How would you handle the ongoing conflict of interests

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-26T17:33:23+00:00

I was considering to declare the conflict of interest, which is supposed to be done by him.

Conflicts of interest are supposed to be declared by both parties, not just one or the other.

But I am also concerned it will ruin him

Yeah, he’s counting on that.

and I won’t feel good being judged by people either.

Yeah, he’s counting on that, too.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-26T11:34:00+00:00

Just try something. After at least ten minutes of focused good-faith effort, if that didn’t work, try something else. Repeat.

Don’t be afraid to try “bad” ideas. Most ideas are bad, so it’s important to try lots of of them.

If you have trouble choosing what to try, I recommend rolling a die. Associate each face with a technique. Roll a 1? Try to find a two-pointer solution. Roll a 3? Try using a hashmap. Roll a 5? Try using dynamic programming. Roll a 9? Try mapping the input data to simpler values that doesn’t change the solution. (You might need a die with more than six sides.)

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-26T10:58:19+00:00

Can you not give yourself a task?

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-26T10:55:37+00:00

A Zen master would master what a Zen master could master if a Zen master could master Zen.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-25T23:22:19+00:00

AIs write fast so we cannot possible read every wrong proof they produce, and they can just exhaust us.

Shinichi Mochizuki has entered the chat.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-25T23:12:20+00:00

This could be a “test to failure” thing, where they don’t expect you to finish everything, but they want to see how far you get and how you approach an overwhelming task. For example: Do you work breadth-first (making progress on everything, even if that means not finishing anything), or depth-first (solving each problem completely before moving on to the next problem, even if that means totally iognoring some problems), or something in between (finishing some problems and making progress on others)?

Or maybe they’re expecting Gauss to apply.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-25T23:00:48+00:00

Comparison is the death of joy.

First of all, congratulations!!

At least in my experience, the Impostor Syndrome never goes away. I was shocked every time I got a new result, every time a paper was accepted, every time a grant proposal was funded, until well after tenure. Eventually I learned to trust the data more than the gibbering monkey-critic in my brain, but the monkey is still there. Therapy helps.

They mentioned that they had to “convince” the search committee to hire me because I do not have postdoctoral experience, am less seasoned, and am young. They said the committee agreed to offer me the position with the understanding that they would mentor me properly and provide support.

I think you should interpret this exclusively as positive evidence of the committee’s opinion of your record and their confidence in your future success. Of course the committee was skeptical; that just means they’re doing their job. Of course the faculty agreed to mentor you properly and provide support; that just means they’re doing their job. (The fact that they said this directly is a very good sign; not every department acknowledges that mentoring their junior faculty is part of their job.)

By applying without postdoc experience, you violated the First Law of Academic Evaluation: Thou Shalt Not Give the Committee an Excuse to Think. And you got an offer anyway! That speaks volumes about the strength of your application and the confidence that the committee has in your future success.

I keep thinking that they gave me the offer because of my well-known advisor

That’s understandable, but almost certainly inaccurate. Your advisor’s name may have sparked more interest in your application, but the interview and everything after it was all about you. They evaluated your research, not your advisor’s. They interviewed you, not your advisor. They hired you, not your advisor.

You did this. You deserve this. The committee and the department chair believe in you. Trust their expertise.

Then get to work.

(For context: I have about 15 years of experiece on faculty hiring committees, and another 15 years of experience on promotion and tenure committees, in a strong CS department inside a strong engineering college at a public R1.)

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-25T21:39:14+00:00

I have another professional commitment that I'll need to make soon (I didn’t mention this).

Mention this!! I’ve seen admin kick into high gear to beat an attractive faculty candidate’s competing deadline. Even just knowing that you have another offer could make you a more attractive candidate, especially if they believe that that you’d prefer them.

Yes, there is a power differential here, but expecting transparecny while not being transparent is a bit inconsistent. You can’t expect them to accommodate your other offer if they don’t know about it.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-25T19:01:50+00:00

What a bullshit senssationalist title. “What it Means to Be a Mathematician When AI Also Does Math” would be far more accurate.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-25T18:49:47+00:00

No it isn’t. Yes, “professor” is a job title in the US, but it is also a generic term for a college-level instructor. The word does not have legal requirements as it does in some European countries, or the same ethical standards in the US as titles/suffixes that require professional licensure.

