<p>A glimpse of grad school inside the Florida State Chemistry Department. The quote below is from an article by Doug Blackburn in the Tallahassee Democrat:</p>
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“The unwritten rule in academics is, if you can give a talk in front of your own group, you can give a talk anywhere in the world,” Rodgers said. “That’s really true at Alan’s.”</p>
<p>Marshall makes no apologies for the grilling that goes on at his house. “We heckle people,” he said. “We don’t do it to make fun of them, but if we don’t understand something or disagree, we interrupt. After four years of that, you’ve been heckled by experts.”
<p>I feel like too few people are prepared to give these talks at conferences/symposiums, although that might be because several of my friends either have given or are giving these talks and they always seem unprepared on what to expect/what to say. Especially in a track where you’re going to be presenting research, practice such as this really is invaluable. </p>
<p>This was actually a trick a friend of mine used last year for his Master’s defense: He had a group of his friends get-together and went over basically what he was going to say during his defense, and he said it helped prepare him for his defense more than just rehearsing what he was going to say over and over. </p>
<p>Cool of the chemistry department to do this.</p>
<p>In defending her undergraduate Honors-in-the-major biochemistry thesis D1 also experienced some of this process. One of the profs had to be reminded she was merely an undergrad.</p>