Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

A recent peek into the world of grad students in engineering and related fields reveals a group of people with a strong desire to work for the benefit of others.

I have been working with grad students on writing. This took many months to arrange, but for the past couple of weeks I have spent a few evenings each week working with grad students in engineering, computer science, and information technology. They are writing their dissertations and dissertation proposals. Most of these grad students are not native English speakers. They do speak English and can write in English. Nevertheless, they struggle with writing about complex technical topics. The native English speakers in these majors also struggle with writing on complex topics. Writing, it seems, is not a highly sought skill in the sciences.

Aside from the consistent woes of writing, one thing impressed me from these tutoring sessions:

These are good people.

I realized this while explaining one of the bad habits that engineers and their cousin scientists have in writing. You see, we are explaining complex topics. We want the reader to understand the topic clearly, so we explain it, then we explain it just a bit more. The extra explanations tend to clutter the writing with too many words, too many phrases, too many sentences, and too many whatever comes next.

All these sleep-inducing extra words stem from a desire to be helpful.

Aha, that was it. A desire to be helpful. I opened my eyes a bit wider and took note of the topics these grad students were studying. They included:

• Help people use the Internet
• Help people maintain their privacy
• Help people survive emergencies

Each of these students could take their dissertation ideas to venture capitalists and probably receive funding. The ideas are good enough to become money-making products. Instead, they are working on these ideas to publish them to the world. These students are good people who are trying to help others. I am glad I met them. I cheer them along as best I can knowing that they have the good of others in their hearts.

That’s not bad for a bunch of emotionless nerds – a stereotypical view of these students that once examined is about as false as a view can be.