Is this what you wanted? Yes. I am sure your students have learned a lot from you; is there anything that you have learned from them? Yes, I’ve learned tremendous things from the students. Two things that are very important that they have taught me are, one, for me not to have a mode collapse on my ideas. Not to think that one thing is great and nothing else is worth it. To be way more open and multimodal and give a shot to multiple directions at the same time. The second thing that they taught me is that it’s not the research success that matters; how they feel, and their emotions also matter. It’s not research success at any cost. The emotional journey and being happy every day actually matter. Are they different from how you were when you were a PhD student? Every student is different. They have diverse personalities that can be very different from mine. I think this is great because we teach each other different things. If someone is doing their PhD now and would like to have a career like yours, what advice would you give them? Very good question. I think number one is to find something that you like. This can be very difficult. I remember it was very agonizing when I was trying to pick my advisor because I had not selected the topic of computer vision. This is a big deal. Once you select, hard work is very important. Good collaborators are very important. Taking feedback well is also important. Just to really seek feedback that is truthful, as opposed to feedback that will make you feel good. Try to anticipate changes in the future despite that this is very difficult. Overall, research is challenging because it requires complete devotion, I believe. There are many extremely smart people, extremely trained people, working many hours on things they’re very passionate about, and the truth is that research is a competitive field. We often say it’s collaborative, but that’s not really true. If I submit a paper, you can’t submit the same paper, so it’s extremely competitive. I think trying to keep your emotional stability and your integrity in this highly competitive field is extremely important. That’s why you need to find your niche, or you need to really push. Your work ethic really matters. You suggest being devoted. Are there ups and downs where a researcher would say, ‘Today, I don’t feel very devoted’? 19 DAILY CVPR Thursday Katerina Fragkiadaki
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