully about your work, and how to maximize your progress. Be a good manager of your effort. Don't waste time stuck on a problem, and don't think that "waiting for data" or "waiting for samples" is an excuse.

You can only imagine the reaction of this mail. Every one in the group was seen working hard on their computers/in the lab today. No loitering, no gossiping, no coffee breaks. The silence was dense. Stress lines can be seen on every face.

And they tell me I needn't worry about current economic crisis. I live in safe academia cocoon. Only if they knew the stresses of a student life! Hopefully I will be blogging a bit more regularly now, you know in the break times of the sleepless nights.