Over the years, I have followed many good academic blogs, e.g. Scott Aaronson, Moritz Hardt, Zachary Lipton, Lior Pachter etc. Until now I didn’t think I had time for blogging. May be one of the luxuries of tenure is to make room for things I always wanted to do and this is one of them 🙂
Besides writing has never been my strongest suite. My verbal skills developed much later than my mathematical skills. At the age of 3, my mom tells me that I could barely speak but could solve lots of puzzles. Apparently my grandma had written up the calendar for the next 10 years that I had memorized and could name the day for any date. At school, I struggled with essays. Fast forward, in grad school I was frustrated that papers had to be written and that just deriving math equations and proofs was not enough. Math was my native language and everything else felt foreign.
This didn’t change until a few years ago when I learnt the importance of writing and communication the hard way. I interviewed at most of the top schools and amidst a hasty schedule, I did not polish my presentations or gather thoughts on how to communicate my research to people outside my field. I did not get any offers, even though there was strong initial interest. This forced me to think how I should communicate complex research to general audience. Richard Feynman was an inspiration during my teenage years and I went back to looking at how he structured his lectures. I also had Zachary Lipton work with me. He wrote beautiful prose and I learnt a lot from him.
I am now thankful that I spent time to improve my verbal and presentation skills because it has opened up so many doors. At Amazon, I have interacted with product managers, marketing people, engineers with no ML background and customers. This requires providing customizing the explanations and listening to their concerns. I realize how critical these skills are for me to be effective. These days I insist that all my students take courses on communication and be able to write well. I will give them editorial comments, but I will not write on their behalf. I keep emphasizing the importance of clear communication.
This blog is an attempt to get my thoughts out to the world. You will hear more in the coming days.
Reblogged this on Deep Learning Research Blog.