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Friday, August 27, 2010

Computer programs?....nooo...not today. But motivation

Yes, scientists use lots of different computer software, namely, Microsoft office, Adobe Creative Suite, Mathematica, Matlab, etc. And there are lots of 'small & simple' programs specialized for certain forms of data. I purchased a student version of Matlab a few days ago and pretty suffered from it because it crash with Windows 7 computer.

But this is not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about motivation.

As a oceanography graduate student, I am very tempting to make nice figures, animations, graphics showing scientific data into world. But it takes too long time since I don't have any computer background. In fact, I took a Matlab related course once and that's pretty much it. Sometimes, I spend more time for playing with computer software than reading a book or paper, then I feel guilty about it. So  to speak, I have a strong motivation for extracurricular activity than just my job.

As a person from S.Korea, I am (actually was) very scared of professors or teachers. They are supervisor and master of my life and traditionally I must respect them, but cannot love them much. However, my thoughts of teacher was changed after I met Dr. Raleigh Hood at Horn Point Lab. He is not only a master but a friend. He allowed me anything I wanted to do in his laboratory and didn't blame me even if I was deserved. More importantly, though, he changed the perspective of motivation of mine. He let me do whatever I want to. I worked because I should and I believed that it is one kind of motivation in a different shape. Especially, the personality was securely developed during my military service period. But here, we don't call it motivation, but just a order.

Today, my blog is much longer than before because I am very happy after watching a video. Dan Pink in the video talks about motivation and productivity. In scientific studies, it turns out that productivity is lower when people are rewarded by his/her work than people are not rewarded at all especially if the work requires any little creativity. I clearly remember many of my friends who said that their parents will buy this toy, that toy, this game, that game if they got a good score from the test. And the reward seemed to work because they get better scores than mine who never got this kind of offer from parents. But now, I see that my parents are much more wiser than other parents. I cannot say that I am a more productive person than they are now because I don't know what they are doing and I don't think I am very successful right now. However, I believe that I have more potential than them because I have been doing whatever I want without any incentive. I am going to enjoy my life more seriously from today for the higher productivity.



Conclusion of today's blog. Although I spend many time for playing with softwares which I don't need to do, it will make my life much more productive than ever.

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