Katy Dickinson

Suicide Thursday Over - One More College to Go

Yesterday was being referred to by Jessica and her friends as "Suicide Thursday" or "Ivy Thursday" because so many of the major U.S. colleges released their admissions decisions then. My High School Senior daughter has now heard back from all but one of the nine colleges, universities, and music conservatories to which she applied for admission as a member of the undergraduate class of 2011. Jessica is pleased that she was accepted into five excellent schools and we in her family feel lucky and happy that our girl has only good options to choose from in the next month. We expect to hear Rice's decision by Monday.

Our friend Danek found this good idea with regard to improving the college admissions process in the article "Make college admissions a crapshoot - Top schools are already too selective, so why not draw names from a hat?" (By Barry Schwartz, Professor of Psychology, Swarthmore College) March 18, 2007, latimes.com.

The tragedy of all this selectivity and competition is that it is almost completely pointless. Students trying to get into the best college, and colleges trying to admit the best students, are both on a fool's errand. They are assuming a level of precision of assessment that is unattainable. ...

There is a simple way to dramatically reduce the pressure and competition that our most talented students now experience. When selective institutions get the students' applications, the schools can scrutinize them using the same high standards they currently use and decide which of the applicants is good enough to be admitted. Then the names of all the "good enough" students could be placed in a metaphorical hat, with the "winners" drawn at random for admission. Though a high school student will still have to work hard to be "good enough" for Yale, she won't have to distort her life in the way she would if she had to be the "best." The only reason left for participating in all those enrichment programs would be interest, not competitive advantage.

When Jessica read Brown's online rejection letter to me yesterday, it said that 19,000 students had applied for next year's Freshman class. You could make up a complete university (or city) from the 19,000 students who applied to Brown alone! A Brown admissions web page says that last year they rejected 86% of applicants. Regardless of the quality of their applications, records, accomplishments and potential, all 19,000 of those students probably (like my own daughter) spent days if not weeks writing essays, arranging for recommendation letters and transcripts and paying fees. They then waited three months for an answer. A lottery makes more sense and would surely be more humane to the applicants, their parents, and the admissions staff.

I am reminded of a description of the U.S. national spelling bee in the book Complete and Utter Failure - a Celebration of Also-Rans, Runner-Ups, Never-Weres and Total Flops by Neil Steinberg (1994: Doubleday):

The image of so many students being forced through that funnel, where a solitary student emerges at the end, a victor, while the others slink off in defeat, drew me to the bee, making it seem a paradigm for so much that goes on in organized mass education....

Not only does just one child out of 9,000,000 win, but the 8,999,999 losers lose in a public and humiliating fashion. As will be seen, it would be hard to think up a way to make failure in the bee more demeaning, particularly at the later stages, short of having a quartet of circus clowns drive deficient spellers from the stage with selzer bottles and flappy paddles.

The colleges which are sending out their admissions decisions now clearly take a great deal of trouble to write kind, hopeful, and supportive rejection letters as well as gleeful personalized acceptance letters. The decisions are given privately on passworded web pages and in paper mail. However, I suspect that many high schools are like Jessica's where the Seniors have been comparing college lists all year. This month, school hallways are full of Seniors offering congratulations or commiserations to their classmates as each school announces its decisions. In the end, all is known.

Here is where we stand so far on Jessica's admissions:

Posted at 04:57PM Mar 30, 2007 by katysblog in Home & Family  | 

UC Berkeley California Centennial features 3 from Sun

UC Berkeley's alumni magazine, California, recently issued its Centennial Edition, featuring hundreds of Berkeley luminaries. Sun and Berkeley share some particularly bright stars: turning to p.30 you will see a full page photo of John Gage (Sun's Chief Researcher and Vice President of the Science Office) with Kim Polese (former Sun Java product manager then co-founder of Marimba). Turning to p.104, there is a photo of Eric Schmidt, who hired me when he was Sun's Software Manager and left after becoming Sun's CTO to go to Novell and then Google.

