Awesome Talk

During the course of PhD, it often comes to mind if doing PhD is really worth it. Several thoughts cross through mind -- all friends are doing job, they are settled and even have family of their own; parents need helping hand; am I really going to change the world with my work etc etc. I feel if something is difficult it means something worthwhile, even if the thesis does not turn out to be ground-breaking. The uncertainty a person goes through teaches one to become patient, matured and persistent. Sometimes, I feel doing PhD is meaningful only in places like MIT.

Attending to technical talks is integral part of PhD life. But theoretical talks are most interesting as was today's talk by Nicole Immorlica which made me realize once again how exciting research could be. She got PhD from MIT and has been working with Microsoft Research. I learned some nice theoretical results in Algorithms Game Theory. Specifically, she gave nice application of Classic Secretary Problem. The Secretary problem states:

"If an office wants to hire a secretary from a set of N secretaries, assuming that each secretary has some measure of her goodness, and decision to hire or reject should be done at the end of interview. The question is how to ensure that the office hires approximately the best secretary (if once rejected secretary cannot be hired or once accepted secretary cannot be rejected later)."

Game Theory is one of my favorite subjects and auction-theory that she was talking about is one of its sub-field. Furthermore, I feel one of the features of presentations given by theoretical computer scientists is that those are immaculate -- such talks are absolutely free from rubbish, everything is precise and succinct. In contrast to common wisdom, theoreticians are have also good sense of humor. Basically, a clear and careful thought processing shows up in the presentation. That's when I realize, Aha ! here is the fun of doing research because no one else knew this result before her.