Caroline Pitt 💻📚🧙🏻‍♀️

Reminder to everyone in the midst of academia apps (be it faculty, PhD, masters' etc.):

You're amazing and have a lot to offer. Get support wherever you can. Waiting is stressful and rejections suck, but you're putting the work in. It's at least partially a roll of the dice.

Mostly on bsky but I'll try to update here as well.

Aside from the everything else going on in the world, first time ACing for #CHI2025 went fairly well.

Conditional #DIS2024 acceptance for the students I mentored/project managed for my first "senior researcher" role on a paper!

And an R&R on the #CHIPLAY2024 I somehow got involved with last-minute.

Not bad at all, now for the journal article and other things I'm supposed to be writing.

Spent about 5 hours straight of focused writing/editing/prep in a coffee shop uninterrupted by meetings and it was lovely.

I should do that more often... Supposing I can clear my schedule for it.

I don't really do resolutions but continuing gradual habit building from the last couple months/years, including:

- Outside for at least a few minutes every day (preferably at least 30-60min)
- Consistent sleep schedule
- Try new recipes regularly
- Stretch ~10 minutes / day
- Eat the frog (the productivity method ;P )
- At least ~10 minute tidy/day
- Actually using to-do apps consistently
- Directed media consumption > doomscrolling

Now that the diss is done, I have slightly more book time!

I see Scholar has ingested the #CHI2024 proceedings.

I will not be at #CHI2024 (my dissertation defense last August was priority over the CHI deadline) but I did help a tiny bit with some final polishing/camera ready on Michele Newman's (#UWiSchool PhD student) first first-authored CHI paper, which received an honorable mention!

"I want it to talk like Darth Vader": Helping Children Construct Creative Self-Efficacy with Generative AI

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642492

It's a cool #KidsTeamUW paper. Go talk to Michele! Tell her I said hi!

It's that time of year!

Time for me to write polite emails that are basically:
- I'm not tenure track/accepting students (yet), I'm a postdoc
- Please do your research before emailing, it does not make a good impression when our research areas have zero overlap.
- Please give at least 2 business days before response.

It's frustrating but I also try to be patient because there's a lot of hidden curriculum and norms in the grad school app process.

Students complaining in the UW subreddit that profs don't have their course sites up for the quarter that starts tomorrow.

... guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, as recently as my undergrad years in the early 2010s, we had to show up to the first day of class and get a paper syllabus to know the course content. (Or email a prof/find a prior syllabus if we were particularly ambitious.)

I understand the course anxiety but instructors are people. And it's a holiday.

Peeking in for a moment, anyone going to #EmeraldCityComicCon or #jococruise?

No exact deets while we're still in the midst of things, but my first round of academic job market-ing *THUS FAR*:
- ~16 applications since early October
- A few potential places to still apply...
- 2 rejections (both for open rank IIRC, so like c'est la vie)
- 2 first round interviews

I'm taking this search seriously but I'm also very lucky to be in the first year of a two-year postdoc so there's some cushion.

Buying so many snacks for the children is a key part of the research process.

Games designed for kids, with kids!
WGBH Kids + KidsTeam UW = 🎉

And now you can play Tower Builders and Awesome Obstacles (don't worry, Key Quest is coming. Also these are games for 5 to 7-year-olds):

Tower Builders:
https://pbskids.org/games/play/team-hamster-tower-game/2149777

Videos:
Let's Play: https://pbskids.org/videos/watch/ruff-ruffman-team-hamster/1411571/team-hamster-lets-play-tower-builders/2500258
In real life: https://pbskids.org/videos/watch/ruff-ruffman-team-hamster/1411571/team-hamster-tower-builders-in-real-life/2500267

Awesome Obstacles:
https://pbskids.org/games/play/team-hamster-tower-game/2149777

Videos:
Let's Play: https://pbskids.org/videos/watch/ruff-ruffman-team-hamster/1411571/team-hamster-lets-play-awesome-obstacles/2500254
In real life: https://pbskids.org/videos/watch/ruff-ruffman-team-hamster/1411571/team-hamster-awesome-obstacles-in-real-life/2500263

Awesome @uwdub@bird.makeup seminar today from @meryl@mastodon.social!

Sent it out to my Executive Function & Sociotechnical Systems DRG students, we'll definitely be discussing it our meeting on Friday.

@vernickelt@synapse.cafe Currently trying my first round of faculty apps and it's wild.