Two Links Tuesday- July 15, 2014- Grad Student Resources Edition

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First Time on the Market? This page is a collection of essays written for The Chronicle of Higher Education. I jumped around a read a few. There are many good ideas about how to conduct a job search, interview, and deal with offers or rejection. Just note that each article is a sample size of one and your situation might not fit their suggestions perfectly.

Craig Holden’s Career Resources Page: Professor Holden teaches finance courses at Indiana University, and I took his “Asset Pricing Theory” course in Spring 2014. Some of the links on this page are specific to finance grad students, but many of the links to suggestions about how to write papers and find relevant papers are applicable for many students.

Code Monkey Monday- The Meme Generator for R

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News you can use: There is a meme generator package in R. Because that’s what we all need.

Check it out here. You can use built-in meme photos on the web at sites like http://memecaptain.com/ or you can link to your own image of interest. Here are some of my creations:

Me coding:
code poorly

In honor of the World Cup:
whineabout

And one for Maria:
sneakattack

Book Review- The Firm

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The Firm
By John Grisham, 1991

thefirm

Fast-paced lawyer drama, with additional threat of death by the mob. Fast read because you won’t want to put it down. That’s probably why they made it into a movie, but I haven’t seen the movie. Will probably interrupt your daily work cycle and make you less productive. You’ve been warned.

John Grisham was given an honorary degree at my UNC graduation. He has had a very interesting life and is a great speaker, though his speech to us was very short. E.O. Wilson gave the commencement speech.

Theory Tuesday- Statistics’ Place in Big Data

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Interesting, but long, talk about statistics place in the Big Data world:

I’d suggest watching from about 10 minutes in to about 40 minutes.

“Statistics”, “data mining”, and “bioinformatics” are all on the decline according to Google Trends, while “Big Data” is booming. Many big data people don’t see the need for statisticians because of their seemingly antiquated/belligerent/unhelpful opinions on model validity, result confidence, and experiment design. However, people who ignore statistics are condemned to re-create statistics.

In my experience, the people who don’t see value in statistics are action-oriented and typically mathematically-ignorant. These people want to do something, and they are not especially interested in how accurate their actions are. More responsible big data teams will be built with people with three skill sets: programming, math/statistics, and domain knowledge.

Book Review- Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled-and Knuckleheaded- Quest for the Rocky Mountain High

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Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled- and Knuckleheaded- Quest for the Rocky Mountain High
By Mark Obmascik, 2009

halfway to heaven

While in Colorado for a recent trip, I read Halfway to Heaven. It’s an amusing narrative about the trials and tribulations of hiking all of the 14,000 foot peaks in Colorado—of which there are over 50. The hikes were primarily done in summer, which did not give much guidance for our May trip that saw 4+ feet of snow from the trailhead to the peak for every mountain of interest for us. And the snowy climbs Obmascik describes only worsened my anxiety—slides, avalanches, and post-holing. Nonetheless, it is a very interesting book that gives a great idea of mountain customs, etiquette, and concerns. You’ll learn about the people who hiked all the 14ers in less than 2 weeks, the woman who wants to be photographed naked on each peak, and the modern-day prospectors that still camp out and mine the Rockies, hoping to strike it rich. Recommended for anyone that enjoys hiking, climbing, the Rockies, and/or adventure narratives.

Soccer Kids need to work on their spacing and marking

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Kids play blob-ball soccer. They clump together. They don’t spread out. And they don’t stay with people that don’t have the ball. And thus, 55 kids cannot stop 2 pros.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XICoCI20o-E

If your kids learn the concept of spacing by the time they are 5, they will be the leading goal scorer and goal stopper on their team.

Also, for good measure, fencing against a crowd:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgKg0Hc7YIA

Crazy Japanese.

Life Tips- Watch Pixar Movies

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pixar

Maria and I are of the opinion that they (Hollywood) don’t make movies for us anymore. We dislike the vast majority of adult movies. Most of them turn out to be vulgar, overly violent, pornographic, full of bathroom humor, or lousy sequels.

My suggestion is to watch animated movies, particularly those by Pixar. While they’re made for children, they’re full of jokes for adults. There are some silly childish gag scenes, but for the most part, I’m really impressed by the movies. They’re really funny and sometimes quite emotional.

Or perhaps I’m just seven years old.