Strangely enough, Sun Founder and notable Berkeley alumnus Bill Joy is only mentioned briefly in this issue. Other Cal profiled graduates who did well in the Silicon Valley include Douglas Engelbart, Gordon Moore, and Andrew Grove.

Posted at 01:38PM Mar 30, 2007 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

More College Responses - 4 to go

My High School Senior daughter Jessica has been hearing back from the colleges, universities, and music conservatories to which she applied last year for admission to the undergraduate class of 2011. This has been going on since 8 March and will continue until 2 April. We expect to hear back from Brown and Princeton tomorrow, and from Oberlin and Rice on Monday.

Waiting is hard. Once we have all of the replies, we get to decide which schools she should visit for a last look around before deciding. Jessica's acceptance decisions back to the schools are due 1 May.

Posted at 11:36AM Mar 28, 2007 by katysblog in Home & Family  | 

Singing Competition - CMEA

Today was a big day for Jessica, my 18-year-old daughter. She checked the web site and was happy to find out that Smith College has accepted her application. We have now heard back from 3 of the 9 colleges to which Jessica applied. (University of Rochester also accepted her, MIT alas said no.) We will hear from the remainder by 2 April. It is a long and difficult wait.

Also, John and Jessica and I just got back from the CMEA (California Association for Music Education) Solo & Ensemble Festival at San Jose State Univ., that is: a musical performance competition. Jessica was the last singer today. She sang an aria in Russian from Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Czar's Bride and was awarded the highest rating of "Superior" along with a Command Performance. The judge said Jessica's was the only Command Performance he awarded today! Susan Nace (Harker's superb music teacher and the director for Cantilena, Harker's Upper School Women's Choir) accompanied Jessica on piano. We are very proud of Jessica and continue to be delighted with the excellent music education and support provided by Ms. Nace.

Posted at 05:34PM Mar 24, 2007 by katysblog in Home & Family  |  Comments[2]

California Central Model Railroad (Next to Sun Santa Clara Campus)

Our home club, the Silicon Valley Lines Model Railroad, was invited for a visit and joint operations tonight by the California Central Model Railroad club. The California Central Model Railroad has been in the historic depot building on the other side of the tracks from Sun's Santa Clara Campus (formerly Agnews State Hospital) since the late 1960's. It is located at:

4185 Bassett St
Santa Clara, CA 95054

(408) 988-4449

John and Paul and I did not stay for the entire session but saw much to admire at this friendly club. The building is small but they own it and pay nominal rent to the railroad that owns the land itself. They thus do not have the high monthly rent problem that plagues many clubs. The building is fully built out with a raised floor layout. The space under the layout is well used for corridors, the dispatcher's desk (with monitor screens and switches), access to remote layout areas, a lavatory, even a small coffee room. Communications with the dispatcher are by dial telephones mounted to the panels under the layout. Paul was fascinated by the dial telephones (he had never seen one used before)!

Cal Central Meetings are Fridays, 8:30-11:00 p.m. Their National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) listing says:

Call for directions and upcoming show/events.
The layout is HO scale with a dual guage branch line for those of the narrow-minded persuasion. The layout is a "folded dog bone" or point to point with a turning loop at each end and is located in the turn of the century South Pacific Coast Agnew Station. The main line is approximately 300' and the scenery is 90% complete. This club layout has been on several convention tours and also on the cover of RMC and MR multiple times. There are several NMRA Master Modelers in the ranks and even some past NMRA officers and it shows in the layout.

We took away many good ideas from our short visit. This is a club and layout worth seeing.

Posted at 10:50PM Mar 23, 2007 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2007

I know of at least five women in Engineering here at Sun who are preparing proposals to submit to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2007. The submission deadline was just extended to 9 June. Hopper 2007 will be held October 17-20 in Orlando, Florida.

Starting this year, Hopper is an annual event and will be held together with the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing. As the web site says: "Past Grace Hopper Celebrations have resulted in collaborative proposals, networking, mentoring, and increased visibility for the contributions of women in computing. This year's theme is I Invent the Future".

