Editing How to learn from a thing that's not your thing

Graduate school and academic culture is filled with all kinds of events and activities -- some highly related to your research, some not. Attending these events and learning from them is part of the "hidden curriculum" of graduate school -- but that means the lessons to be learned can be a bit implicit. Although it might make a lot of sense to attend these events to learn these lessons, the vague/hidden lessons nature of them can make a person feel lost and maybe be a waste of time too. This page is a list of concrete lessons to be learned from varying kinds of events that happen, and the kinds of lessons that can be learned from going to them even if they're not related to you area of work.

===Job Talks===

* What goes into a job talk?
* Is it terrifying? What does awkward and unprepared look like?
* How does someone summarize a body of work into an interesting story that can appeal to a broad group but still sound scholarly?
* What kinds of questions do people ask?
* Who will attend my job talk?

===Defenses===

* What goes into a defense?
* Is it terrifying? What does awkward and unprepared look like?
* What's the flow of who speaks when and how much?
* How does someone summarize a body of work into an interesting story that can appeal to a broad group but still sound scholarly?
* What kinds of questions do people ask?
* Who will attend my defense? Who do I want to invite?

===Workshop===
Workshops vary widely. Some are a weekly gathering of folks sharing their work and helping each (and if you're going to bring work to such a place, you definitely should pay in with your time --- if it's a group of 8, meeting for an hour with an hour of prep to participate, you'll get back 16 hrs of work from others when it's your turn, so plan to pay that same amount into the pool). Some are oriented to a theme, might be conceptual or tutorial in nature, and happen only for a limited time (perhaps with a conference). Some entire conferences call themselves workshops. This is about the first category of workshop.

* What kinds of questions do authors ask? What kinds of answers do they get? 
* What kinds of concerns do people express?
* What goes unsaid?
* Can you see what someone means when they bring up an opportunity to improve? 
* What is this work they're citing, is it interesting?

===Reading Group===
* Pick a section that does resonate. Not interested in the setting? Ok, what can this paper tell you about methods? Etc.
* What's at stake for the field this paper speaks to?
* Why did this venue accept this work?
* If you were to run a study your way -- methods, or setting, or whatnot -- how would you do it?
* If you were a reviewer, what would you tell the authors?
* Are there some key citations around big theories that might end up being your thing, or at least useful to cite?

====But I didn't read the thing!====

* Take 15 minutes and read it, silly rabbit :). 
* Fess up and just listen. 
* Use the comments that people make to build a summary or set of notes for yourself in your zotero. You might find it useful later.