Thread by @jradavenport

Today a student asked me: How did you get over the worry of asking a "bad" question?
My short answer: By asking a lot of bad Q's...

My long answer:

{Mind you, all this is from my extremely privileged life and esp. current position}
I finished college w/ a C average (which I maintain is A OK!), didn't get into any PhD programs, and felt like I never really "got it" in most courses (astro being almost the only exception).

I certainly didn't do enough of the reading, so relied on lectures to give me info... but I really struggled to take "good notes". My notes were garbage, and DISTRACTING. In my masters courses at SDSU I was determined to do better.

Asking Q's in class (or @ conferences) caused my heart to race, stage-fright, all of it. I probably asked... 5 Q's all of college, LOL. But, I realized that - FOR ME - I needed to be more present in lecture, to be very actively listening.

So I made a game of it. I would let myself chill about notes, jotting down what seemed interesting/important/neat (drawing little graphs was helpful), but I set a goal: Ask a Q every day.

Maybe your notes are good, maybe they help you focus or study later. That's awesome! Find what works for you! For me, detailed summary notes of lectures STILL are useless.
Asking Q's is my "secret" to super active listening.

Every slide I'm looking for something I *don't* understand, or some point of the story that didn't track. My notes now look like:
Q - On slide 20, why does X go between 0 and 2, not 0 and 1?

(an actual Q I asked yesterday)

So that approach changed my entire learning style, and (I think) helped me become a scientist. It's MY style, it's not optimal for every scenario, it doesn't mesh well w/ some lecture/presentation styles... but it gave me confidence to learn.

This pride in speaking up, being noticed is from a position of privilege & relative power. I THINK the real lesson is: don't assume lecture/teacher/book/notes deliver material in a way that's right for YOU. If you're not "getting it", you may just need a new way!

Don't be a passive learner. If you want to learn X, then you MUST find the modality that works for you. Be honest in your self assessment of your learning. That's what I wished I knew at 18, but didn't realize until I was like 24.

So now I have a reputation for asking Q's in like every talk, and I know it's a bit of a joke (I asked about magnetic fields like TWICE, come on!). It's OK, you can LOL & roll your eyes @ me for asking, but just know this is my way.

BUT, ready for the twist?

A few years ago as an early postdoc, at a smaller conference, feeling all smart and like I was finally "getting it", asking Q's in each talk... a colleague & friend said "dude, stop asking so many Q's"

and he was absolutely right. I WAS getting it, I didn't need to ask so many Q's. I was a white man w/a PhD, a prize fellowship, my name on the speaker list, and was absolutely sucking up ALL THE AIR. Jim, shut up, we know you get it

That too was a valuable lesson, and it hurt my pride (LOL), b/c I was being called on THE THING that I think got me that place! At some point I wasn't significantly helping myself by asking, and was hindering the dynamic for others! I had become... THAT GUY

and you know what? screw THAT GUY. The one that loves his own voice, that asks "gotchas", Q's he knows the A to, just talks about his own work, asks "comments"... that guy can fuck right off.
Are you at risk of becoming that guy? Be honest w/ yourself.

So now I take notes in every talk, writing down many many Q's usually. (In a great talk, I'll write down Q's and the speaker will give A's in the next slide!) I try to ask Q's when they're genuine, or esp when the speaker needs a Q. (nothing sucks worse than when there's NO Q's)

w/ every slide, every graph, I'm asking myself "do I understand this? Is this intuitive? do these units make sense?" I'm trying to do order-of-mag spot checks of my own understanding. The only bad Q is one I was too prideful or inattentive to ask (or at least write down)
[END]