The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) present the Hopper conference. 2007 is the 7th Hopper, will be the 4th I have attended, and the 3rd to which I have submitted a proposal. I had panels on mentoring at the last two Hopper conferences.

I am on the Advisory Board for the ABI. Sun hosted the ABI Ambassadors meeting here in Menlo Park yesterday. We discussed best practices in networking groups of women in Engineering at Sun, Cisco, and HP. Sun's group is called SASWE ("Succeeding @ Sun As a Woman Engineer") and has been working since 1995. The ABI Ambassadors also heard an update on Hopper 2007. The plans sound exciting!

More than 30 Sun women attended and worked at the Hopper conference in San Diego in 2006. (See my blog entries for 2006 photos and commentary.) The flash of energy and delight that resulted from their participation was exhilarating. Greg Papadopoulos (Sun CTO and Executive VP) took the opportunity of Hopper 2006 to write a piece in CNET called "Perspective: Engineering field must have diversity". I am very much looking forward to Hopper 2007.

Error Correction!:
I got the date wrong on my 23 March posting, the Hopper submissions deadlines are now:

• Ph.D. Forum - April 29
• Panels, Workshops, and Presentations - April 15
• Technical Posters - April 29
• ACM SRC - April 29
• BOFs - April 29
• New Investigator Technical Papers - April 29

Posted at 02:22PM Mar 23, 2007 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  |  Comments[1]

52 New SEEDs Selected Today

Congratulations to the 52 SEED Engineering mentoring program participants just selected for the June-December 2007 term! This is a special term for Sun Engineering staff working in Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, and St. Petersburg. There were 81 applicants this term.

About the new Participants:

• Location of Participants
  • 24 Bangalore, India (46%)
  • 14 Beijing, China (27%)
  • 7 Prague, Czech Republic (13%)
  • 7 St. Petersburg, Russia (13%)
• Division of Participants
  • Software Group: 48 (92%)
  • Storage: 2 (4%)
  • Systems: 2 (4%)
• Gender of Participants
  • female: 12 (23%)
  • male: 40 (77%)
• Jobs of Participants
  • 30 Principal level (58%)
    including Members of the Technical Staff 4, Staff Engineers, Senior Staff Engineers, Engineering Manager, and equivalent titles
  • 22 Junior to Principal Level (42%)
    including Members of the Technical Staff 1, MTS-2, MTS-3, and equivalent titles
• 7 People Managers (13%)
• 18 Prior Applicants to SEED (35%)

The next regular World-wide SEED Terms will be announced in email to all of Sun Engineering in late May 2007 (applications due in June, terms start in September 2007).

Posted at 01:59PM Mar 22, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Sorting the SEED Applications (4-Site Term)

The SEED Engineering mentoring program is getting ready to hold a meeting of its executive Selection Committee for the 4-Site term tomorrow. The Selection Committee includes Vice President, Director, and Distinguished Engineer representatives for each of the four target locations (St. Petersburg, Prague, Beijing, and Bangalore). They have had passworded access to the applications since Monday, 19 March. We have received the HR Records review of the applications and have sorted applicants into 3 groups to help structure Selection Committee discussions. The 3 groups are:

1. Qualified and also in an explicit preference category
   Meets SEED and 4-Site term selection criteria, completed application, and also Principal job seniority level, and/or More than one "1" ("Superior") annual performance rating, etc.
2. Qualified but not in a preference category
   Meets SEED and 4-Site term selection criteria, completed application
3. Disqualified
   Usually this means that the person did not complete their application, or had no "1" ("Superior") annual performance ratings

There were 81 applications and 16 were disqualified, so 65 SEED 4-Site applications are being considered. The proportion of acceptances for each of the four sites will be roughly restricted by the proportion of qualified applications from each site. Since the target for this term is to accept 50 participants, we are working toward a selection rate of about 77% (50 of 65 total qualified applicants).

