Sebahat Gok
@sebgok.bsky.social
//only random musings…//
https://www.sebahatgok.com/
https://www.sebahatgok.com/
2025 has also been the year I've found my favorite podcast so far.
Episode 46: Sapiens
It's an ambitious goal to write the entire history of humanity in just 400 pages. It's even more ambitious to do it without reading any research.
It's an ambitious goal to write the entire history of humanity in just 400 pages. It's even more ambitious to do it without reading any research.
Sapiens
Podcast Episode · If Books Could Kill · 11/20/2025 · 1h 38m
podcasts.apple.com
December 4, 2025 at 7:53 PM
2025 has also been the year I've found my favorite podcast so far.
lol. this year i finally came to terms with the idea that i will die and most of my books will stay unread.
Amazon, please stop asking me if books I bought month ago met my expectations. I still have unread books I bought in 2012. Be real.
December 3, 2025 at 4:50 PM
lol. this year i finally came to terms with the idea that i will die and most of my books will stay unread.
I would consider 2025 as a year I evolved as a researcher but it turns out it’s rather the year I converted into swiftism 😱
December 2, 2025 at 6:45 PM
I would consider 2025 as a year I evolved as a researcher but it turns out it’s rather the year I converted into swiftism 😱
A book i‘m returning back tonight years later is Scott Stossel’s My age of anxiety and I’m once more amazed by the amount of scientific and historical research he‘s put into this. Just wow
November 23, 2025 at 6:56 AM
A book i‘m returning back tonight years later is Scott Stossel’s My age of anxiety and I’m once more amazed by the amount of scientific and historical research he‘s put into this. Just wow
read John Anderson today after a loong time for an unfinished project that i am returning back to, and remembered again how much i love how his super clean and clear writing.
September 18, 2025 at 6:57 PM
read John Anderson today after a loong time for an unfinished project that i am returning back to, and remembered again how much i love how his super clean and clear writing.
I feel like every research community has this one thing they make a big deal of; and in bio education, it seems to be teleological reasoning??
September 5, 2025 at 4:24 AM
I feel like every research community has this one thing they make a big deal of; and in bio education, it seems to be teleological reasoning??
one of those nights working on the project with the most mind-numbing data work of my life... hit code line 1380 and still going... lesson learned in the process is...
August 28, 2025 at 2:58 AM
one of those nights working on the project with the most mind-numbing data work of my life... hit code line 1380 and still going... lesson learned in the process is...
there is a word called 'fana' in Sufism; it's something like annihilation of self; being one with God. this song is about fana. sometimes, when I am writing and be lost in the rhythm of it, i will suddenly remember it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsCT...
Erkan Oğur - Bir sevda şarkısı
YouTube video by Muhammed Sadık Erdoğan
www.youtube.com
August 24, 2025 at 12:58 AM
there is a word called 'fana' in Sufism; it's something like annihilation of self; being one with God. this song is about fana. sometimes, when I am writing and be lost in the rhythm of it, i will suddenly remember it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsCT...
reading a very well known methodology/metascience tutorial paper on how to pick an effect size of interest and seeing how un-insightful it is in guiding our decision in our specific study…
July 8, 2025 at 2:04 AM
reading a very well known methodology/metascience tutorial paper on how to pick an effect size of interest and seeing how un-insightful it is in guiding our decision in our specific study…
i also found a youtube video of this, and being a non-economist, I very much enjoyed watching the talk and got inspired by it. what an amazing presenter: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K45a...
July 4, 2025 at 2:14 AM
i also found a youtube video of this, and being a non-economist, I very much enjoyed watching the talk and got inspired by it. what an amazing presenter: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K45a...
Reposted by Sebahat Gok
1/ I'm feeling real pain at the cuts to Indiana public universities, especially IU, especially cogsci. These are some of the biggest brains in cogsci and edupsych in the world, but why do *I* care? I'll tell you what they've done *for me, personally*. ↵
www.ipm.org/news-section...
www.ipm.org/news-section...
Indiana public colleges cut almost 20% of degrees
Public Indiana colleges and universities have eliminated 19 percent of their degree programs to meet requirements added to the state’s budget, according to the Commission for Higher Education.
www.ipm.org
July 2, 2025 at 2:41 AM
1/ I'm feeling real pain at the cuts to Indiana public universities, especially IU, especially cogsci. These are some of the biggest brains in cogsci and edupsych in the world, but why do *I* care? I'll tell you what they've done *for me, personally*. ↵
www.ipm.org/news-section...
www.ipm.org/news-section...
