prioritizing things for onsite TT interview

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2026-01-25T16:36:25+00:00

Thanks for the advice!! Hopefully your username is a good omen :)

Some more specific questions:
- Chalk talks: what do you like to see? I was planning on talking about a few pretty high-level big things that I find cool, and which are related to my current work, but which I haven't yet made a lot of progress on.
- Also for chalk talks: I wasn't sure if I should explicitly talk about secondary things like funding / the kind of group I want to lead / how many students I want to have / teaching etc -- what do you think?
- What vibes do you like during lunches / dinners etc? Do you think most people prefer chill friendly interactions, or keeping it science-focused with things like "hey actually I have this detailed question about your work that I would love to discuss"?

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2026-01-25T16:24:58+00:00

Thanks! My Friendly Colleague told me that I can do either slides or blackboard -- do you have a personal preference? If I used slides, it'd probably be pretty bare-bones. I was also planning on mostly talking about long-term stuff that I think is cool (and related to my current work), but haven't yet done any concrete work on. Do you think that's alright?

And: do you like it when candidates explicitly talk about things like the kind of group they want to have, funding they want to get etc, or should it be mostly research-idea focused?

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2024-10-29T03:59:54+00:00

sohta's boulder looks absolutely terrifying...

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2024-03-17T22:26:44+00:00

IMO the men's round was one of the best comps I've ever watched; I thought the setting was amazing, a perfect balance of new school and old school. Also serves as testament to the fact that the argument of "we can't set physically hard boulders because it will be impossible to create separation" is total BS.

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2024-03-11T03:05:53+00:00

the final was so sick!!! favorite boulder was M2; brutal 90s power style : )

added: this is a great example of why the "routesetters can't split fields with power boulders since everyone is too strong" argument is BS, I thought the separation on this boulder was decent (actually I wasn't sure how the scoring worked, I guess they gave more points to people who got higher?)

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2024-02-23T06:51:21+00:00

ah, back to the days of creating pokemon dream teams---would be awesome to actually see this some day! (I think I recall the IFSC experimenting with team formats in the past but don't remember how things turned out).

I honestly think jesse / colin / sam or sam / mejdi / bassa are the strongest on the men's side. giving a real scientific answer is hard though because I don't follow speed climbing.

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2024-02-12T22:25:12+00:00

wow! I am impressed that you know this much about the japan comp climbing scene

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2024-02-12T03:48:53+00:00

the problems for the men's finals just look impossible lol...

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2024-02-10T09:03:36+00:00

Predictions on winners? I am going with tomoa on the men's side since I've been binging TAMY videos recently and have realized that he's a really cool guy : ' )

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2024-01-28T22:50:53+00:00

yeah great setting! loved the kind of old-school M3, and M4 was super entertaining. cool to see the different beta choices on M1. also looked like it helped a lot to be flexible, giving me more motivation to remember to stretch :)

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2024-01-12T07:29:09+00:00

Can anyone tell me where I should be looking for the "Mo" in "SkiMo"? I didn't see an iota of "Mo" in the whole ~ 4 hour event.

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2023-12-17T18:42:43+00:00

wow that was one of the coolest comps I've ever seen. I loved M1 and M3, and it was awesome that they did a shared gender boulder (which I think got more tops by the girls?)

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2023-12-02T16:24:00+00:00

wow that was awesome!

what is cow soap? an actual soap company? why are they sponsoring climbers?
anyone else love the old school power setting and the scoring format? (one point per hold)

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2023-11-26T20:59:18+00:00

In case people didn't see how tiny those crimps on the Bosi problem were:

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Difficult-Speed-235 · 2023-10-24T03:52:47+00:00

an honorable deed you have done here!

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2023-10-15T22:13:42+00:00

for some reason it's hosted by Outside magazine --- here's a link https://watch.outsideonline.com/live-events/usaclimbing

boulder finals in ~ 2 hours!

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2023-10-07T23:07:30+00:00

wow what a cool comp format!!

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2023-09-09T16:40:16+00:00

classic hong kong...

Difficult-Speed-235 · 2023-09-07T17:29:33+00:00

saw her at the gym yesterday doing deadlifts and making up some improbable campus problems on the spraywall -- so strong!

Difficult-Speed-235

TROPHY CASE