41–50 of 60 posts
5. Get to know the literature I'm not writing a thesis, but a book on teaching coding, and this one point is really important. One of my chapters was on the cognitive benefits of writing software code--which I assumed were great because of Seymor Papert ("Mindstorms") and Ted Nelson's ("Computer Lib/Dream Machines") glowing enthusiasm for teaching kids how to code. I started writing the chapter and had to get into th…
CS literature is uniformly abysmal.
Finishing a PhD is unlike completing a project in most other jobs. In most other jobs, someone needs what you're working on. Other people's investment in the outcome is similar to your own. If you fail to complete your work, others are likely to fail to complete their work. Consequently, incentives (hopefully) line up, and infrastructure (hopefully) exists to support you, with the recognition that your success is linked to group success.
Your PhD dissertation is not like this. Yes, your adviser is invested in you finishing - but not as nearly as much as you are. They will have other students, and they can always work on their own. Your peers may be invested, if they are working on another part of the project - but if you do not finish, they will find a way to get on without you. Your university is invested in you (quite literally, most of the time, with money), but again, not as nearly as invested as you are: plenty of grad students never finish, and they will help you, but schools also recognize that not all students finish.
The author has a good list, and I may read his book, but he's missing this attitude that I felt I had to adopt. The person who cares most about you finishing is you, and sometimes that means having to be selfish in order to finish. That can take of the form of not engaging in as much service in your department, or not providing some help on a project that is not part of your dissertation.
I do think this attitude is unfortunate, but it is a natural result of the requirement that a PhD dissertation represents work that the student owns. I much more enjoy the research I have done in an industry research lab, where me and my colleagues have collaborated equally. (Or equal-enough that in a grad school context, no one person could claim ownership of the work for a dissertation.) But, it's the system we have, and because of that, I think that in order to finish, grad students have to - at least eventually - adopt a selfish attitude.
Specifically, this "selfish attitude" means ruthless evaluating: will this thing get me closer to graduation? If no, don't do it. (Obviously this only applies to work. Having a life outside of grad school work is enormously important.) In the beginning, I don't think one needs to have this attitude. But as you approach completion, I think one needs to start thinking this way.
If you get the first one wrong the rest of the list will not matter at all. The most important questions are, who will my advisor be? What is the completion rate for graduate students under their care? What kind of personal network does the advisor maintain and what kinds of roles do the graduating PhDs go into? I wish I had known to ask that sort of thing. My advisor typically kept a lab of a dozen postdocs and a si…
I've seen a lot of really good people get very badly hurt pursuing a Ph.D. I did get a STEM field Ph.D. but didn't get hurt. For a good and broad view of the problem, buried in D. Knuth's The TeXBook is "The traditional way is to put off all creative aspects until the last part of graduate school. For seventeen or more years, a student is taught examsmanship, then suddenly after passing enough exams in graduate schoo…
I've already done a pure math (+business) undergrad from a mid-tier university and have been working as a product manager at a financial services company for 3yrs post undergrad. I've been thinking of getting a PhD in an engineering sub-discipline, but not sure how to go about doing it especially since I have no research experience.
Do I:
(i) spend 1 year doing research with a professor nearby then apply (I live close to a major research university)
(ii) apply now and hopefully my work experience can cover for research experience
(iii) Rethink the whole PhD thing and get a professional degree like an MBA (did well on GMAT)
(iv) Just continue to learn on the side and try to use my skills for opportunities
-----
Also two more questions if you don't mind:
How did you narrow your interests before applying for a PhD?
Is it possible to get a masters level pure math education through self study? I've taken until PhD level measure theory.
While it has a bit of snark to it, certainly conveys the point of "This is your PhD. No one is going to hold your hand. Get it done." The people who drop out of PhD programs usually are plenty smart enough, they just don't know how to make things happen. Then again, some people seem content and happy to do 8 years of PhD studies followed by 10 more of meandering post-docs. Bummer is when they're surprised that no one…
The people who drop out of PhD programs usually are plenty smart enough, they just don't know how to make things happen. Vast oversimplification. I've watched people leave Ph.D programs for a wide array of reasons. Any attempt at binary classification on this is foolhardy.
