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Graduate School Survival Guide
This guide provides concise suggestions for:
Other sources of information:
Getting the most out of the relationship with your reseach advisor or boss
- Meet regularly - you should insist on meeting once a week or at
least every other week because it gives you motivation to make regular
progress and it keeps your advisor aware of your work.
- Prepare for your meetings - come to each meeting with:
- List of topics to discuss
- Plan for what you hope to get out of the meeting
- Summary of you have done since your last meeting
- List of any upcoming deadlines
- Notes from your previous meeting
- Email him/her a brief summary of EVERY meeting - this helps avoid
misunderstandings and provides a great record of your research progress.
Include (where applicable):
- Time and plan for next meeting
- New summary of what you think you are doing
- To do list for yourself
- To do list for your advisor
- List of related work to read
- List of major topics discussed
- List of what you agreed on
- List of advice that you may not follow
- Show your advisor the results of your work as soon as possible -
this will help your advisor understand your research and identify potential
points of conflict early in the process.
- Summaries of related work
- Anything you write about your research
- Experimental results
- Communicate clearly - if you disagree with your advisor, state your
objections or concerns clearly and calmly. If you feel something about your
relationship is not working well, discuss it with him or her. Whenever
possible, suggest steps they could take to address your concerns.
- Take the initiative - you do not need to clear every activity with
your advisor. He/she has a lot of work to do too. You must be responsible
for your own research ideas and progress.
Getting the most out of what you read
- Be organized
- Keep an electronic bibliography with notes & pointers to the paper
files
- Keep and file all the papers you have read or skimmed
- Be efficient - only read what you need to
- Start by reading only the conclusion, scanning figures & tables,
and looking at their references
- Read the other sections only if the paper seems relevant or you think
it may help you get a different perspective
- Skip the sections that you already understand (often the background
and motivation sections)
- Take notes on every paper you find worth reading
- What problem are they trying to solve?
- What is their approach?
- How is it different from other approaches?
- Summarize what you have read on each topic - after you have
read several papers covering some topic, note the:
- key problems
- various formulations of the problem they are addressing
- relationship among the various approaches
- alternative approaches
- Read PhD theses - even though they are long they can be very
helpful in quickly learning about what has been done is some field.
Especially focus on:
- Background sections
- Method sections
- Your advisor's thesis - this will give you an idea for what he/she
expects from you.
Making continual progress on your research
- Keep a journal of your ideas - write down everything you are
thinking about even if you think it is stupid. It will help you keep track
of your progress and keep you from going in circles. Do not plan to share it
with anyone, so you can write freely.
- Set some reasonable goals with deadlines
- Identify key tasks that need to be completed
- Set a reseasonable date for completing them (on the order of weeks or
months).
- Share this with your advisor or enlist your advisors help in creating
the goals and deadlines.
- Set some deadlines that you must keep (e.g., volunteer to give a
student seminar on your research, work toward a conference paper
submission deadline, etc.)
- Keep a to do list - Checking off things on a to do list can feel
very rewarding when you are working on a long-term project.
- List the small tasks that can be done in about an hour
- Pick at least one that has to be completed each day
- Continually update your:
- Problem statement
- Goals
- Approach (or a list of possible approaches)
- One-minute version of your research (aka the elevator ride
summary)
- Five-minute version of your research
- Discuss your research with anyone who will listen - use your fellow
students, friends, family, etc. to practice discussing your research on
various levels. They may have useful insights or you may find that
verbalizing your ideas clarifies them for yourself.
- Write about your work
- Early stage: Write short idea papers and share them with your advisor
and colleagues.
- Intermediate stage: Find workshops and conferences for submitting
preliminary results. This can also help you set deadlines.
- Advanced stage: Target relevant journals.
- Avoid distractions - it is easy to ignore your research in favor of
more structured tasks such as taking classes, teaching classes, organizing
student activities, creating web pages like this, etc. Minimize these kinds
of activities or committments.
- Confront your fears and weaknesses
- If you are afraid of public speaking, volunteer to give lots of talks.
- If you are afraid your ideas are stupid, discuss them with someone.
- If you are afraid of writing, write something about your research
every day.
- Balance reading, thinking, writing and hacking - often research
needs to be an iterative process across all of those tasks.
Finding a thesis topic or formulating a research plan
- Pick something you find interesting - if you work on something
solely because your advisor wants you to, it will be difficult to stay
motivated.
- Pick something your advisor finds interesting - if your advisor
doesn't find it interesting he/she is unlikely to devote much time to your
research. He/she will be even more motivated to help you if your project is
on their critical path (although this has down sides too!).
- Pick something the research community will find interesting -if you
want to make yourself marketable.
- Make sure it addresses a real problem
- Remember that your topic will evolve as work on it
- Pick something that is narrow enough that it can be done in a
reasonable time frame
- Have realistic expectations (i.e. Don't expect the Nobel Prize)
- Don't worry that you will be stuck in this area for the rest of your
career. It is very likely that you will be doing very different research after
you graduate.
Characteristics to look for in a good advisor, mentor, boss, or committee member
It is unreasonable to expect one person to have all of the qualities you
desire. You should choose thesis committee members who are strong in the areas
where your advisor is weak.
- Willing to meet with you regularly (about 1 hour every week or
every other week)
- You can trust him/her to
- Give you credit for the work you do
- Defend your work when you are not around
- Speak well of you and your capabilities
- Tell you when your work is or is not good enough
- Help you graduate in a reasonable time frame
- Look out for you professionally and personally
- Is interested in your topic
- Has good personal and communication skills
- You can talk freely and easily about research ideas
- Tells you when you are doing something stupid
- Patient
- Never feels threatened by your capabilities
- Helps motivate you and keep you unstuck
- Has good technical skills
- Can provide constructive criticism of papers you write or talks you
give
- Knows if what you are doing is good enough for a good thesis
- Can help you figure out what you are not doing well
- Can help you improve your skills
- Can suggest related articles to read or people to talk to
- Can tell you or help you discover if what you are doing has already
been done
- Can help you set and obtain reasonable goals
- Will be around until you finish
- Is well respected in his/her field
- Has good connections for the type of job you would want when you
graduate
- Willing and able to provide financial and computing support
Avoiding the research blues
- When you meet your goals, reward yourself
- Don't compare yourself to senior researchers who have many more
years of work and publications
- Don't be afraid to leave part of your research problem for future work
- Exercise
- Use the student counseling services
- Occassionally, do something fun without feeling guilty!
Other resources:
Books
- Getting What You Came For by Robert L. Peters
This book contains a lot of helpful advice on getting the most out of the
PhD process. The sections on writing and giving presentations are
particularly helpful.
- The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination
and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play by Neil Fiore
Since one of the biggest problems in finishing a PhD is procrastination,
this book should be helpful to those of you who actually get around to
reading it.
Web Pages
Acknowledgements
Much of this advice came out of reading the other resources noted above as
well as through discussions with SMI
students, faculty and staff.
Created and maintained by Wanda
Pratt.
Last updated on March 5, 1997
Send comments or suggestions to: pratt@smi.stanford.edu
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