Backbone and Revolution

I don't know if this is going to bite me in the ass one day, but I'd rather put myself on the block for something that means something to me instead of just dealing with it.

I made a stand for what I believed in a while back at lab. There are things peculiarly wrong about it-- like the way students are learning, poor guidance, no real motivation or indepth understanding. Even I do not understand the full extent of this problem, I don't grasp it all but I can feel it.

The first years masters students are preparing for a department wide seminar occuring this Thursday and Friday. All students are expected to make a presentation and attend atleast ten (10) other seminars which are 20 minutes long. Students have been preparing 7~8 hours+ writing a 3~4 page handout. I talked to a Korean student about how things were going for him... I told him how I felt about this presentation-- ie. that it was rather stupid that we spend so long for a short presentation. He agreed with me and then we got into a conversation about how he is very bored with his reserach. The reason being that he doesn't understand much of it.

Electrical Engineer by training and working on a mechanical system (thermally actuated mirror using a laser). It seems to me that he's expected to produce something when he doesn't understand the basic principles behind what he is doing. Studying something in depth takes time, possibly like a few weeks or more but everyone is afraid of looking like they're not producing... "they've got to be doing something."

He wants to change reserach themes, I think this is do able because he has another year left at the lab. Masters students do their thesis in 1 year in Canada and America, during their second year, yet he is afraid of switching themes (I know of one other student that did here). He's afraid of telling the professor that he isn't happy with this theme, he's also worried if he will have enough time to finish a new theme if he does get one. He's also worried about switching advisors from within the lab (we have 4 advisors) feeling like he'd be backstabbing the guy he's working under. Working like this can be very freightening for a person in this situation. I've been there before in parts of my undergrad life and the inital part of my life here in Japan.

If there is one thing I have learned from living in Japan, it's that life isn't solely about keeping other people happy while giving up on your own. It takes backbone to disappoint or take criticism but I'd rather disappoint (or take criticism) rather than suffer. The only person that is responsible for your happieness is you and if you can't take responsibility for it, well, you'll get whatever that's comming to you.

I spent a good part of my evening last night talking to my labmate after midnight. I spent atleast an hour telling him to switch. He kept worrying that the professor would not be happy about it. Can you imagine people thinking like that (even his advisor is pretty nice too)? But I can... but even so, to hell with it.

I joined another conversation happening in another part of the lab about problems that students weren't learning here (like at 2 am). The guy I was taking to is Japanese and he's been in this lab since 4th year Undergrad and is moving into his 2nd year in his Phd. 5 years he's been here. This is the first time I heard him talk about this, but from what I learned, there are many others that are unhappy about how things going on here. The PhD students have been working on and giving seminars on some of the fundamentals of MEMs processing (only say 3 so far) which I feel do not meet all the needs of the new students that come into the lab... but it is somewhat of a good start.

This is the first time we've talked like this since the day I made my presentation to try and change things at the lab... and I only so happened to stumble into this conversation. If anyone believed in what I was saying, why didn't anyone step up to me sooner? Communication problems anyone? I hardly got any responses from the students from when I did make my presentation over a month ago.

What transpired from my conversation from the PhD student is that there are others in the lab that don't feel well supported in knowledge or guidance. He don't know what do to about it. But one thing we've both agreed on, is that asking the professors to change things isn't going to work. So what do we do?

He's asked me what would I do if I was the head of the Saturday meetings (because he doing that job now). I told him the first thing I'd do is cancel it because it's useless. He asks me what I would do to encourage knowledge sharing? Hold formal discussion groups and schedule them in? I don't know about you, but you just can't mandate information sharing or an open discussion forum. If it's one thing that I feel these people don't understand, it's how to inspire real motivation. Because there is a difference between just going through the motions vs really doing something because it means something to you. But most fundamentally, we need to find ways of learning because right now, the proffs are sure as hell not doing a good job of teaching.

I talked to another friend of mine, a masters student from China. She's lost interest in her project and the only thing that she's focusing on right now is trying to get a job in Japan. Right now, I have mixed feelings about getting a job in Japan because of this. I told her that "what's the point of finding a job if the working culture is similar to lab culture" (and by working culture, many people want to go corporate I'm not sure if it is different or not). All she told me afterwards was "that's probably true, wonder what'd I do." In English this sounds absurd, but I've heard it in Japanese on several occasions, like it was something natural (you might even be fooled into start thinking it's natural). I think it's absurd.

Honestly, I do want to change this lab. This lab is one of the best equpped labs in Japan and had a history of great work. I have heard that the old students of 5~6 years ago were really keen but they are now gone and no one knows how to foster the right atmosphere to bring out the best out of people. It is kind of sad that things are in this state right now.

So what am I going to do? For now, I'm going to sit down and talk to the other lab people and see how they feel and if they have any desire to try and change things from the bottom up. I've heard so far from my Chinese friend that she's given up on it and is going to live with it, I've heard a few more responses like that too. If that is what people feel like here, then I'm fully willing to pack up and leave (well not yet, everyone has full access to all equipment here, the problem is learning how to use them... and that does seem kind of fun to me). Atleast, I feel I'm lucky that I do keep a life out of lab and that I'm satisfied with many other things that I've learned out here... it's unfortunate that I can't say the same for the rest of them.

Anyways, excuse the babble. Even I don't see clearly about this, this whole thing is still jumbled in my mind, it probably shows in the writing.