davehora.com

Today I had a meeting with Indira Nair, the Vice Provost of Education at CMU. I’m not sure what exactly a Vice Provost does, but in this case it’s not important. I’d taken some time to talk to Dr. Nair after the class she gave a guest lecture in, and subsequently followed up with an email. Our short email conversation turned into an invitation to talk to Dr. Nair at some future date, which was/is today.

I wasn’t too sure what we’d talk about, but it turned out to be a sort of informal counseling session on what my steps are to pursue a PhD in my areas of interest (exploring social interaction via mediated communication, etc.). Dr. Nair gave me some names of a few good people to talk to here at CMU, and also some people to get in touch with at UCSD and UofM (go blue). The real way to get things done, she said, is to contact researchers and professors who deal with my area of interest, and talk to them about it. Simple, eh?

It’s that rare sort of advice that sounds so easy and makes perfect sense, it just takes a smarter person to point it out.  She said that usually faculty and researchers are more than willing to discuss their work, or point you to people who would be worthwhile to talk to. Rather than just finding a school with a good department, it’s important to find a faculty member with aligned research interests, someone willing to work with and advise throughout the course of study.

Next steps include doing some more background research on faculty, at CMU and elsewhere, and then getting in touch with them. And luckily, I have Dr. Nair’s “feel free to tell them I sent you”, so I can do so with the backing of a respected academic.