Here is where each site ended up in terms of the three groups:

• St. Petersburg, Russia
  4 qualified and in an explicit preference category
  4 qualified (but not in a preference category)
  1 disqualified
• Beijing, China
  9 qualified and in an explicit preference category
  9 qualified (but not in a preference category)
  0 disqualified
• Prague, Czech Republic
  7 qualified and in an explicit preference category
  1 qualified (but not in a preference category)
  3 disqualified
• Bangalore, India
  17 qualified and in an explicit preference category
  14 qualified (but not in a preference category)
  12 disqualified

Posted at 11:32AM Mar 21, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

A Tale of Two Flights: Jet Airways, Lufthansa

About 10 days ago, John and I flew Jet Airways from Bangalore to Goa India and back. Last Friday, we flew Lufthansa from Bangalore to Frankfurt to San Francisco. What a difference in experiences!

The Jet Airways flights were comfortable, well managed, and full of pleasant extras. On both flights of less than an hour, Jet Airways quickly and gracefully served drinks and an excellent full meal. In addition, they provided the best in-flight magazine I have seen: Jetwings. It has been years since I actually took home an airplane magazine but I wanted to show my kids some of the excellent photos of crafts, celebrations, and locations in India.

Our Lufthansa flights last Friday did not compare well. The first leg of our journey (Bangalore to Frankfurt) was uneventful. It was when we had to change planes in Frankfurt that all went wrong. Even though we had already been searched in Bangalore and were only moving from gate to nearby Lufthansa gate within the same terminal, we were searched again. This took so much time that they ended up moving everyone trying to catch the flight to San Francisco into the first class line. After our carryon bags went through the scanners, we were faced with an almost gleeful guard who confiscated our water bottles (one of which was still factory sealed). He was delighted to offer us the opportunity to drink the entire litre bottle immediately before he threw it away. I asked if I could empty mine and keep the bottle but "this is not allowed here". There was no store between the searching station and the gate and we were almost late so we flew for 10+ hours with only the water provided by the cabin crew. Add to being dehydrated, a tall guy in the seat behind me who pushed my seat forward when I tried to recline it (and glared at the stewardess until she went away when I asked for help) made our flight home most unpleasant. I think we will fly through Singapore to India next time!

I will watch the business progress of Jet Airways with interest and hope that their very efficient, polite, and comfortable service will set a much-needed new standard in civilized travel.

Posted at 03:30PM Mar 20, 2007 by katysblog in News & Reviews  |  Comments[2]

2 College Responses In, 7 to Go

My 18-year-old daughter Jessica has started to hear back from her nine college applications: hooray! She applied for admission to: Brown, Carnegie Mellon (& Music Conservatory), Lawrence (& Conservatory), MIT, Oberlin (& Conservatory), Princeton, Rice, University of Rochester, and Smith. So far, the University of Rochester has accepted her (with a big scholarship) and MIT has turned her down. We will hear from the remaining seven by 1 April. It was good to have the first reponse be an acceptance. The email Jessica sent on 8 March when she first heard was:

Hey, guess who's in college!!!!!!!!!! Yay, I'm going to college! Only another month to figure out which one....

Posted at 02:37PM Mar 19, 2007 by katysblog in Home & Family  | 

81 SEED Applications (4-Site Term Final Tally)

I got home to the San Francisco Bay Area from Bangalore yesterday after a great trip. The final SEED 4-Site term application tally was 81. Of those, 72 (89%) are complete - meaning the basic materials (application form, resume, and manager's recommendation letter) all came in. 16 of the 81 have been disqualified, usually because of low annual performance ratings or an incomplete application. More may be disqualified after we get back the report from Human Resources Records. Applications and all materials were due 14 March, California time from Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, and St. Petersburg.

