Why Industry and Not Academia?

Woody Allen is credited with saying: If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. If I were to roll back the clock 12 years, and told God my plans, he would have been rolling on the ground. That’s because, when I was an undergrad, I wanted to go to graduate school and earn my PhD. My overall goal in life was to become a professor of psychology at a small, liberal arts college. I was interested in exploring a small area of inquiry called the Cognitive Psychology of Scientific Discovery.

Scientists are experts in their respective fields, and one of the most intriguing empirical studies that I had ever read was written by Micki Chi (i.e., Chi, Feltovich, & Glaser, 1981). I contacted her by email, and asked if she was taking graduate students. To my delight, she said she was giving a talk near my home town (Bowling Green, OH), and she invited me to attend. I drove to the University of Toledo where she was giving her talk, and I had a chance to speak with her in person. After that meeting, I sent a follow-up email and asked if she thought our interests were sufficiently aligned for me to apply to her lab. She encouraged me to do so, and fortunately I was accepted into the University of Pittsburgh’s Cognitive Psychology program.

While I was working in Micki’s lab, the cognitive program had a requirement called a “first year project,” which was a small piece of research that is typically an ongoing line of research initiated by one’s advisor. My first year project was to code scaffolding episodes in tutorial dialogs. Have you ever read the book, Who moved my cheese? Well, I felt that my advisor moved my cheese because I wanted to work on projects related to expertise or scientific discovery and not tutoring. Tutoring was not on my list of burning scientific questions.

Seven years later, I finally earned my doctorate, and it was time to look for a job. I applied to several universities that had an opening for an assistant professor, which is the opening level of the professoriate. I did not even get a phone interview with any of the universities. Because I was not competitive, I decided to increase my marketability by pursuing a post-doctoral position. Fortunately, the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center (PSLC) had just been funded by NSF and Kurt VanLehn, the co-director, had an opening in his lab. He graciously accepted me into his lab.

I had a wonderful experience working in Kurt’s lab because I became a member, by proxy, of the field of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS). ITS is a small subfield of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and a few tutoring systems have become well known in the field. One in particular had become a commercial success. The Cognitive Tutor, inspired by the work of John Anderson, Al Corbett, Ken Keodinger, and others, had been empirically demonstrated to boost student learning in many areas, including Algebra, Geometry, and LISP programming. Given its success, Cognitive Tutor was spun off as a small company called Carnegie Learning, Inc.

Because of the intellectual roots and the close connection to the work being conducted in the PSLC, representatives from Carnegie Learning attended the monthly PSLC lunches, which was served buffet style. While standing in the lunch line one day, I found myself next to Steve Ritter, the Co-Founder & Chief Scientist of Carnegie Learning. I had been working in Kurt’s lab for about a year, and Steve asked me what my plans were after my post-doc ended (a post-doc typically runs about 1-2 years). I told him that I was looking for options, and Steve said they were interested in conducting some research of their own. Given the similarities between our interests, we decided to meet, and we eventually wrote a couple of grants together.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), none of the grants we wrote were funded. Because my own post-doc was coming to a close, I decided to go back on the job market to find an academic position. I applied to three schools, and I got a phone interview at one of them. I also applied for a job at the RAND Corporation (the building on the corner of 5th and Craig). Although my applications were well received, none of them turned into viable job offers. I then wrote a grant with Tim Nokes to the PSLC, and the project was eventually funded.

Gusteau, the main character in the movie Ratatouille, believed, “Anyone can cook.” Along the same lines, I believe, “Anyone can become an expert.” The probability of becoming an expert is vastly increased with higher levels of education, and entrance and success in colleges is largely contingent on one’s mathematical ability. Becoming proficient in math is best served by a tutoring system that is always available, never gets bored or frustrated, and does not cost a lot of money to employ. I revised career aspirations to move into industry because I was eager to learn an answer to the following question: How can we design, create, and deploy commercially viable tutoring systems to help students efficiently learn mathematical problem solving?

Lessons Learned

1. Have a goal in life, and never give up on that goal. Tenacity often wins out over life’s random tangents or detours.
2. Always keep your mind fixed on your goal, but stay flexible about the details in achieving your goal. It might work out, but not the way you planned.
3. Talk to people. Take the initiative to contact people so you can tell them about your plans / interests. Who knows where you next job might come from? It might be in the buffet line at a seemingly routine lunch.