Helmut Hauser

@AdamMGrant The good news is that changing fields is not necessarily bad.

Early specialization is overrated. Generalists excel over time. Data on >34k stars in sports, music, science, and chess: Focusing on a single field predicts a faster rise, but cross-training foreshadows a higher peak. The most successful adults start off as well-rounded kids.

How long should a written sentence be?

Amazing! I did not know that you can use @Affinity for batching image conversion. This video explains it really clearly! youtube.com/watch?v=ln2QFc…

Think about this

@ScholarshipfPhd Email.

Name one?

@KaffeeSucht69 @iyoushetwt I started Electrical Engineering in 1994.

@WorkRemarkably @iyoushetwt Fair, started Informatik study in '92

Programming language you learned once but never touched again?

@iyoushetwt Typo: It was Modula-2 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modula-2

@iyoushetwt Module-2 as part of a mandatory class during my university years. 😂

@KaffeeSucht69 @iyoushetwt Yes, almost. For me it was mid-90s.

@WorkRemarkably @iyoushetwt Me, too... First half of the '90s?

@RyanHoliday - The War of Art - Steven Pressfield: Great reminder on how to deal with Procrastination - Tribes: We need you to lead us - Seth Godin: Great book on building a community and be a leader

Don't just read books, re-read them. What is your favorite book to re-read?

Writing a proposal is not linear. Some days you write full sections, while others barely a few sentences. Don't avoid the difficult parts. Stick with them, even if you feel unproductive. In the depth of your mind, you come up with a solution. Too many people give up too early.

@stevemagness I completely agree! So much time and energy is lost in these in-betweens. The shorter you can make these periods, the better you get at achieving anything. A good way is to have systems in place where you remind yourself regularly of your own goals!

One of the hardest and best skills to develop: How to reset quickly. When things go wrong, do you let it linger, ruminate on it, and spiral? Or are you able to let go and focus on the next action.

@Stopworkplacebu These are also the best people to work with.

@MishaTeplitskiy If someone is interested, I have written about something related in this blog post: "Challenging Traditional Metrics: What Does Productivity Mean in Academia? " worksmartandberemarkable.com/blog/2025/reth…

@MishaTeplitskiy Not sure that uploaded preprints are a good measurement of productivity. Even published papers are not a good measurement. Maybe I misunderstand the graph.

The productivity gap between male and female academics has increased after ChatGPT and it may be caused by men using LLMs more

@MushtaqBilalPhD A and B are extreme cases. Most academics are in between.

There are largely two types of academics: A and B. Their worlds are so different, so insular they don't even know the other type exists. Type A: > Comes from a middle, upper-middle class family > Well-educated parents (with advanced degrees including PhDs) > Parents map out their kid's career trajectory > Parents teach academia's hidden curriculum: applications, admission essays, extracurriculars, and so on. > Send the kid to a "good" school (private or private tutoring) > Kid gets good grades > Goes to Ivy League or Oxbridge or a similar top school for undergrad > Decides to do a PhD > Gets into another top program in a top school because of top undergrad school, duh > Gets a well-connected supervisor during PhD > Gets a tenure-track job offer from another top university in the final year of PhD even before graduation because of the supervisor, duh > Fully understands the tenure clock > Publishes papers, monographs on time > Gets tenure > Thinks PhD is easy, tenure is easy, academia is easy > Marries a colleague in the same university > Has kids > The cycle repeats Type B: > Comes from a dysfunctional, working-class family > Parents who barely graduate high school > Parents with no idea what kind of education their kids need > Goes to a no-name shit school with underqualified teachers > Then goes to a community college or some such institution if lucky, joins the military if unlucky (KIA.exe) > Reads a lot, become autodidact, becomes a half-decent writer > Someone suggests, do a PhD, become a professor > Likes the idea of academic life, starts applying to PhD programs > Gets rejected from top programs because don't have good recommendation letters or connections > Goes to a third tier PhD program in a university located in the middle of nowhere > PhD stipend is not enough, has to work part-time to make ends meet > Lives in a shitty apartment, sometimes eats at the soup kitchen > Still works hard and publishes a bunch of papers > Thinks I'll write my way out of poverty > Sees a bunch of Type A PhDs in conferences, tries to "network" with them, Type A folks recognize Type B PhDs and stay away from them. > Defends PhD where the committee says this is excellent work and imminently publishable > Applies to tenure-track jobs left, right, and center. Gets rejected from everywhere > Idea of being unemployed with a PhD causes desperation > Gets a temporary teaching job, gets paid per course basis with no health benefits > Spends a few years as adjunct with semester to semester renewal of job contract > Barely survives, has to take up part-time jobs > Get a one-year postdoc, decides to turn PhD dissertation into a monograph in the hopes it will get tenure-track job > Postdoc ends, back to temporary adjunct jobs > Monograph stays incompelete, no time to work on it > Tries moving out of academia, is considered over-qualified > Reads social media posts by Type A academics saying PhD is easy, academia is easy > Thinks, what could I have done better?

When you start as an Assistant Professor, some of the most important things to learn are: - Who is making decisions - Which are soft and which are hard deadlines - Who can you ask for help (mentor) - Who solves problems in your department - What is valued for tenure/promotion

My take is twofold: 1️⃣On one side, I agree that there are more important things in our lives than our academic career. Nobody will die if we underperform or make an error. 2️⃣However, on the other side, being an academic is not a normal job. We have the freedom to do anything (within some ethical and resource limitations), which means we have to make very profound decisions on what is important to us. If you have a permanent position, you don't have a boss or the vision of the company that steers you. A lot of people don't sit down and think about their vision and priorities. This means everything is important, which means nothing is important. The result: emails, meetings, emails, meetings, ....frustration, burnout.

Lets relax

@ScholarshipfPhd I agree so much with that! We are really bad at assessing our own value. A rejection is a good data point. Also, if your publication is immediately accepted with almost no corrections, you should wonder if you should have submitted it to a more prestigious journal/conference.