*Concerns of Young Mathematicians* Volume 3, Issue 8 Mar. 1, 1995 An electronically distributed digest for discussions of the issues of concern to mathematicians at the beginning of their careers. Please, direct submissions and questions to Wendy Brunzie brunzie@math.montana.edu , editor for the month of March. Next issue: Wednesday, 8 March, 1995. February Editor: Nancy Wilson nwilson@stmarys-ca.edu March Editor: Wendy Brunzie brunzie@math.montana.edu April Editor: Kevin Madigan madigan@math.nwu.edu To subscribe: Contact Charles Yeomans at cyeomans@ms.uky.edu Back issues and other information are available via anonymous FTP to ftp.ms.uky.edu, in pub3/mailing.lists/ymn-list. Or connect to the YMN homepage on the WWW, the URL: http://math34.gatech.edu:8080/YMN/ymn.html The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the administrative board or membership of the Young Mathematicians' Network. The editorial policy of this newsletter is to encourage discussion of issues, and facilitate the dissemination of information, relevant to the concerns of young mathematicians. Table of Contents Item # Title ------ ----- 1 Editor's notes 2 A Letter to the Editors 3 Census Bureau Says... It's All in Your Attitude. 4 Speaking of Attitude. 5 Hot Tip for Those with Adjusted Attitudes. 6 What Do YOU Think Should be a Concern of Young Mathematicians? 7 Closing Credits _______________________________________________________________ Item #1 Editor's notes: Greetings, everyone! This is my first stint as editor of the CoYMN. Back in August, when I was the first woman to join the Board, I volunteered to be editor during the month of March because it is "Women's History Month." I thought I would focus on the issue of what it's like to be a female "young" mathematician. Also, I was hoping to get more women to participate in the CoYMN newsletter by bringing up issues of particular concern to them. However, things changed from August to March. At the Joint Meetings in San Francisco, several female mathematicians decided to form a new group, the "YWMN," or "Young Women in Mathematics Network." Just as the YMN was formed by a special interest group within the YSN (Young Scientists Network), the YWMN could be considered a special interest group within the YMN. There we hope to hold discussions about the concerns of young women in mathematics. If you or someone you know would like to join the YWMN, please send me, brunzie@math.montana.edu , an e-mail address and I will add it to the list. Instead of addressing the particular issues affecting women in mathematics, I would like to focus on the following issue. At this time, many of you are sitting around, waiting to hear *some* positive response to those dozens (hundreds?) of job applications you sent out. The thought may soon cross your mind that perhaps you should be looking elsewhere for gainful employment. Statistically speaking, you would be wise to do so. There are at least a thousand un- (or under-) employed Ph.D.'s out there, all mathematicians or physicists, highly skilled, well-trained,... without any job security. At the same time, high-tech industries are having a hard time finding genuinely intelligent, hard-working people to hire. How does an academic scientist retool him or herself to get one of these jobs? The next few newsletters will contain articles with advice and opinions on how this can be done. My aim is to collect and disseminate information about this undertaking. If you have comments or information in this regard, please e-mail me at once and I will try to incorporate your ideas in one of the upcoming, March newsletters. Speaking of March, Spring Break is coming to Montana (if not Spring itself ... it's -10 out there right now!). Therefore, there will be no CoYMN newsletter the week of March 15th. "Beware the Ides of March..." or celebrate that empty spot in your mailbox, as you like. - Wendy Brunzie Visiting Assistant Professor Montana State University brunzie@math.montana.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #2 A Letter to the Editors Dear YMN, I have been very impressed with the Young Mathematicians' Newsletter's leadership on the current job market crisis. Over the last year or so I've seen a number of ideas for fixing the system in the YMN, ranging from calls for increased Federal funding to restructuring of the postdoc hiring system. Although many of these suggestions are good ones, the unfortunate fact is that most of them call for global, systemic changes which we, as young mathematicians, are not in a position to make ourselves. While it is important that we continue to educate and to lobby for global reforms, the reality is that those in a position to enact such reforms have far less at stake than those of us without permanent jobs. I propose a different tactic. As individuals we have much greater ability to bring about local reform than global. Those of us who are grad students, postdocs, or junior faculty have direct influence within our own departments. By taking the initiative, we can set the pace for change. We can open a dialogue directly with senior faculty and administrators on the plight of new Ph.D's. We can help to prepare the present cadre of graduate students for their careers. And most importantly, we can help to shape the training, expectations, and attitudes of the next generation of mathematicians. As an example of a way one might start to make changes in one's own department, I have made the document ``Note on the Job Market, 1995'' available via the URL http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~gdavis/policy/policy.html and via anonymous ftp on cs.dartmouth.edu in the directory /pub/gdavis (either jobmarket.ps.gz or jobmarket.ps.Z). I have submitted this document to the chair, the undergraduate program committee, and the graduate program committee of my department. It opens with a thoroughly documented history and analysis of the economic and political changes facing academic mathematics. It then discusses some broad ideas on how mathematics departments can prepare for these changes. It concludes with a list of specific recommendations for the program committees. Some of the recommendations are simple and can be implemented immediately; others are more long-term and require departmental debate. The goal