Exam day
Tomorrow I'll leave early for Rome, where I am to spend two days in written tests to qualify for a tenured position as INFN research scientist. This is a national selection, and there are 16 openings overall. I've heard there will be about 250 candidates.
I am not very eager to do the exam, because I prefer not to win a position in the INFN. So I am going there to try and do my best, while hoping I do not win a position!
The paradox is only apparent. Early next year, there will be two openings for University positions in Padova, and it is one of these I would like to win. But I cannot avoid going to the INFN exams tomorrow, because it would look bad.
Anyway, I have heard (unconfirmed voices) that a part of the exam will be based on exercises in particle physics. If that is true, I am very likely to fail! It's been a while since the last time I spent time doing exercises in relativistic kinematics, allowed and forbidden decays, computation of ionization losses, and the like.... I do not even remember the basics any more. This is kind of mean: asking a 40-year-old to show the skill one typically has at 20, while he spent the last 10 years doing completely different things: analyzing data, producing computer code, organizing the work of research groups...
All in all, I am very unhappy to have to spend three days in Rome for this. But you have to do what you have to do...
I will post some highlights on the exams when I come back.
Hey Tommaso, post the questions, if you get a chance. I would love to see what such an exam looks like.
And my best luck, to get what you want there.
Cheers, Helge
Posted by: Helge | November 15, 2005 at 10:06 AM
I don't know whether it's a european thing but i find it really odd that exams are given to physicists at your level, tommaso. I thought one of many things that getting a PhD implies is that you never have to sit for anymore crummy exams.
Posted by: Horace | November 15, 2005 at 10:38 AM
any chance with a golf ball and gamma nuclear physics? (ddr-381z)
Posted by: m.visaya | November 15, 2005 at 10:50 AM
Good luck to you in examinations.
Posted by: Genry Henz | November 15, 2005 at 02:20 PM
What sort of salaries are we talking about here? I know that schoolteachers in Italy are incredibly badly paid....what about university profs and people at the INFN? Anyway good luck!
Posted by: T. Riestino | November 15, 2005 at 05:30 PM
Dr. T wrote:
"I am not very eager to do the exam, because I prefer not to win a position in the INFN. So I am going there"
Huh? If you don't want to win the position, why do the exam?
Posted by: knucklehead | November 17, 2005 at 03:07 PM
Hi all, thanks for the comments.
Helge, some questions are in the next post.
Horace, I know! They tricked me with the PhD, reality is that one never ceases to have to study.
Manuel, I don't play golf but if I do I will try not to play with one made of Thorium.
Henz, thanks! But I had little luck.
T.Riestino, we are talking about 1.5keuro/month. Of course, if that is a factor, one would choose another job.
Knucklehead, read the post more carefully and you'll get your answer.
Posted by: Tommaso | November 18, 2005 at 07:24 AM
Dr. T, all the "explanation" I can see in your post is "I cannot avoid going to the INFN exams tomorrow, because it would look bad". Sorry, but I still don't get it. What does look bad to me, very bad in fact, is somebody wasting his own and the examination committee's time by taking part in a selection for a position which he doesn't want. What looks even worse is this person going public about this deliberate waste of everybody's time on a high-profile web site.
To put it bluntly, you are essentially asking to be summarily dismissed, not only in Rome now but in Padova next year.
From my foreign perspective this all looks very weird. But perhaps it's some Italian thing which we other, ordinary mortals just can't comprehend.
Posted by: knucklehead | November 18, 2005 at 01:05 PM
Hi Knucklehead,
I understand your not understanding. I know the american system and the italian system, and understand both. Let me try to make an attempt at explaining what is going on here.
There is a national test to fill 16 positions. Everybody who thinks he is qualified is invited to apply, because they want to have a snapshot of the situation. They will create a ranking of those who are found good enough for a position, besides the 16 winners, and this will SAVE and not waste time, since when other openings appear, they will be filled with the people who already qualified and entered the list of admissible candidates in the first test.
If I win a position straight away, I am very likely to decline it. This is a personal choice. By declining, I will allow somebody else to fill it, while if I took it and then later won another position as a University researcher, the first position would be lost, and with it the financing: nobody could replace me. This would definitely be bad for everybody.
Sounds more clear ? Nobody wasted nobody else's time. I went there to qualify, that is all. But there is a last bit. Informally, all those who feel qualified have been more than invited, they have been "blackmailed" into taking the test, with the threat of being put aside when they would concur for a University position.
If all this sounds weird to you, well, you are right. But that's how things are going in Italy with recruitment of researchers, and neither me or you can do much about it.
Posted by: Tommaso Dorigo | November 19, 2005 at 12:46 AM
"T.Riestino, we are talking about 1.5keuro/month. "
Dio mio! I guess the idea must be that if you can live in Italy on that, you must really be smart! But surely a full prof must make MUCH more than that?!
Posted by: T.Riestino | November 20, 2005 at 03:26 AM
I think a full professor only gets about 3.5k or so euro/month. Still shamefully low.
Posted by: Tommaso | November 21, 2005 at 12:12 AM