The bog of eternal singlehood: college towns beyond college

As I apply for jobs, many of which, for better or worse, are at academic institutions, I keep having a nagging feeling tugging at the back of my mind, like the tantrum-throwing three year old desperate for that Yo Gabba Gabba doll tears at her parent's arm in aisle 14 of the local Target. This pressing thought which brings me so much strife: I'm just not sure if I can take living in yet another land-grant college town.

Don't get me wrong—there are many great things about living in a college town. Life is generally quite pleasant and quiet, save football weekends. The cost of living is usually fantastic. They also tend to be family friendly, with quaint little farmers' markets and little local restaurants and shops. They also tend to be fairly progressive and open-minded, and support culture and art to a greater extent than you'd expect from such a small population.

Yes, for many people, a college town is a rather idyllic place. There is a specific subpopulation in these college towns, however, for whom the experience becomes utterly hopeless. This subpopulation: those who move to college towns, are not college-aged, and arrive without a significant other. Meet those requirements, and you're basically hosed until you escape. It is the bog of eternal singlehood.

I mean, let's take an honest look at the candidates in the dating pool in a college town for those who already hold one or more higher education degrees:

• College kids: I'm sorry, did you not see the word "kids" there?
• Grad students: Emotionally unstable semi-adults who incorrectly concluded that the panacea to their life problems was to get yet another degree.
• Postdocs: Does the sound of frantic typing as they try to finish their latest lit review during the act of love-making turn you on?
• Junior faculty: Ah, the less youthful, less healthy, more stressed versions of postdocs. Yes, I'm sure you had a good reason behind that choice...
• Staff: They probably arrived there because of a significant other; if they are single at this point, they're looking for an opportunity to flee, not to stay.
• Hipster/Hippie Townies: It's okay, so long as their friends never find out they're sleeping with you. Oh wait, it's a small college town...
• Folk in the surrounding countryside: don't be surprised if you're viewed an over-educated, heathen, pinko socialist who never learned how to do anything actually useful (all of which could be accurate assessments)
• People in the nearest city... five hours away: They're already pairing up with equally smart, young, attractive, better-paid competition that had the foresight to not force the issue of a long-distance relationship on the first date.

As a consolation, you will find great friends, for whom your sad, lonely, single self will serve as a reminder of why they need to stay committed to their own relationships.

With complete seriousness, I've found a tremendous amount of personal growth in the college towns I've inhabited for the past twelve years, and certainly, the quality of friends I've found in them has been unsurpassed. I admit that location is really only one part of the whole romantic equation.

Anyway, we'll see what the future brings. Maybe I'll finally join the young guns in a big ol' city, myself. Or maybe I'll find the the one who breaks the mold. Or maybe it'll just be the status quo, but hey, there are far worse bogs out there!

Tips Interviewing prospective bioinformatics graduate students

Interviewing a prospective bioinformatics graduate student? Here are a few tips.

1. Keep your lab's research web page up to date. The key to getting a good student comes before the interview begins.
2. Know a bit about the prospective student. You can expect the prospective student to know a bit about your work (so long as you fulfill tip 1). You should take an interest and know something about the prospective student you're interviewing. This sets a very positive tone to the interview and makes the student feel welcome and comfortable. I had excellent interviews with professors who took the time to read the dossier the application committee made of me. (If your application committee does not prepare such dossiers, make certain it does next year.) As an addendum, if you know a colleague at a prospective student's previous place of education, feel free to ask if the student knows the colleague, but do not expect them to say yes.
3. Talk about your research first. Sure, the student who is really motivated will have already read your research web page. (See 1.) Regardless of preparedness, however, most prospective students will still feel nervous going into your office and sitting with you for the first few minutes. Ease the tension and break the ice by talking about your own work before having them talk about theirs. If you allow that buffer time of several minutes for the prospective student to calm down, the interview will go much better for both of you. From personal experience, my best interviews started this way. I felt most welcome by professors who could also articulate exactly what areas they hoped a grad student could step in and help. If you allow that buffer time of several minutes for the prospective student to calm down, the interview will go much better for both of you.
4. Don't ask the prospective student to code a particular function in <insert favorite programming language>. A prospective student can take offense at such a request. It shows a distrust in the skills they claim to have and immediately puts the prospective student on the defensive. Also consider the pointlessness in the exercise, which places an overemphasis on coding skills. In my experience thus far, programming is but a small part of a bioinformatics Ph.D. It is a skill that can be improved with remedial courses and Q&A among fellow grad students. Instead, focus on asking questions that probe what really matters: the student's interest in learning and self-motivation. If the student has a particular interest in programming, then sure, let the conversation wander in that direction. (For instance, Prof. Paul Magwene and I had a kindred-spirit talk about our love of Python.) In general, though, take a student's word that they program in the languages they claim, and if they don't program at all let them know that they'll need to take remedial courses to learn and check that their reaction is positive to this.
5. Ask the student about his or her research. The only way you'll really get a sense for the student's propensity for research is asking about his or her previous experiences in it. The more specific your questions about the student's research, the better. (See 2.) An example of a terrible question would be, "What was the greatest challenge in your research project?" An example of an good question would be, "It sounds like you worked with several different phylogenetic models. Were the resulting trees similar, though?" The former question is too open-ended (much like my most hated question of "Where do you see yourself in five years?" [Note: Best answer, "In the mirror, of course."]) The latter is specific but still leaves room for the student to explain his or her findings.

I'd like to thank the Biogang on FriendFeed for inspiring this post.