Nerding It Up

I just got back from a two-day symposium at Stanford. Man was it fun. It was very re-energizing, academically speaking. I guess it's been a while since I've been to a conference-y event, and it was so, so very cool to hear what these incredibly smart people are up to. I had a few passing thoughts that might be worth relating. Namely,

1) I feel so privileged to hang out with the people I hang out with. Everyone in the circles I run in now is so interesting and thoughtful. And a lot of them are even fun, too! There is nothing better than hanging out with fun, smart, nerdy, bright, hilarious people. This has several corollaries.

1a) The professors talking at this symposium ("Computational Models of the Mind: Comparing Connectionist and Bayesian Perspectives on Cognition and Language") are basically my heroes. No joke. I found myself thinking, I can't believe I'm in a room with all of these incredibly ridiculously intelligent people, with all their MIT, Stanford, University of California degrees and professorships. I love science. I have always wanted to be a scientist when I grow up, and being at a symposium like that makes me feel like I am actually on my way. Someday maybe that will be me up there talking about modeling cognition and emergent perceptual categories and la-lee-la. I sure do hope so.

1b) One of my friends from high school has just started a PhD program in Economics at Stanford, and I was able to meet up with him, and it was really great! It's so fun to catch up with people from high school, especially since it seems like we're all turning into real adults with academic careers and cool research interests, instead of just being somewhat awkward 15-year-olds. Oh, this leads me to a follow-up to (1a), which is that...

1c) ... I was imagining all the genius cognitive scientists as 15-year-old boys. And just realizing how incredibly awkward and unhappy and uncool they probably were in junior high, and now they are awesome. Pretty undeniably awesome, really. Sure, they were probably on the math team and the chess team and whatever, but now they're engineering models that get at the very essence of how the brain works, and they're giving talks in the greatest, most prestigious universities in the world, and they're certainly not lacking in confidence and even crack some pretty good jokes, but most of them seem down to earth and humble enough that you can still imagine what they must have been like as 15-year-old boys. I remember feeling painfully nerdy and like a weirdo misfit, and somehow just knowing I wasn't as cool as the "cool kids". But where are the cool kids now? Not giving or attending talks about cognitive science at Stanford, I can tell you that much! You always hear about how the nerds grow up to be the most interesting people, but it's like I'm watching it happen in real time, and it's pretty cool.

1d) I am loving being a grad student. When my high school friend and I were on campus, I bumped into one of the Stanford grad students who had been considering coming to Berkeley, and the Stanford linguists invited us over and I ended up hanging out with them the rest of the night. It was so fun! This brings me to my last corollary, which is...

1e) ... I keep realizing that these are my people now. You know when you start high school or college or a new job, and you're thinking, "Ok, these are the people I'm going to be hanging out with for the next few years"? Well, all of the grad students I'm getting to know in other departments are going to be my colleagues, like for life. I may very well be friends with these people, and hanging out with these people at conferences and meetings for the rest of my life. And I love that idea! I love these people! They are my people, it was meant to be, and I have some of the most fun and interesting conversations with them that I've ever had. It is so good to feel that you belong.

2) Palo Alto is weird, and I'm really glad I go to Berkeley and not Stanford. Don't get me wrong, Stanford is gorgeous and amazing and just reeks of money, but that's kind of the problem with it. It's so gosh darned manicured, and that's not necessarily a good thing. Berkeley is kind of grungy and rough around the edges, but that's what gives it personality. Sure, we can't just leave our office doors wide open all day long with all of our computer equipment sitting out in the open (which is what they do at Stanford - that blew my mind), but downtown Berkeley, for all its faults and oddities, is at least a hoot. You will not be bored walking down the street in Berkeley. And we're close to Oakland and close to San Francisco and our campus is all green and lush and Northern Californian. You can keep your manicured lawns and Spanish-SoCal architecture, Stanford. You know why? Because you're stuck in Palo Alto and that is lame.

2a) Really, though, I felt a little bad for the Stanford grad students in that respect. I mean, yes, they get way better funding than we do. And their building and equipment and offices are considerably nicer. But... I like our department better. And I like Berkeley better. And I think we have more fun than them and they know it. So, I take it back, Stanford. You guys can come hang out with us anytime, and we can trade superiority-inferiority complexes and talk about language and brains, and it's win-win-win.

I drank too much hot chocolate tonight, got too little sleep last night, and went to too many talks today, and am consequently feeling roly poly and sleepy. So goodnight!