Computer Vision News 30 in right now outside of work, maybe I could go do that? I’m in love, just absolutely in love with iNaturalist right now. I’m really interested in what happens when you get a bunch of really smart people about biology collecting a bunch of data, and what if we gave them sensors? That’s kind of the cool things that I think about when I’m not at work lately. I think it’s good to have lots of interests. I think there are a lot of personality types that are very motivated by new and interesting problems. I find this very refreshing because I often interview people who have done a PhD, while you took a different decision. Is this connected to the career choices you were talking about? I wanted to get a PhD when I was younger. I think this is an important story to hear. I might anger a few people by saying this, but… Please do. I spent five years in undergrad. I got two degrees: electrical engineering and computer engineering. I did a math minor. I worked in research labs, and all I wanted to do when I was 23/24 was, ‘Oh, I’m going to be the next biggest, brightest computer vision professor.’ I had no money coming out of undergrad. I was $100,000 in debt. I needed to work. I couldn’t afford to eat. I don’t come from wealthy beginnings. I went and worked for a few years, and by the time it started being like five years, and I had some savings, it was like, I really should go do this. Then I went back to graduate school thinking, ‘Yeah, I’m going to do this PhD thing.’ I actually turned down working with some friends at a couple of startups to go to graduate school. Now, I will say this: I went to graduate school in New York City, which I think is a different experience for a lot of people. Being in New York City and being in the Maker scene there a little bit changed my mind. I came to this realization that I’m 30, I’m getting my master’s degree, and if I were to go and try to do this PhD thing, I’d be 40 before I’d even have a shot at being a junior professor and then it’s just doing this one thing indefinitely. The probability of being successful in that is incredibly high. The reality is, a lot of times I’m hiring people that have a PhD, but maybe not a PhD in computer vision or something like this because we produce too many PhDs. They all want to do research, but the reality is there aren’t that many positions. Women in Computer Vision
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