We will pick up to 50 participants at the 22 March Selection Committee meeting. Executives from each of the target sites have been invited to join the 4-Site term's Selection Committee. Selection announcements will go out in email 22 March to all selected and non-selected applicants and their managers. For the 4-Site term, there were applications from the following:

• By Sun Organization:
  • Other/Don't Know: 1 [ 1% ]
  • Software Group: 70 [ 86% ]
  • Storage Group: 4 [ 5% ]
  • Systems Group: 4 [ 5% ]
  • Worldwide Operations: 2 [ 2% ]
• By Work Location:
  • Bangalore, India: 43 [ 53% ]
  • Beijing, China: 18 [ 22% ]
  • Prague, Czech Republic: 11 [ 14% ]
  • St. Petersburg, Russia: 9` [ 11% ]
• By Seniority:
  • Principal Level: 34 (42%)
    including Members of the Technical Staff 4, Staff Engineers, Senior Staff Engineers, Engineering Manager, and equivalent titles
  • Junior to Principal Level: 47 (58%)
    including Members of the Technical Staff 1, MTS-2, MTS-3, and equivalent titles

Posted at 03:38PM Mar 17, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Good Places to Eat in Bangalore, India

Here is my list of Good Places to Eat in Bangalore, India. I suppose this should really be called my "list of places John and I discovered or were recommended to and liked, on a relatively short visit to a town full of great restaurants" but that seems too long a title.

• Angeethi (Indian - rooftop seating)
  #1, Museum Road
  Bangalore 560-001
  +91-80-41113340
• Aromas of China (Chinese - ask for the Rs. 150 lunch special)
  #19 Richmond Circle
  Bangalore - 560 027
  +91 - 80- 41113355
  easy walking distance from Sun's offices in Divyashree Chambers
• Ayda Persian Bites (Persian fast food)
  #1, First Floor Church Street
  Bangalore
  41478209
• Bamboo Shoots (Chinese)
  #1, Museum Road
  Bangalore 560-001
  +91-80-51113333
• Bangalore Brasserie The Richmond Hotel (Indian buffet)
  88/2 Richmond Road,
  Bangalore - 560 025
  + 91 80 22 23 36 66
  easy walking distance from Sun's offices in Divyashree Chambers
• Hotel Empire International (Indian fast food)
  36, Church Street (off M.G. Road)
  Bangalore - 560001
  25593743
• Hyd Mahal - Hyderabadi & North Indian Restaurant (Indian)
  #55, Church Street
  Bangalore - 560 001
  91-80-4112 2323
• Indian Affair The Chancery Pavillion Hotel (Indian)
  135 Residency Road
  Bangalore 560044
  easy walking distance from Sun's offices in Divyashree Chambers
• Silk Winds The Atria Hotel (Chinese)
  1 Palace Road
  Bangalore - 560 001
  2205205
• Tandoor - The Ethnic Indian Restaurant (Indian)
  Centenary Building, #28
  M.G. Road, Bangalore - 560 001
  +91-080-2558 4620

Posted at 06:19AM Mar 15, 2007 by katysblog in News & Reviews  |  Comments[2]

80 SEED Applications (4-Site SEED Term)

There were 80 applications to SEED's 4-Site Engineering mentoring term. 70 are complete - meaning the basic materials (application form, resume, and manager's recommendation letter) are all in. Applications and all materials were due 14 March, California time from Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, and St. Petersburg. Next step is to pass the 80 applications to Human Resources for verification of performance ratings, titles, etc.

We will pick up to 50 participants at the 22 March Selection Committee meeting. Executives from each of the target sites have been invited to join the 4-Site term's Selection Committee. Selection announcements will go out 22 March. For the 4-Site term, there were applications from the following:

• By Sun Organization:
  • Other/Don't Know: 1 [ 2% ]
  • Software Group: 69 [ 86% ]
  • Storage Group: 4 [ 5% ]
  • Systems Group: 4 [ 5% ]
  • Worldwide Operations: 1 [ 2% ]
• By Work Location:
  • Bangalore, India: 43 [ 54% ]
  • Beijing, China: 18 [ 22% ]
  • Prague, Czech Republic: 11 [ 14% ]
  • St. Petersburg, Russia: 8 [ 10% ]
• By Seniority:
  • Principal Level: 33 (41%)
    including Members of the Technical Staff 4, Staff Engineers, Senior Staff Engineers, and equivalent titles
  • Junior to Principal Level: 47 (59%)
    including Members of the Technical Staff 1, MTS-2, MTS-3, and equivalent titles

I am working in Bangalore, India, through today, 15 March, to answer questions from applicants and managers from all 4 sites. I will be back in my Menlo Park, California USA, office Monday 19 March.

