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
News Groups
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