Graduate Student Survival Guide

1. Graduate Student Survival Guide Janardhan Rao Doppa School of EECS, Oregon State University doppa@eecs.oregonstate.edu http://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~doppa

2. Disclaimer • This guide is based on what I learnt myself in the past 4 yrs from – reading, talking to people and my personal experience. • These are general guidelines. Please follow what works best for you – personalize it! • Take this guide with a pinch of salt – some bias!

3. School requirements vs. Your education • “Never let your schooling interfere with your education” – Mark Twain • Classes and program requirements are important, but what is more important is to become an expert in your area. • Optimal policy depends on your reward function • quickly finish PhD and get a high paying job • Take some more time to produce a high-quality thesis • …

4. Taking classes • Take fewer(no more than two) classes per term and spread out your classes over yrs • you will have more time to do research work • Prioritize your classes based on • which courses will be useful for your research • when they are offered and their frequency • flexibility for special topics courses

5. Getting started: “exploration” phase • Explore different topics in your area of interest • Talk to senior PhD students and learn about their research • Attend reading groups, seminars and colloquium talks • Attend project meetings of different professors • Read recent publications of professors • Talk to professors whose work interests you • Use the first year(GTA period) as a buffer time for your exploration

6. Choosing your Advisor • Things you should look for • mentoring skills – talk to his students • “active” researcher – look at his publications • funding – current projects at hand • time for each student – depends on the number of students, his academic activities -reviewing, editorship, conference/workshop organization and research fame!

7. Choosing your Advisor • Young Asst. Professors • are dynamic and have lots of new ideas • more hands-on and work closely with students • sometimes can be impatient – remember they are also under pressure, i.e., tenure period • Take home message • “win-win” situation for both -- If you can work hard and keep up with the pace, you can be highly productive!

8. Choosing your Advisor • Senior professors • are experienced and leaders in the field • most of them are very good mentors • have the luxury to be relatively more patient • slight advantage in terms of advertising your work and job prospects – connections acquired over years! • mostly have less time for students – remember they are busy with reviewing, editorship, travel for PI meetings, conferences etc. • Take home message • If you can work more independently, you can reap huge rewards in the end!

9. Skills needed to Succeed • Reading and understanding ability • Grad school requires lot of reading • Read and understand ideas -- quicker the better • Critically analyze ideas, arguments and assumptions, and being constructive at the same time! • Grows your bag of tricks: may not see immediate benefit, but helps in the long run

10. Skills needed to Succeed • Technical writing • its completely different! • start working on it from your first year, e.g., course project and research progress reports • articulating your ideas and presenting them as a coherent story • sell your ideas – conference papers accept/reject • writing good papers comes from practice – learn by imitating good writers

11. Skills needed to Succeed • Presentation skills • Making good slides – start working on your power point skills • Giving good talks – advertisement to read your paper! • Comes from practice – learn by imitating good speakers • International students should work on their speaking skills

12. Skills needed to Succeed • Social networking • No. I’m not talking about Facebook or MySpace  • Meeting your peers and seniors at conferences, workshops and symposiums • Talk about research problems • Bounce ideas off each other • Follow up after discussion through email and possible future collaboration • Requires a lot of effort

13. Skills needed to Succeed • Leadership skills • In research, teaching and academic service, e.g., volunteer activities, community building .. • Time management • To maintain a balance between work and life! • Leading a stress-free happy life • Time Management talk by Randy Pausch • Patience • Grad school is different from undergrad! • Ideas may not work as you thought • Repeated failures, e.g., paper rejections .. • This skill will be helpful more generally in life as well

14. Skills needed to Succeed • Math skills • Turning intuitions into formal arguments • Working in a team • See the big picture! • Be a good team player • Learn from your team-mates, e.g., different views, different disciplines, other skills .. • Accept others mistakes as yours • Be generous about credit assignment

15. Skills needed to Succeed • Some software • To manage emails, e.g., pine, thunderbird, outlook – Organize to save your time! • To prepare manuscripts, e.g., LaTex editor like Texniccenter and WinEdit (windows), LyX and Kile (Linux) • To draw your plots, e.g., gnuplot • To develop rapid prototypes, e.g., Matlab or R

16. How to read a research paper ? • Goal: understand the scientific contributions • Read critically • Is it solving the right problem ? • Are there any simple solutions ? • Reasonable assumptions ? • Clear justification under the given assumptions ? • Breaking points of the solution ?

17. How to read a research paper ? • Read constructively • Reading critically is much easier – tearing something is easy than to build it up! • Involves harder, more positive thinking • What are the good ideas ? • Do they have other applications or extensions ? • Can they be generalized further ?

18. How to read a research paper ? • Make notes • Highlight the important points • Write additional comments on the hard copy • Maintain summaries of all the papers you read • Will be useful later, e.g., writing paper or thesis • See the big picture and connections • Compare it to other related works • How does it advance the field ?

19. What to read ? • Major conferences • ICML, NIPS, AAAI, IJCAI (AI and ML) • SIGCOMM, MOBICOM, Hot-Nets (Networks) • Major Journals • JMLR, MLJ, JAIR, AIJ (AI and ML) • Tech reports from Research groups • Follow other groups who are working in your area

20. How to write a research paper ? • Keep your audience in mind, e.g., conference or symposium or journal. • Write a good story • Describe and motivate your problem with real-world examples (What) • Why is it important ? • Short-comings of previous methods • How are your solving the problem ? (How) • Justify why it solves the problem (Why) • Theoretical proof or Experimental evidence • Comparison with state-of-the-art • Lessons learned from your work • Don’t give away your future work !!

21. How to write a research paper: A recipe • Top-down approach • Section level outline • Sub-section level outline • Paragraph level outline • More or less like a presentation with bulleted points • Check for flow of ideas • Think about the plots and tables you want to include • Consistent terminology and symbols • Get feedback from peers or advisor and refine

22. How to give a presentation ? • Keep your audience in mind • Remember, talk is an advertisement of the paper • Tell a good story • Describe the problem • Motivate through real-world examples • Key intuition behind your solution • High-level solution • Briefly talk about main results • Use figures as much as possible and avoid text! • Practice your talk

23. General Advice on Research • Choosing the right problems to work on • Work on important fundamental problems • Keep you busy for few years • Vision • What should your PhD thesis look like ? • Impactful research during tenure period ? • You should know your goal and take small steps to reach it! • Build your reputation as a researcher • Read books similar to auto-biographies by great researchers • The art of doing science and engineering: learning to learn -- Richard Hamming • Fermat’s enigma: The epic quest to solve the world’s greatest mathematics problem

24. Opportunities after a PhD • Academic positions • Post-doctoral researcher • Look for those NSF funded CI Fellowships • Tenure-track Asst. professor • Non-tenure Research Asst. professor • Faculty at a teaching university • Industry positions • Researcher • Research Engineer • Engineer

25. Questions ??