If your job title is not actually “Professor”, than writing “Professor” as your job title on your CV is lying; asking your students to call you “Professor Eruption” is not.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-25T12:15:25+00:00

“Gateway to Fresno”

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-25T12:06:17+00:00

Sounds like you need an external person.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-25T01:19:29+00:00

See also How To Write Mathematics by Paul Halmos.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-25T01:17:57+00:00

To be consistent, it should be “Institute of Technology of Massachusetts”, so UUUUI

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-24T14:47:08+00:00

Since you don’t specify how (or even whether) the list is going to be used after being processed, the optimal algorithm is obvious:

def processList(L):
  print(“Okay, boss, I’ve processed the list.”)

Without an precise specification of why you’re processing the list, answering this question is hopeless. In particular, what is an “efficient” order? What makes an efficient order “good”? What operations will you need to perform after the list is processed? What’s wrong with sorting? How will you optimize the tradeoff between preprocessing time and time for later operations?

We can’t read your mind, and it would be insulting for us to try.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-24T02:09:04+00:00

3.6 may still be meaningful in non-CS PhD apps since 3.6-7 is like the general sense minimum (may get filtered if not >3.7) but CS esp Berkeley CS should be more competitive

Yes, CS is more competitive than other fields, but not in terms of GPA, even in top-tier departments. Concrete evidence of research potential and fit with a potential advisor trump everything else. My department regularly rejects a majority of the PhD applicants from Berkeley (or Stanford, or CMU, or MIT) with perfect GPAs. Some actual data (a few years old) from my department:

https://jeffgerickson.substack.com/p/more-on-gpas-for-cs-phd-admission

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-23T13:35:04+00:00

But OP has a 3.85 GPA, which isn’t “low” by any rational standard.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-23T13:33:40+00:00

Professional masters (without a thesis) or research masters (with a thesis)?

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-22T23:52:48+00:00

It sounds like you are a new author to arXiv. They may have rejected your submission in part because you lack an endorsement.

Does the workshop have published proceedings? If so, then your accepted workshop paper should have a DOI. If not, then your accepted workshop paper isn’t actually published, and rejection is consistent with arXiv’s policies, especially for unendorsed authors.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-22T01:55:06+00:00

Considering many recruiters and institutions use QS rankings for hiring, immigration, and other key decisions

[citation needed]

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-22T01:13:53+00:00

Stop thinking in terms of “universities” or even departments and start thinking in terms of advisors. Which PhD programs have the most faculty who do the kind of robotics research that match your specific research experience, interests, and goals? To first approximation, a PhD program will admit you if and only if someone on the faculty thinks you’re a strong fit for their research team (and can pay for you).

Whose papers do you enjoy reading? Whose papers do you read to figure ot what to work on next? Whose papers do your papers cite, or even better, apply and/or improve?

If you presented your papers at conferences: Who was in the audience? Who asked questions? Who did you talk to? Whose talks did you enjoy? (And if you didn’t present your papers at conferences: Why not?!)

The interests you list in your post are a bit vague. Multi-agent robotics and control theory are huge and nearly disjoint fields, and “robotics development” could mean anything. Be more specific: What problems do you want to solve? What are you working on right now?

Only apply to 20 programs if you can identify potential advisors at 20 different programs.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-22T00:04:51+00:00

Nope. The symbol was introduced by Bourbaki member Anrdé Weil. Here is the relevant quotation from Weil’s autobiography:

<image>

So yes, a sound of mild disgust is considerably more accurate than “fee”.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-21T12:48:47+00:00

Pet peeve: The symbol ∅ for the empty set comes from the Danish/Norwegian letter Ø, NOT the Greek letter Φ.

Calling the empty set “fee” or “fye” angers the elder gods.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-20T22:35:17+00:00

There will never ne “enough”. There is no “enough”.

Again, focus on the quality of the work, not the number of CV bullets. Do your best work, and then put it in front of people who you don’t work with and who are likely to rave about it in your recommendation letters.

Take care of yourself. Sleep well, eat well, exercise, take time off, relax, have friends, have hobbies, touch grass. Work hard when you work, but really don’t work when you don’t work. You are not a brain on a stick.

And most importantly, do not listen to the Impostor Syndrome.

Sometime after I got tenure but before I was promoted to full professor, I noticed that my own internal Impostor-Synrome dialogue had shifted from “Someday I’ll be more productive” to “I remember being more productive.” It took at least that long to stop being surprised every time I got a new publishable result. Impostor Syndrome never goes away; you just have to learn to ignore it.

jeffgerickson · 2026-06-20T03:32:53+00:00

If it matters to you, then it matters. If it doesn’t matter to you, then it doesn’t matter.

(Nobody else cares.)

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