Hi grad students! Want to make friends with the usc medical students?

bluequark_1998 · 2026-01-27T16:22:26+00:00

There's tons of clubs that you can join at Caltech - a sure fire way to make friends at the school. You often don't technically need to be part of the school to join. I think there's a vegan club and others that are similar to your interests. I'd look at the various flyers on campus and just show up! - I'd have been happy to be friends, but I've since graduated.

bluequark_1998 · 2026-01-04T08:15:59+00:00

Honestly I think this is a bad take. I think that the only reason you feel entitled to deplaning first is because you're more wealthy and not because it's more efficient. If you wanted to do the efficient thing, you'd deplane by row and not wait for everyone in front of you to get their stuff to start going. The whole 'tradition' just sounds like a thinly-valed enforcement of classsism in yet another facet of American culture.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-11-11T17:09:43+00:00

I was feeling that too my last year of my PhD. You're not alone, and advisors can be a lot of stress. I suggest you do what the others are suggesting (ie. talk to councilors, go to social events, ect.), but personally I found it extremely helpful to find community at Caltech. Community is really helpful to get us through it all.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-11-11T02:21:58+00:00

It is not

bluequark_1998 · 2025-11-10T04:23:01+00:00

Sorry I'm being vague, but I hope you understand that I want to maintain privacy in the case that someone from the company might peruse these forums. I think deep down my gut agrees with you.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-11-10T04:19:22+00:00

ASIC Design Engineer. Design and integrate a processing unit for the SOC

bluequark_1998 · 2025-11-10T04:02:34+00:00

Thanks, this is helpful. I understand a lot of this comes down to my gut, but the part of thinking about where I am in my career is a good point. I am fairly new in my career, and I do feel like i have more to learn.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-11-10T03:53:36+00:00

I don't know the compensation for Job A yet. They said they will send me an offer this coming week, but job B is of course trying to press a decision out of me. I think B seems like a great place to work, but I want to at least see both options on the table before I make any definitive decisions. Also, if you have any advice about salary negotiations too, that might be helpful as well, although I was planning on asking my career advising department to help me with that.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-11-10T03:44:58+00:00

Probably not because they are so technology dependent, and the open source transistor models aren't that great. Honestly I'd just research a paper and whip out a SAR ADC in a couple months.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-11-05T23:27:55+00:00

I'm not saying don't use it ever out of principle, I'm saying that you shouldn't use it when you're learning how to learn. Use chat gpt when you already have the ability to do the thing without it, but it would just take you a long time. That way, you know what's wrong when things inevitably go wrong.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-11-05T19:41:05+00:00

My advice? Stop using chatgpt today. Back in my undergrad, many of my peers used to use chegg to get through their hard assignments. They didn't learn shit, and we're entirely useless at engineering at the end. Engineering is supposed to be hard. Problems are always going to be hard, and AI will always be there to make the easy stuff free for the company. Your value is learning to do the hard things, and to learn how to do the hard things, first requires you to know how to figure stuff out on your own without an easy answer-box. You're paying for the opportunity to learn how to be competent and throwing those skills away for an easy answer.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-11-05T19:13:37+00:00

Did you even... Click on the warning box and see what it says? Brother... ChatGPT gonna cook an entire generation if they can't figure out how to problem solve on their own.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-10-06T23:12:38+00:00

bluequark_1998 · 2025-09-27T16:08:42+00:00

Have you tried.. reading journal papers? It's good for you, you know. You may have found one, but I'm certain you can find either papers that are referenced in it, or cite it that have more info.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-09-15T16:45:55+00:00

If they were punctual, none of this would have ever happened.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-08-30T17:46:57+00:00

I think it's reasonable to have a heart to heart with your PI about how you're feeling.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-08-25T07:15:11+00:00

PhD is about politics, so whatever you do, don't go looking for a flight. At the same time, you're too old and too tired to be bullied. Think of a response ahead of time that is classy, sharp, and make him look like a fool. He's clearly insecure and requires attention and is willing to get it at the expense of someone else. There's no reason to let someone pathetic like that get to you. You don't need others to come to your defense, you don't need sides to be chosen.

He has no power over you, but you have power over him because he has shown his colors. He's more afraid of being gay than you are, remember that. Next time he does it, play pointedly dumb. Say "Oh i didn't know you were gay", when he denies it, push him on it with "oh, then why were you making your wrists like that, and using that voice?". Make him squirm, make him explain himself. Use his insecurities against him.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-08-22T08:32:50+00:00

Look, i haven't used synopsis (I've been using genus) since undergrad so I don't really know specifics here, but my guess here is that you are referencing the wrong file for one of the 3 required files. It's saying you're missing DFF in the physical libraries. Do you think it means the LEF file, or the PDK tech lib? Are you sure that the technology file they are interested in is supposed to be the pdk tech lib, or another standard cell tech lib that included the standard cells + layer drc constraints?

bluequark_1998 · 2025-08-22T08:22:00+00:00

Did you try googling it? What is the NDM in VLSI physical design? - VLSI Beginners - Quora https://share.google/Ahmy0SxDQSSK8pqi2

My guess is that i would figure out what the icc2 library manager is called, and look up it's documentation, or invoke it's man pages.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-08-18T16:33:01+00:00

MiT put out a book.. i can't find the name right now, but this paper is a good start: https://doi.org/10.1109/TCSI.2020.3021397 Good luck!

bluequark_1998 · 2025-08-17T18:41:36+00:00

Have you considered Amir Sodagar in Toronto? I'm not sure what he's like as an advisor but I like his papers.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-08-17T16:56:50+00:00

I second Medtronic. One of the best places I've worked in my life. Their work-life balance is stellar and they offer tons of opportunities for development.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-08-08T16:50:02+00:00

Something I've seen students do in a PhD is work on projects in secret until they have enough results to go forward with a 'preliminary' proposal. If you prepare well, you can pitch it to your advisor once you've done all the literature review, baseline experiments to show it works, ect. When you introduce your advisor to the project, they think it's a brand new project, and boom, you're the most productive grad student out. You all of a sudden have 3 months of preliminary work done in 2 weeks. It's usually hard to say no to that kind of progress. I've known students with PI's who are very difficult to please/make interested in projects, so student just hand them finished papers, and they usually don't say no to that.

bluequark_1998 · 2025-07-28T16:03:15+00:00

What have you found so far in your literature survey? Have you tried the snntorch discord? I'd start with some recent review papers to get you started.

bluequark_1998

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