A year from now you may wish you had started today. Karen Lamb It’s been a few years since I have completed my PhD, but thinking back, I think it would have been the best and worst time to learn R (“a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics”). The best time because R gives you immediate feedback. I think especially in the beginning of a PhD, direct feedback is usually missing. A PhD is a rather complex project and it usually takes some time until you get feedback. It’s natural to feel stupid (Schwartz, 2008). And when you are doing something that makes you feel stupid, it is nice to have these small moments of success. On the other hand, it’s probably the worst time too. Because R does give you this feedback. It’s a bit like doing project work for grants during your PhD. The grant proposals are usually fleshed out, the tasks are (mostly) clear, and there are strict deadlines. Everything your PhD is not. So it’s easy for the project work to swallow your PhD time. Similarly, you can lose yourself in R. Especially when you are quite persistent in wanting to get that damn [...]
↧