When I was in IT, many of my co-workers were ex-military. I really liked them. Despite our (sub-)cultural differences, we respected each other and shared enough commonalities (our shared love of drinking and very crude humor) to get along. The one thing I could never accept was the idea of hard work as an imperative, independent of results. For instance, let's say you have 50 computers to build and put on the call center floor. Do you:
A. Work for 36 hours straight.
B. Work for 18 hours straight, twice.
C. Figure out a fast way to image the machines then distribute them to the floor over the course of a few days.
What never failed to amaze me was that, frequently, my otherwise smart and efficient co-workers would completely overlook the fact that no one really gives a shit how hard you work; the only thing that matters is what you accomplish, how quickly, and how thoroughly. I did a lot of finding the shortest distance between two points back then, and it generally kept me in the good graces of the management. I never did learn how to script in Perl, however.
I bring the subject up because it's so utterly apropos for graduate work. No one cares how many hours a day you work, no one cares how many books you read, and more to the point, no one cares if you really read the article. The point is: can you summarize everything accurately? Can you churn out and turn in well-written essays, fast, that prove that you know what you're talking about?
The great thing about doing history is that professors know damn well that no graduate student has time to thoroughly read everything they're assigned; nuclear-powered skimming is an crucial skill for historians to have.
Speaking of, time to finish up Braudel...
10.12.2006
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3 comments:
I heartily concur. Skimming is the most useful skill I've acquired in graduate school thus far.
Five articles down, five to go. Gogogogoogogogogoogogooooo!
That's the spirit!
(Side note: I hope you've gone home by now.)
I think I learned this the first week. Henceforth, I skimmed the books I liked, barely looked at the ones I didn't, and then the ones I resented having to read ending up getting about 10 minutes of my time right before seminar. I think I only did the 10 minute thing twice, though.
Rule of thumb - unless it's important for your research - 2 hours max per book.
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