Posted at 01:13AM Mar 15, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Photos from Bangalore and Goa (India)

Here are some photos from Bangalore (Karnataka, in south central India), and from the first part of our trip to Goa (on India's west coast) last weekend. Our camera has been having some download problems but more photos are coming...

Bangalore - Divyashree Chambers building:

Bangalore - Sun lobby Inside Divyashree Chambers:

Bangalore - Inside Divyashree Chambers:

Bangalore - Divyashree - Raju Alluri at Sun:

Bangalore Autorickshaw - KA05 ("chaos") - license:

Bangalore traffic - Yellow Top Autorickshaws:

Bangalore Divyashree - Cornwell Cross Road:

Bangalore Divyashree - produce cart:

Bangalore Divyashree - Cornwell Cross Road:

Bangalore - sunset:

Bangalore M.G. Road area - Gangarams Book Bureau:

Bangalore M.G. Road area - Anti-Dowry Store Sign:

Bangalore M.G. Road area - Restaurant flower basin:

Goa road to Panaji - watermelon sellers:

Goa road to Panaji - ox plow:

Goa road to Panaji - girls' scooter sign:

Goa road sign - Panaji, Mumbai, Belgaum:

Goa road sign - Way to Panaji City:

Goa, Panaji, Mandovi River - cross with flowers:

Old Goa - outside Basilica - wax limbs and people:

Old Goa - Basilica of Bom Jesus:

Old Goa - John at Basilica:

Old Goa - Basilica window:

Old Goa - Basilica flying buttresses:

Old Goa - Basilica Angel inside:

Old Goa - Basilica St. Francis Xavier's Reliquary:

Old Goa - Basilica door grille:

Old Goa - Basilica door:

Old Goa - Se Cathedral Angel and altar:

Old Goa - Se Cathedral aisle and altar:

Old Goa - Se Cathedral floor tomb:

Old Goa - Se Cathedral Eden fresco:

Old Goa - Se Cathedral Eden fresco:

Old Goa - Se Cathedral Eden fresco:

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

Posted at 06:18AM Mar 14, 2007 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

66 SEED Applications So Far (4-Site Term)

There have been 66 applications so far to SEED's 4-Site Engineering mentoring term. 42 are complete - meaning the basic materials (application form, resume, and manager's recommendation letter) are all in. Applications and all materials are due today (14 March, California time) from Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, and St. Petersburg. We will pick up to 50 participants at the 22 March Selection Committee meeting. Executives from each of the target sites have been invited to join the 4-Site term's Selection Committee. Selection announcements will go out 22 March.

Since SEED started accepting participants outside of the USA in 2002, we have already been honored to include 171 participants from these 4 sites:

• 72 from Bangalore
• 46 from Beijing
• 17 from Prague
• 36 from St. Petersburg

So far for the 4-Site term, there have been applications from:

• By Sun Organization:
  • Other/Don't Know: 1 [ 2% ]
  • Software Group: 58 [ 88% ]
  • Storage Group: 3 [ 5% ]
  • Systems Group: 3 [ 5% ]
  • Worldwide Operations: 1 [ 2% ]
• By Work Location:
  • Bangalore, India: 33 [ 50% ]
  • Beijing, China: 14 [ 22% ]
  • Prague, Czech Republic: 10 [ 16% ]
  • St. Petersburg, Russia: 8 [ 12% ]
  • no response: 1 [ 2% ]
• By Seniority:
  • Principal Level: 27
    including Members of the Technical Staff 4, Staff Engineers, Senior Staff Engineers, and equivalent titles
  • Junior to Principal Level: 39
    including Members of the Technical Staff 1, MTS-2, MTS-3, and equivalent titles

I am working in Bangalore, India, through tomorrow, 15 March, to answer questions from applicants and managers from all 4 sites.

Posted at 01:16AM Mar 14, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |