Every field has its own hidden codes—things no one teaches but everyone learns.
What’s something in your academic world that would catch outsiders off guard?
Every field has its own hidden codes—things no one teaches but everyone learns.
What’s something in your academic world that would catch outsiders off guard?
Comments
Is this a real thing?
Unless you can give an example yourself, I have zero clue what you are talking about.
I don’t know, the people at my place seem pretty vocal about their expectations.
This reminds me of Lee Shulman. He has written on educational psychology. He has written about the different forms of knowledge that teachers require to be successful. One form is knowledge of context. This refers to how you get things done in your institution. Like don’t piss off the secretary or the janitor because they run the school. Or knowing the best time to use the photocopier.
We all say we all follow some expert research methodology when we’re all just bullshitting
I’ve never heard any of us use the term “nanobots” and Im pretty sure most of us genuinely hate the term
I’m breaking the rule now, but it’s well understood not to engage with dipshit Reddit posts.
When recommending reviewers to the journal editor, you recommend your buddies and request your haters to be removed from consideration.
An actual answer: we prefer to write papers in first person rather than a passive or 3rd person voice. Threw off my friend from a different field who was reading my abstract
I think the academic field has some nuances, for example not every professor will invest their time helping up coming researchers, unless there is a tangible benefit like co-authoring. If this benefit is not clear on set, they will not entertain you as much.
On the other hand, there a those people who get excited for the fact that you ask for their help and they seem always ready to help or direct you to a relevant source/help.
So, in academia, learning different characters and suitable time to ask for help are important. For example academics are generally stresses during examination periods, so best wait for the beginning and mid term to approach colleagues for assistance/guidance.
Sometimes, request a chat over lunch or coffee ☕
Always remember to give credit where and when it’s due.
These are just my observations.
A large number of “shibboleths” in research-level math. Math in grad math textbooks is written in a very formal style, usually. But it takes way too long to actually state things in the terms of those textbooks. So, you find informal abbreviations. Certain informal abbreviations have acquired reasonably precise meanings. At the same time, certain terms that seem reasonable will mark you as an outsider. These examples will probably make no sense unless you are a mathematician but here goes. Example of first: “theorem such-and-such follows by generalized abstract nonsense” is a completely reasonable thing to say between two professional mathematicians. Example of second: saying “the first homotopy group” will mark you as an outsider. Even though that’s a fully rigorous technical term used in a lot of books, you should say “the fundamental group”.
Philosophy: If you have a solid and nuanced argument, you may criticize the best.
Almost everyone in my field comes from the upper-middle to upper class. To succeed, one must learn to the subtleties of the language, mannerisms, and social norms of those classes. This is extremely hard for most people who were not exposed to those classes at a younger age. I’m convinced it’s why the vast majority of people from the lower classes never make it in academia. It’s not that they aren’t smart, driven, and/or creative thinkers. They simply don’t “fit in”.
know multiple languages
Peer review in computer science is almost never double blind.
Apparently the hidden code in some of your fields is to get really angry for no reason at normal questions
In my field, if you isolate a new mutant that is really useful, you can work on it without sharing, but: once you publish it must become available to everyone.
In economics, authors are alphabetical. In other social sciences, they’re generally ranked by relative contribution. In the natural sciences, usually the PI or seniormost person is the last author.
The purpose of research isn’t to answer questions, it is to justify further research
It’s considered extremely lame and pathetic to name a newly discovered species after yourself, but everyone secretly wants to have someone else name a newly discovered species after them (which is totally fine).
Not totally answering your question, but wanted to throw it out as something I see provide a culture shock to people:
I feel like a lot of outsiders don’t understand that we are all just pretty blunt with each other, and it’s never a personal thing…it’s just sorta the culture I guess. I see a lot of industry + business folk and random redditors get clotheslined with this bluntness at times not knowing it’s just how we talk to each other.