Quick Hits: My Move to Georgetown, Live Interview, and Experiments with Forced Batching
Uncategorized June 1st. 2011, 3:04pmExcuse this brief diversion from my normal post schedule: I want to clear out some administrative notes that have been piling up…
Note #1: I’m Moving to Georgetown
My long-stated goal of becoming a “genial advice-spewing professor” is finally coming to fruition: this fall I’m starting as an assistant professor of computer science at Georgetown University.
Two points related to this move:
- Study Hacks will Continue. My role as a professor should provide interesting new insights for my student-centric posts, and having a “real job” for the first time in my life should provide needed nuance to my career-centric posts.
- Come Work With Me. If you’re a rising senior or a masters student studying computer science, and you have an interest in applying distributed algorithm theory to exciting new problems, and you’re thinking about pursuing a doctorate: drop me a note. I’ll be recruiting my first PhD students soon. Maybe it could be you?
Note #2: I’m Doing a Live Online Interview and Q & A Session Thursday Night at 8PM EDT
The interview is for the Future of Education series, and I’ll be talking about my blue book. You can listen to the interview live and ask questions (click here for details). Hope to see you there.
Note #3: My Article for The 99%
My latest article for The 99 Percent online magazine is live. It talks about my experiments with batching. The moral: batching is a lot harder than people assume…
June 1st, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Congratulations to Georgetown! By hiring Cal Newport, Georgetown has added to its faculty one heckuva remarkable ongoing life, and a sensational teacher. And felicitations to you, Cal! Cheers, Mary
June 1st, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Congratulations on your move to Georgetown University, Cal! All the best.
June 1st, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Congratulations, Cal. You’ll be a real asset to Georgetown.
PS The link to your blue book is missing a colon:
http//http//www.amazon.com/gp/product/0767932587?ie=UTF8&tag=stuhac-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0767932587
Should be: http://http//www.amazon.com/gp/product/0767932587?ie=UTF8&tag=stuhac-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0767932587
June 1st, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Correction: The link to your blue book is broken.
June 1st, 2011 at 8:41 pm
Congratulations, Cal. The internet requires cheerfulness, hence the smiley faces, but it punishes excess. My earlier post was sincere but excessive.
June 1st, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Thanks everyone!
(also, I fixed that broken link…)
June 1st, 2011 at 11:47 pm
Congratulations.
What’s your next big goal after becoming a professor?
June 2nd, 2011 at 1:48 am
Congratulations on Georgetown Cal. I was secretly hoping you’d end up at Dartmouth where I’ll be a freshman next year (your writings about Dartmouth definitely influenced my decision). I hope your professorship allows you to keep writing, hopefully even more.
June 2nd, 2011 at 2:12 am
Congratulations, Cal! May you find wonderful people to work with at Georgetown!
I have a comment about your article on batching at 99%: it seems misleading or unrealistic. For example, you write, “I have a doctors appointment scheduled for 10 a.m., so I decide to focus on a writing project from 8 to 10….When I arrive at my appointment at 10, I discover I had the wrong time. The appointment is not until 11. My rules force me to think in blocks of 30 minutes or more, so I decide to spend from 10 to 10:30 contininuing work on my writing project at a nearby library.”
Unless your apartment is next to your doctor, which would need to be next to your library (and maybe it is), I imagine you spent time getting to the doctor’s office and then to the library and back again, instead of actually working in neat, discrete chunks.
It may seem like nitpicking, but I point this out only because I have tried several ways of scheduling my time and sometimes am disappointed when I set the bar too high and end up missing the mark. If I don’t factor in travel time, set-up time, or time spent waiting (for the bus, for a collaborator who is late, etc.) then it screws up my careful schedule and I feel like I’ve failed.
Thoughts?
June 2nd, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Congratulations! Geez, I wish I can be your student. Too late.
Exciting new career. Exciting new project. I’m excited to read and follow!
Will I ever see “How to be a superstar grad student” book from you, professor? (Maybe this one is going to be purple).
June 2nd, 2011 at 2:02 pm
As a Georgetown student (albeit not in computer science), I’m thrilled that you’ll be a professor here next year!
June 2nd, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Congratulations on joining the Georgetown faculty! The advice on this blog will be a great asset to the students at that university. I graduated from Georgetown several years ago and I wish that I discovered this blog when I was going there.
June 3rd, 2011 at 12:39 am
Sign me up with a copy for that purple book! =D
June 5th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Congrats Cal!
not sure if you heard about this one. an interesting story about a science student in high school going hard against creationism laws, now taking on Michelle Bachman. http://d.pr/wAs6
June 6th, 2011 at 8:29 pm
Hey Professor Newport! Just wanted to say congratulations, I’m happy that your dream has been realized!
June 7th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
Hey, do you mind sharing how you realize that being a professor is really what you want?
I’m sure with your abilities, you can walk into any top jobs in the REAL WORLD at arguably higher pay. So how did you rationalize yourself into believing that being a prof is really what you really want in life.
Was it passion? But then again, your previous posts were about how passion should not be the primary drive in your life.
June 12th, 2011 at 1:38 am
Congratulations! Hope you have a wonderful time.
P.S. Thanks for all the time you’ve put into this blog. I’ve found that I’ve learned as much about how to make a life meaningful as how to keep motivated in my studies.
June 14th, 2011 at 8:32 pm
Congratulations!
I have been following your blogs for less than a year and your advice has helped me a lot.
I am an entering Freshman for the class of 2015 at Georgetown! Sadly I plan to major in Biology (Computer Science has always interested me though so I might change my mind before it’s too late). It would be an honor to sit down with you and chat one day.
I am ecstatic that you will be joining the great faculty here at Georgetown.
June 24th, 2011 at 6:28 pm
Congratulations! I’m hoping to follow you into academia. I’m closing in on finishing coursework and will be ABD by 2013 at the least. I’ve enjoyed your blog and will continue to follow you as you blog your experience as a new professor. Salud!
August 4th, 2011 at 3:50 am
How did you know you wanted to be a professor? I am working in a biochemistry lab. While the topics themselves are interesting, the tasks become repetitive, something many people have told me about their research experiences. I know it’s different in computer science, but how do you stay motivated for long term projects when the day to day isn’t that exciting?