Please refund that hour of my life

There's no question that I am the best thing to happen to Academia since the free pre-seminar donut binge. You know it, and I know it, but do my future employers know it? With all of these big things happening in the lab, I'm still trying to keep my eye on the prize: a post-doc appointment, a professorship, tenure, and a hot-air balloon ride over the Grand Canyon.

As part of their never-ending endeavor to justify their own existence, the "TA Project" organized a panel session today. A couple of tenured professors from the sciences gave short lectures and answered audience questions about what to expect during the "Job Talk". When I saw the announcement, I thought, 'wow, the TA Project did something useful!'

They did not.

Almost immediately, what should have been a description of "how to get a job in academics" turned into a rudimentary explanation of how to give a presentation. The main points included such gems as:

• Don't read directly off your slide
• Don't read from a script
• Use citations when appropriate
• Tailor your presentation to the audience

Now, granted, 90% of the audience needed to hear that. In fact, 90% of the audience needs to have that burned into their minds, as in A Clockwork Orange...

A discussion of the "Job Talk", however, is no place for these sort of basics. I learned that stuff in 7th grade (thanks, Mr. Nieskens!), for crying out loud.

Surely there are other tips about the Job Talk that could have been discussed. Surely there are hints that are specific to getting a job in Academia. I'd give some examples, but I don't know any... that's the reason I was in the audience in the first place! Anyway, after sitting through an hour-long list of the common pitfalls of Powerpoint use, I officially learned nothing.

In fact, I may have actually gotten dumber. Among the advice we were given was the following: the second slide should be an outline of the presentation, to give the audience an idea of what to expect.

I don't know about you, but I have suffered through way too many terrible presentations, and a common thread among all of them was a slide that looked something like this:

I will never get that hour back.