Archive for July, 2008

Thank-you Notes

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

A couple of months ago, I received a brief email from a professor who participated in a conference at Warwick:

“Hi, Just a quick thank you email, I really enjoyed the conference and found it really useful. Kind regards.”

The email concerned a conference which went smoothly, to my relief. We had well organized talks and the dinners were appreciated by every one. Although I was simply assisting the program committee, it was a nice touch by the professor and I appreciate the positive feedback. (more…)

Networking Event on Campus

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008

Job fairs and networking events can be useful to get a better idea about the nature of companies and intended roles. If one is on the email list of the university career services, one is bound to receive regular notifications of job fairs. It is useful to at least get notified about possible openings and job events so that job seekers have all the possible options in front of them. After getting the notification, it is up to the recipient to either follow-up on the information or ignore it. Sometimes, there is no harm in dropping by and checking if there is something useful available or not. (more…)

A Much Needed Break

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

A PhD is a long-term project and it is important to recharge your batteries on a regular basis. Maintaining a good balance is essential. Since my wife had her birthday lately we decided to take a well-deserved break over the weekend. The destination was Bournemouth which turned out to be a good decision. My supervisor also has a holiday home in Dorset (the county in which Bournemouth is in) and he spends many of his holidays around there. We, of course, were not living at his place! We were lucky that the weather was sunny through out. (more…)

Conference Organization – Part II

Friday, July 18th, 2008

Some further lessons from my attempt at conference arrangements:

  1. Utilize an easy to use system to coordinate, plan and facilitate submissions of papers. For this purpose, ‘Easy Chair’, an Open-source conference organizing software, has definitely helped our cause. (more…)

Conference Organization – Part I

Friday, July 18th, 2008

I have been busy organizing a conference for the last few months. The purpose of the conference is a get-together of postgraduate students mainly from Britain who are working in combinatorics. Since a step-by-step procedure of organizing a conference has been written by Catherine Armstrong, I felt it would be useful to mention some personal lessons from my efforts so far. (more…)