Tuesday, September 20, 2005

A blog meme

Pharyngula has this odd little blog meme about what it feels like to be an academic scientist or for those who want to become academic scientists. As one of my inevitable goals is to become an academic scientist and to go and lecture students, while of course maintaining a rich research programme; I thought it would be worth doing.

Anyway, here are the original instructions from Philosophy, et cetera (who originally posted it):
The following survey is for bloggers who are actual or aspiring academics (thus including students). It takes the form of a go-meme to provide bloggers a strong incentive to join in: the 'Link List' means that you will receive links from all those who pick up the survey 'downstream' from you. The aim is to create open-source data about academic blogs that is publicly available for further analysis. Analysts can find the data by searching for the tracking identifier-code: "acb109m3m3". Further details, and eventual updates with results, can be found on the original posting:
http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2005/09/academic-blog-survey.html

Instructions:

Simply copy and paste this post to your own blog, replacing my survey answers with your own, as appropriate, and adding your blog to the Link List.

Important (1) Your post must include the four sections: Overview, Instructions, Link List, and Survey. (2) Remember to link to every blog in the Link List. (3) For tracking purposes, your post must include the following code: acb109m3m3
Link List (or 'extended hat-tip'):
1. Philosophy, et cetera
2. Pharyngula
3. Immunoblogging
4. Add a link to your blog here.
Survey:

Demographics
Age - 22
Gender - Male
Location - New Zealand
Religion - Christian
Began blogging - June 2005
Academic field - Immunology
Academic position [tenured?] - Aspiring to become an academic scientist in future, but one day at a time ;)

Approximate blog stats
Rate of posting - About once a day, sometimes patchy depending on work
Average no. hits - No idea actually.
Average no. comments - A few every so often
Blog content - Majority on science, particularly environmental issues

Other Questions
1) Do you blog under your real name? Why / why not?
- Yes. It doesn't really seem appropriate to blog under a pseudonym anyway.

2) Do colleagues or others in your department know that you blog? If so, has anyone reacted positively or negatively?
- Yeah a few people in the department know of my blog. The general reaction is fairly good although one of my professors remarked I should spend less time blogging and more time studying ;)

3) Are you on the job market?
- I will be just as soon as I finish my honours report and exams in october. Then I'll be looking to start my PhD.

4) Do you mention your blog on your CV or other job application material?
- No, not at the moment.

5) Has your blog been mentioned at all in interviews, tenure reviews, etc.? If so, provide details.
- No, I wouldn't think so as it's not a particularly widespread blog (yet).

6) Why do you blog?
-Generally for the reasons that many science bloggers are doing this now, so I can try to demystify aspects of science and generally make the public more aware about certain issues (like feeding antibiotics to farm animals).

There we are. Pass the meme along!