I like this phase of the research project where it gets under your skin. Going to bed at night and writing in your mind it’s introduction. Waking up in the morning and noticing some analysis you are doing doesn’t really answer the question.
June 12, 2025 at 4:53 AM
I like this phase of the research project where it gets under your skin. Going to bed at night and writing in your mind it’s introduction. Waking up in the morning and noticing some analysis you are doing doesn’t really answer the question.
So nice weather makes Chicago so awesome. How am i gonna leave this town 😍
May 30, 2025 at 3:25 AM
So nice weather makes Chicago so awesome. How am i gonna leave this town 😍
reading Esther Duflo's "The Economist as Plumber" and noticing how this plumbing metaphor captures how I've long viewed education research as opposed to what others have instisted how I should think about it.
May 14, 2025 at 4:44 PM
reading Esther Duflo's "The Economist as Plumber" and noticing how this plumbing metaphor captures how I've long viewed education research as opposed to what others have instisted how I should think about it.
Talking to folks in AERA, it’s surprising how many tell me they feel siloed/niche. If every one of us is the outcast, who is the mainstream in this field?
April 26, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Talking to folks in AERA, it’s surprising how many tell me they feel siloed/niche. If every one of us is the outcast, who is the mainstream in this field?
being continuously critical doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re being rigorous. You can mindlessly and habitually be very negative.
April 5, 2025 at 2:48 AM
being continuously critical doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re being rigorous. You can mindlessly and habitually be very negative.
something nice about education research: there are just soo many pieces of it, this is actually a field that's rewarding for people who are a bit too curious, a bit too divergent, a bit too excitable by different ideas.
April 3, 2025 at 12:02 AM
something nice about education research: there are just soo many pieces of it, this is actually a field that's rewarding for people who are a bit too curious, a bit too divergent, a bit too excitable by different ideas.
Reposted by Sebahat Gok
BTW: everyone wondering "how will big tech think about education" should read what I consider the modern holy trinity:
- Morgan Ames's "The Charisma Machine"
- Justin Reich's "Failure to Innovate"
- Audrey Watters's "Hack Education"
Baumol's Cost Disease is irresistible (in both senses).
- Morgan Ames's "The Charisma Machine"
- Justin Reich's "Failure to Innovate"
- Audrey Watters's "Hack Education"
Baumol's Cost Disease is irresistible (in both senses).
They already tried, with MOOCs. We were told we'd need only like 5 universities to produce "the best" content, the rest could shut down and everyone could learn from MOOCs instead. Which showed exactly how much they understood about education, learning, humans, and other things not measured in bits.
in 8-10 years someone from Silicon Valley is going to invent the university, genuinely unaware that it's been done before
February 25, 2025 at 1:26 PM
BTW: everyone wondering "how will big tech think about education" should read what I consider the modern holy trinity:
- Morgan Ames's "The Charisma Machine"
- Justin Reich's "Failure to Innovate"
- Audrey Watters's "Hack Education"
Baumol's Cost Disease is irresistible (in both senses).
- Morgan Ames's "The Charisma Machine"
- Justin Reich's "Failure to Innovate"
- Audrey Watters's "Hack Education"
Baumol's Cost Disease is irresistible (in both senses).
hearing people saying “things don’t work like that here”… like world is a static place and they have no agency in it?
February 5, 2025 at 1:57 AM
hearing people saying “things don’t work like that here”… like world is a static place and they have no agency in it?
went to a zumba class today after a loong time and remembered why i hadn't been doing this more.
January 15, 2025 at 2:23 AM
went to a zumba class today after a loong time and remembered why i hadn't been doing this more.
wishful thinking. maybe they don't lose anything.
In one of my interviews, a professor had his secretary print out a copy of his CV while berating me that I didn't know enough about his research. I laughed it off at the time, but I think that institutional cultures which allow these kinds of personalities to thrive ultimately lose good people.
Professors, don't be mean to job candidates, they remember it the rest of their lives. Source: remembered it the rest of my life.
January 13, 2025 at 4:57 AM
wishful thinking. maybe they don't lose anything.
I learned that I was misinterpreting the phase “play stupid games, win stupid prizes”
November 5, 2024 at 3:46 AM
I learned that I was misinterpreting the phase “play stupid games, win stupid prizes”
it is quite inspiring to be surrounded by people doing good genuine and original work. i really like this very much.
November 1, 2024 at 1:36 AM
it is quite inspiring to be surrounded by people doing good genuine and original work. i really like this very much.
gatekeeping is an interesting concept. seeing again and again gatekept people opening bigger and better doors.
October 9, 2024 at 1:08 AM
gatekeeping is an interesting concept. seeing again and again gatekept people opening bigger and better doors.