is to initiate a dialogue about the future direction of our department given today's economic realities, and not necessarily the immediate acceptance of these recommendations. By no means do I claim a complete or universally applicable solution; instead, I offer an example of specific things that can be done in one specific department. I challenge the readers of the YMN to act within your own departments. Geoff Davis Math Department Dartmouth College gdavis@cs.dartmouth.edu http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~gdavis _______________________________________________________________ Item #3 Census Bureau Says... It's All in Your Attitude. by Mark W. Winstead mwwinst@qnet.com Centreville, VA I have seen today, in two different sources, that the Census Bureau has surveyed employers and has rated factors in hiring. This probably applies more to those seeking employment in industry, but applies somewhat to us all. The top four factors are attitude (4.6 out of 5), communication skills (4.2), work experience (4.0) and recommendations from previous employers (3.4). I haven't seen the entire list, nor have I seen the numeric ratings on the reported bottom four factors, which are listed as test scores (I assume GRE, SAT, and the like, but these might include employer given tests), grades, a school's reputation and teacher recommendations. So in other words, a great attitude, excellent speaking and writing skills, and former employers sad to lose you are more important than great Putnam scores and a 4.0 from an Ivy League school where all the teachers liked you. _______________________________________________________________ Item #4 Speaking of Attitude... A young mathematician who succeeded in finding a non-academic job this year had this to say about her experience: "Do you realize how I got this post-doc??? :) When I got the invitation to interview at a small(!!!) liberal arts college, I came to the realization that they just might offer me the job. Then I would be faced with the choice of effectively ending any research career I might have, or turning down the (possibly) only job offer I might get. I panicked! In desperation, I jotted off an e-mail message to one of the principal investigators I had met last summer while doing a "traineeship" at a government laboratory. When I left last summer, he had casually mentioned the possibility of some postdocs coming open in '95 in scalable computing--a subject with which I have a congenial, though vague, relationship. He responded to my e-mail by asking for an ASCII (!) version of my vita, and within a week he offered me a postdoc--no TeX-ed vita, no carefully written cover letter, no letters of recommendation, no call to my advisor, nothing. Nothing, that is, except what he knew of me from our conversations over the summer--sometimes on my research, sometimes not--and being congenial to the other people in his department while I was working there. "So, . . . keeping in mind the vast amount of God's grace involved in my getting this position, here are my humble opinions: "1) I think that being able to "work and play well with others" is a key factor in getting an offer. If one is graduating from a respectable math PhD program, the future employer ASSUMES that one has the mental equipment to do research in applied problems in one's field. What the employer is concerned about is how a new hire will "fit" with the team. "2) I thank my advisor for looking at the field of applied mathematics as a set of tools to learn about and use. Some applied mathematicians develop one technique or method and then look for all possible places where it can be applied effectively. This works great for mathematicians in academia, and industry has benefitted from this approach as well. But, for the mathematician who is being PAID by industry, the problem must come first. The problem is there and needs to be solved; the method of solution must fit the problem, and probably won't be the same every time. So it pays to keep an open mind. "There's my two cents' worth." _______________________________________________________________ Item #5 Hot Tip for Those With Adjusted Attitudes Some Silicon Valley companies are gearing up to hire huge numbers of people. See the San Jose Mercury News (it's on the Web) of February 28th, 1995, for more details. My inside sources tell me the place to find these jobs is at the newsgroup ba.jobs.offered This inside source also says, "If they really are intelligent and are willing to Work on the Product, they will get a job." _______________________________________________________________ Item #6 What Do You Think Should Be a Concern of Young Mathematicians? Go ahead. Ask some people around you this question. Here are some of the responses I got. 1. "It *should* be their image. I see 'pocket-protectors.'" 2. "How many normal subgroups there are in S4." 3. "What field should they date in?" 4. "Will the words 'Finsler Geometry' on my resume scare off potential employers, like it has everyone else?" 5. "Will I ever have a life?" 6. "What *is* a 'life,' exactly?" No, but, seriously, folks... what are your concerns? Editors would like to know, even if they aren't standing by. Just e-mail one of us (list follows) with your concerns or opinions and you, too, can become published. And that is every young mathematician's concern, right? _______________________________________________________________ Item #7 Charles Yeomans cyeomans@ms.uky.edu Mark Winstead mwwinst@gcr.com Nancy Wilson nwilson@stmarys-ca.edu Emil Volcheck Emil.Volcheck@risc.uni-linz.ac.at Frank Sottile sottile@math.toronto.edu Vic Perera vicum@math.ohio-state.edu Franklin Mendivil mendivil@math.gatech.edu Kevin Madigan madigan@math.nwu.edu Leigh Lunsford lunsford@math.uah.edu Steve Kennedy skennedy@mathcs.carleton.edu Matt Hudelson hudelson@math.washington.edu Silvia Heubach silvi@cinenet.net Bob Dobrow dobrow@cam.nist.gov Lyle Cochran lcochran@fresno.edu Kevin Charlwood kec1@bradley.bradley.edu Neil Calkin calkin@math.gatech.edu Wendy Brunzie brunzie@math.montana.edu Curtis Bennett cbennet@bgnet.bgsu.edu Frank Arlinghaus frank@math.ysu.edu Edward Aboufadel aboufade@scus1.ctstateu.edu _______________________________________________________________ End of Journal -- Next week: The Discussion Continues