Six months ago on a zoom call, we discussed how hard it can be to learn the mechanics of designing experiments and placing them online. We wondered: wouldn’t it be great if we could do a course? Three months ago, I finalized the paperwork and Daniel J Veit pushed it through at his Uni. Two months ago, students from five Unis came together online to learn. One month ago, I realized that Youngjin Kwon was ready to run the course without me - it’s time for him to graduate. Today, we wrapped up the face to face portion of the course. What did I learn? First, my fifth year doc student has more tacit knowledge than I ever imagined. Somewhere, when I wasn’t paying attention, he mastered multiple competencies thar will make him a great scholar. He will make an even greater mentor to PhD students - which makes me really happy. Second, blending my academic family with my friend’s family was great fun. This was the first time that I brought a PhD student with me to co-teach an international course. It was so much fun watching him interact with my friend’s students & seeing them learn from each other. Third, hybrid PhD seminars are tough. We will run it over three or four months when we do it next time - instead of compressed into two with a week’s residency. Fourth, while tough, the plusses outweigh the minuses. Bringing together students from several schools and states in their training created a unique energy - which made everyone more engaged. It’s not something easily done in the States - but I’ll try to fund my students to attend similar events in the future. Finally, we all do better when we grow together. It quickly became evident that a lot could be lost in translation. We really had to work hard to create manipulations that worked across cultures. Having students from five countries in one course - helped me see that nuances of doing global research are more challenging than i knew and more addressable with global collaboration than I had thought. Ciao!
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