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Hi dare
Welcome back to this episode of english
Iced
Americano
I'm a host georch
Today i wana take you back to my very first year as aphd student
There's a common phrase in academia sink or swim
It means getting thrown into the deep end
Where there are only two options learn to swim immediately or drum
Well my single swim moment wasn't one time event
It happened every single wednesday i was working as a research assistant for a young incredibly ambitious professor
Every wednesday we had our weekly meeting
And looking back those sessions
Were absolutely terrifying it started innocently enough one week
G pitched the new experiment inventing an artificial language to describe actions
She turned to me
And said george
I need animations to illustrate these actions
Do you know how to make them
Now my background is chinese literature and chinese language
I'm not a tech person
I was ready to say no
I have no idea
But before i could get a word out
She wiped a box from her desk handed me a disk
Containing animation software
I heard this is good
Give
Give a try
Show me what you've got next wednesday
I heard out of her moice holding that disk like it was a ticking bomb
I had no clue
What i had sign up for that week was a bllur
I scott the internet for totorials clicked every single button in the interface filting
And tried again
I pulled all niitters
But by the following wednesday
The animations were done
My professor was pleased
But had no idea
That was just warm up a few weeks later
She dropped the
She dropped the next bomb
Do you know python
Well
If you don't know python is a programme language
I told her flat out
No I don't
She didn't even blank
It was like she didn't hear me
She just pressed on i'd like to build a cycle linguistic experiment using python
I needed to show two pictures uh record reaction times
And include a pause button
I frose she looked at me with this scary little smile e
And said dekthat that then see you next wednesday
Show me the experiment
Then at that moment
I desperately wanted to tell her that i was in over my head by calling from a culture
Where students are taught to respect authority
I couldn't bring myself to say it
So i just quietly slipped out of her office
That was definitely the toughest week of my life
I had zero program knowledge
I literally rent to the bookstore
And bought python for dummys
But quickly discovered that the book was too slow
My professor's requirements are way beyond chapter one
I didn't have the time to master the program language
I only had time to solve the problem
So i flipped my strategy
I didch the book and focused purely on the specific tasks now how to show two pictures
I google it copied the code and tested it now how to make a scale from one to five
I asked on the forum
And i got an answer now how to pause ui search fail
And then i fixed the box
I finished the code at five
Am on wednesday morning i walked into the meeting
Looking like a zombie
But the experiment worked we spend weeks collecting data
And then came the final boss
She asked do you know r
Now r is a programme language used for statistical analysis
I said i've heard of it
But she caught me right off
She said we need to use a multi dimensional scalling model to analyze the data
Figure it out
See you next wednesday
That was when something inside me snapped
My years of obedience had reached the limit
I knew r was hard
And statistics were hard and doing both in one week felt impossible
So for the first time i spoke up
I took a deep breath and said
Professor i'm afraid
This is too much for me
Right now i don't know are and i very limited knowledge of that statistical model
She looked at me and simply said
And that one word hit me
She clearly wasn't accepting no as an answer
And she was waiting for me to provide a solution
So i pivited
I negotiated
I said well can i use this week to teach myself the basics of aar
And then next week i'll figure out the model
She nodded okay show me your progress next wednesday
Here's the thing learning are turned out to be manageable
Because i already brute force
My way through python
The syntax was different
But the logic held up
The next week i presented the results
She reviewed the data
The model tweaked a few lines of code
And then looked me in the eym
She said
George
I gave these exact tasks to all three of my research assistance
You were the only one who didn't push back immediately
And you were the only one
Who actually completed the tasks
I know
I pushed your heart
But look how far you've come that moment was a turning point
I realized she wasn't trying to torture me
She was training me
She proved that i'm capable of learning
Anything if there's a deadline and a specific problem to solve looking back those sleepless nights
Did more than just teach me coding before this i had a traditional student mindset
Study the basics
Read the book cover to cover
Then do the work
But my professor flip that logic upside down
So i realized
I didn't need to be an expert
Everything i just needed to be an expert in finishing the task this meant
I could learn stuff selectively when i was struggling to program that pause function
I wasn't reading abstract theory
I was solving a puzzle
And by cracking that specific problem
I understood python way better than i ever would have from a textbook definition
And i think this applies perfectly to learning english
If i spent years memorizing every grammar rule before opening my mouth
I'd get paralyed
It's much faster to just start using the language
A few episodes ago
I told a story about my mom
She mismistook the phrase have a nice day for a standard greeting
Hello
So she said it to a bus driver
As she was getting on the bus
It was a mistake sure
But the real world interaction semmented the lesson in her brain in a way
A textbook never called the second big take away for me was about transferable skills
When i started are i wasn't starting from zero
I had the logic from python
The syntax changed
But concepts like cleananing data
Beauty models
They remained the same
It occurred to me
That language learning works the same way
Let's say i decide to give a presentation about a book
I might spend days preparing polishing every word
It feels like a lot of effort for just one topic right
But the truth is i was building a framework
The structure i used to describe the plot
That's the same structure
I needed to describe atv show to my friends
The adjectives i learned for the main character those are the same words
I could use to introduce an interesting person
The persuasive language used to recommend the book
That could be the sill set
Needed to pitch a product to a client
So i wasn't just learning to talk about a book
I was learning to describe persuade and structure
My thoughts just like i transferred my logic from python to ri could transfer my logic from a book review to a business pitch
So the biggest lesson i took away from that crazy semester is this
I shouldn't wait until i'm ready
I'll never be one hundred percent vready
I just need to find a task
Find a problem
And let the problem teach me
I'm george
Thanks for listening to my story
And i'll cash you in the next episode
