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Survival skills for students (an empirically-biased perspective). Joe Beck. THINK ABOUT HOW TO PEEL OUT GRAD LESSONS FOR UNDERGRADS WHERE RELEVANT. Abc. Sources. Graduate student professional development series – Umass
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Survival skills for students(an empirically-biased perspective) Joe Beck
THINK ABOUT HOW TO PEEL OUT GRAD LESSONS FOR UNDERGRADS WHERE RELEVANT Abc
Sources • Graduate student professional development series – Umass • Talk on “How to be a research advisor” by Manuela Veloso (seemed more geared towards students!) • Gave me direct and indirect lessons • Personal observations
First things first… • If you’re here without funding and a research area, need to address that first • (I also went to grad school without funding) • Getting “A” grades in your courses is a good start • But not nearly enough • 1. Too slow – building a track record takes time • 2. Want more than good course grades
Financial facts of life • Grad students are expensive! • About $55,000 per year (here – a bit less at UMass, much more at CMU) • (salary + tuition + overhead) • Grants have specific objectives • Not a casual decision to hire someone as a Research Assistant
How to impress potential advisors • Do an independent study • Be engaged • Make progress • Come up with ideas the faculty member didn’t • But it’s (maybe) too late to sign up! • Doesn’t matter, can be informal • Read some papers in his area and ask smart questions • Go to lab meetings and ask smart questions
What not do • Write an email: “Dear Professor, I have a very strong student and graduated with a 3.94 GPA from…” • Probably stopped reading then • A targeted email: “Dear Professor Smith, I liked your approach of using genetic algorithms to find a good used car. I’d like to stop by and…” • More likely • But higher likelihood is catch Smith in his office between meetings
Teaching Assistantship • Department will look to recruit TAs (not high turnover, but usually a few throughout the year) • Will look for people who stand out in courses • Do well • Ask and answer questions – communication skills • (don’t go overboard)
Keeping you and your (research) advisor happy • Be proactive • Great advice from Manuela Veloso: go to a meeting with your advisor with an agenda of what you will work on next • Shows advisor you’ve thought about it • Easier for advisor to just say “yes” • If you come with no agenda, advisor will come up with one (we’re good at it) – might not be what you’re interested in
Research advisor: most important person for a PhD student • Not someone you want to irritate • Triggers will vary from person to person • Typically not fired for making mistakes • Not getting things done is much worse • (make sure you have a list of your weekly accomplishments)
You and your advisor, getting along • Advisor is not someone you want to irritate • Missing meetings • Not being prepared for meetings • Not really trying • If you cannot get along with your advisor, consider other advisors (particularly if PhD student)
Undergraduates • A lot of what I just said applies to you too • How to be productive and get along is fairly consistent • Getting noticed is major difference • Partially driven by finances • Also in what you have to offer
Working with a research lab • Faculty are much more interested in you than you might expect • You don’t know much – yet • Big part of knowledge is understanding how things work in the lab (software, people, process) • Takes time to learn – not in classes • Freshmen are generally of interest • (Sonia: should have some course background as foundation)
Other reasons to work in a lab • Learn a lot about process • Useful experience for resume • Letters of rec • If you have work study, is a no brainer • (wish someone had told me)
How? • “90% of success is showing up.” – Woody Allen • Work study fair • Check out list of faculty by research area • Wander into a lab that sounds interesting and start asking questions • Volunteer to help out
Essential skills • Programming • Data manipulation • Writing documents
Programming • Get good at a language • Don’t care which (within reason) • Ability to think in a language lets you be much more productive • If your group has standardized around a technology, may have to use that • Otherwise, choice is not that important
Data manipulation (Xiaolu) • Empirical science involves data • Often not in quite the format you want • Want to slice it differently • Or compute different features • Or merge two data sets… • Get good at this part of your job • Tokenizing strings, standard ways of computing things, when to use Excel
Learn to use a spreadsheet • Surprisingly versatile! • Code a simulation • Graph data • Analyze data • Compute features • Do analyses I do not know how to do in other packages (e.g., how does the correlation change based on the amount of data)
Writing: technical aspects • Learn how to use a word processor • Don’t care which • But your life will be easier if you pick MS Word (Joe) • LaTex makes sense in some communities • What do I mean by use? • How to use style templates • How to insert captions and cross references • Headers and footers • WPI has classes on these things
Understanding what you read (Ben, Dmitry) • If don’t understand a paper, and it’s important • Try related references • Contacting the author • Asking other members of the lab • Focus on… • Abstract (see if it’s important) • intro, conclusionand headings • figures and tables contain a lot of empirical results • If really useful, or part of your lab, might be worth reading all of it • Read in layers • Quick pass to see what they’re doing • Second pass, do some quick checking of references • Third pass, goal is to really understand the paper
Finding a research problem • A good topic should be one that others care about and that you can accomplish
Problem • If others care about it, odds are others have looked at the issue, or are studying it now • Why will you succeed?
Because I’m smart! • Yes, you are • But so are most of the other folks working on this problem • But I’m smarter! • No, you’re not
I’ll work really hard • Effort really does matter • But most people work on problems they like • And so work hard on it • Unless you have some combination of insomnia, perseverance, and no social life, unlikely you’ll be an outlier
You need a “secret weapon” (Herb Simon) • Why will you succeed instead of others? • Need something others don’t have • A mental model • A piece of equipment • A data source • Specific training • A bigger budget
Picking a good question • Should not care about answer • Should be motivated • How to turn horse race into something more interesting
A horse race? • One technique will do better • There are two techniques X and Y, let’s see which one works better… • Who cares? Inventors of X and Y. Anyone who is looking at using X and Y in very similar circumstances
An example • Imagine we want to create a new robot to handle navigation in a complex environment • What are factors that might influence difficulty?
What are some things that could influence performance? • Size of maze • Reflectivity of surface • Tractiomn • Budget for robot • Types of sensors • Gps available?
Contrast two papers • We developed a new robot for navigation task ABC and it did 7% better than the prior best. • We developed a new robot for navigation task ABC, and hypothesized that it’s better sensors would enable it to do better in tasks in non-cramped environments. We found that…
Take a deep breath • Plenty of people before you have gone to graduate school • Many of them finished • And some of them were idiots • So your chances are better than you think :-)
