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"Professors" and "scientific research"
Jul. 24th, 2003 02:06 pmWhat do you think, what is the main responsibility of a University professor?
- "To make a scientific research"?
- Wrong. The main responsibility of a University professor is to administer researches of the post-graduate students.
Today I met Raj Bhatnagar, professor of University of Cincinnati. Raj conducts research in Artificial Intelligence field. When I tried to talk with him about Artificial Intelligence Development he wasn’t interested in my ideas about AI. But he was quite effective in administrative issues:
- Raj asked me what exactly am I going to do. I answered that I want to develop True Artificial Intelligence System. But Raj expected answer in different direction.
- Raj asked me "are you going to make dissertation"? I said that I didn’t think about it and asked to explain some details.
- Raj explained that if I want to make dissertation then I should:
1. Take GRA exam (1-2 months of preparations).
2. In October with GRA results come to him again and select specific subject for my dissertation.
3. During December 2003 - April 2004 "research funds" will be distributed, so I may get tuition and, may be, scholarship (tuition is money for university; scholarship is money for me).
4. Since August 2004 I may start dissertation research.
I imagined picture how do I wait 1 year for starting the research… and asked Raj about his current AI projects. Raj answered that his team (post-graduate students) work on:
- Distributed Data Mining.
- Analysis of human’s cognitive process.
- System for classification of technical information.
From my point of view first dissertation is not a science problem at all. "Distributed Data Mining" looks like classical task for a database software developer. Moreover, I consider this problem as weakly related to an Artificial Intelligence subject.
So, I asked Raj about two last topics ("cognitive process" and "information classification"). I even mentioned that I have some ideas about these topics.
But university professors are interested in administration process, not in the research itself. So Raj neither asked me about my ideas nor explained details about these project. Instead he proposed to send me the papers (with details about the research).
Resume: Professors don’t make science research by themselves: they are too busy for it. Instead professors do important part of the job: administration of the research process.
- "To make a scientific research"?
- Wrong. The main responsibility of a University professor is to administer researches of the post-graduate students.
Today I met Raj Bhatnagar, professor of University of Cincinnati. Raj conducts research in Artificial Intelligence field. When I tried to talk with him about Artificial Intelligence Development he wasn’t interested in my ideas about AI. But he was quite effective in administrative issues:
- Raj asked me what exactly am I going to do. I answered that I want to develop True Artificial Intelligence System. But Raj expected answer in different direction.
- Raj asked me "are you going to make dissertation"? I said that I didn’t think about it and asked to explain some details.
- Raj explained that if I want to make dissertation then I should:
1. Take GRA exam (1-2 months of preparations).
2. In October with GRA results come to him again and select specific subject for my dissertation.
3. During December 2003 - April 2004 "research funds" will be distributed, so I may get tuition and, may be, scholarship (tuition is money for university; scholarship is money for me).
4. Since August 2004 I may start dissertation research.
I imagined picture how do I wait 1 year for starting the research… and asked Raj about his current AI projects. Raj answered that his team (post-graduate students) work on:
- Distributed Data Mining.
- Analysis of human’s cognitive process.
- System for classification of technical information.
From my point of view first dissertation is not a science problem at all. "Distributed Data Mining" looks like classical task for a database software developer. Moreover, I consider this problem as weakly related to an Artificial Intelligence subject.
So, I asked Raj about two last topics ("cognitive process" and "information classification"). I even mentioned that I have some ideas about these topics.
But university professors are interested in administration process, not in the research itself. So Raj neither asked me about my ideas nor explained details about these project. Instead he proposed to send me the papers (with details about the research).
Resume: Professors don’t make science research by themselves: they are too busy for it. Instead professors do important part of the job: administration of the research process.
