I would just like to state, for the record, to all who google or use some form of search engine that doesn't sell data that sends people in China to prison for no reason, that my experience with the Office of Sponsored Projects at the University of Texas at Austin in May-October of 2006 was extremely unpleasant.
I have been a student at UT for 9 years total. I was a student before we had the internets. (How did anyone ever write a paper before personal computers, by the way?) And in all the bureaucracy, struggling to find someone to help answer a difficult question, I had never found such absolute unhelpfulness combined with power to halt my pursuit of academic progress as I found at the OSP. I have learned from this experience, that no one cares about your academic research, and no one cares about getting you funding. You, yourself must care, but it is no one else's job to care or help you figure it out.
And, ultimately, your research will exist in a vacuum of millions of journal articles that might, at their apex, be cited in another journal article. This is truly the existential reality.
However, there are many offices, departments, and people at UT that are genuinely helpful and interested in the progress of those who pass through. The office of Kinesiology and Health Education is filled with cheerful, helpful staff and professors. Health Ed has the monopoly on nurturing, but there are some nice folks in kines.
Anyway, I'm done.
I have been a student at UT for 9 years total. I was a student before we had the internets. (How did anyone ever write a paper before personal computers, by the way?) And in all the bureaucracy, struggling to find someone to help answer a difficult question, I had never found such absolute unhelpfulness combined with power to halt my pursuit of academic progress as I found at the OSP. I have learned from this experience, that no one cares about your academic research, and no one cares about getting you funding. You, yourself must care, but it is no one else's job to care or help you figure it out.
And, ultimately, your research will exist in a vacuum of millions of journal articles that might, at their apex, be cited in another journal article. This is truly the existential reality.
However, there are many offices, departments, and people at UT that are genuinely helpful and interested in the progress of those who pass through. The office of Kinesiology and Health Education is filled with cheerful, helpful staff and professors. Health Ed has the monopoly on nurturing, but there are some nice folks in kines.
Anyway, I'm done.
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