I-school or high-school?

“I-school” is the “school of Information Science”. Today, one of my colleagues introduced me to a guest as her being from the “I-school” and I heard it to be from “high-school”. She looked young and I was a little confused about what I could say to her. Now, imagine my surprise when she started discussing some really difficult research problems in my area and how she has been approaching them. Her work dealt with the way technology can be used to improve long-tail interactions in the society. We had a fruitful discussion where I got some interesting insights. Though I have to admit I was a little awkward as I did not know how abstract I should get in my discussions with her or how much I should read into her statements. I came out completely impressed thinking that this is “the” next generation youth and also a little depressed imagining how futile all my training has been and how quickly my abilities are going to become obsolete.

While I was mulling over the state of affairs and working twice as hard, my colleague stopped by and we got discussing the work of our guest. My colleague mentioned that our guest was the girlfriend of one of the job-interview candidates that I had met earlier in the month. And, now take a minute to imagine my state of confusion and shock as our job interview candidates have finished their PhD or are about to finish their PhD (i.e. ~ 30 to 32 years in age) and as far as I could remember this guy was really good but definitely he wasn’t a Doogie Howser. I blurted out “but he is finishing his PhD” and my colleague said “So is she” – it was then that I realized my error ….. oops!!!

I am a total klutz but I guess my abilities would still be valuable for a few years I also learned a valuable lesson in life about not having pre-conceived notions based on people’s background – judge your audience solely by their capabilities to carry on an intellectually stimulating discussion.

~ by manand76 on April 22, 2008.