I was invited to give a talk as part of the CLEF center webinar series on the topic of how to prepare a good Ph.D. I sadly run out of time to share all the great resources I've gathered and that I deemed could make students' lives a little easier. This blog post will be thus dedicated to exactly that. I will endeavor to update it whenever something comes up and would welcome any suggestions! 

“It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.”

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Source: Tv Show “Touch” revolves around the idea that everything is connected.

While I was doing some  much needed winter cleaning of my laptop, I found the transcript of this talk I did two years ago (if memory serves) and it tackled how, in today’s interconnected world, It takes a network-paradigm to thrive. As it’s resolutions season, although I’m not a big fan of the whole ritual, I thought I’d share an excerpt to take into account while forming this year’s big plan. *Turning sleeves up* (And by the way, Have a blessed and productive 2014!)

“I’ve become convinced that how networks work has become an essential 21st Century literacy.” ~Harold Rheingold

In the Era of interconnectedness that we are witnessing today, we belong to many many networks And weaving various network is the key to thrive. That is why to my sense, brokers (people who tie together otherwise disconnected people and leverage what is called weak ties)  are actually what we can call great network players. And here is why.