I've seen a lot of really good people get very badly hurt pursuing a Ph.D. I did get a STEM field Ph.D. but didn't get hurt. For a good and broad view of the problem, buried in D. Knuth's The TeXBook is "The traditional way is to put off all creative aspects until the last part of graduate school. For seventeen or more years, a student is taught examsmanship, then suddenly after passing enough exams in graduate schoo…
Remember, the value of a PHD is maintained by rejecting people. If you demonstrate your 'in the club' then you can often just stable together a few papers and call it a day.
5. Get to know the literature I'm not writing a thesis, but a book on teaching coding, and this one point is really important. One of my chapters was on the cognitive benefits of writing software code--which I assumed were great because of Seymor Papert ("Mindstorms") and Ted Nelson's ("Computer Lib/Dream Machines") glowing enthusiasm for teaching kids how to code. I started writing the chapter and had to get into th…
I maintain that the most important domain knowledge is understanding what evidence/methods are actually robust, and what just sounds nice.
But yes, any research requires a lot of reading. If you don't like doing that (and ideally you really enjoy it) you're going to have a very tough time of it. You also won't have the background to have good conversations with people or to design experiments.
If you get the first one wrong the rest of the list will not matter at all. The most important questions are, who will my advisor be? What is the completion rate for graduate students under their care? What kind of personal network does the advisor maintain and what kinds of roles do the graduating PhDs go into? I wish I had known to ask that sort of thing. My advisor typically kept a lab of a dozen postdocs and a si…
Some people can actually do very well in what appear to be hostile labs. Some needs lots of space, while others do best with close monitoring. It ultimately just comes down to whether the advising relationship works or not, and it's nearly as complicated as romantic relationships.
One thing that I like to stress is that you don't have to like your advisor. You should probably not dislike them, but what matters is how you play off each other and work together.
An example: some advisors will put the people in their lab in somewhat adversarial positions. There will be two or more people working on similar projects, and the more successful of them will start to get more and more of it. For certain types, this situation is actually very motivating and can produce two differentiated projects that support each other. For others, it will undermine their confidence and wellbeing to a terrible degree. There can be a lot of resentment among both parties.
While I would generally consider this a warning sign, you must recognize that this can be a good environment for the right person. The difficulty is that it's hard for you to know what works for you until you do it. There's no best formula, you just have to choose as best you can.
I am after my PhD and I consider quality of this list being close to of a "be creative" list. That is, in principle all points make sense, but they are either truism, too obvious, too vague or things that are out of control. (If I had read it before starting my PhD it wouldn't have changed a thing). Or maybe I am overly skeptical of simplistic life-advice? Is there any take-home message that changed your way of actin…
A PhD demonstrates that you can successfully conduct original research. Period.
The time for creativity and really making a name for yourself is in a post-doc. That's when you differentiate yourself. You can do this during doctoral work, but it is far from required. As long as you're doing something significant (which any lab you join should be doing), you'll likely encounter plenty of new insights that really do contribute in a novel way.
This can let you focus on process and methods that lead to good results. You learn to troubleshoot, to adequately record observations, and to be able to write all that up in a coherent and thorough way. These are the key lessons, and those most valuable and translatable outside academia should you take that route.
In the end, I think that creativity comes easily and naturally if you're on top of the literature and actually performing experiments. If you trust your observations (which takes a lot of effort to get there) and are looking at interesting things, you will set down interesting paths of inquiry.
I am after my PhD and I consider quality of this list being close to of a "be creative" list. That is, in principle all points make sense, but they are either truism, too obvious, too vague or things that are out of control. (If I had read it before starting my PhD it wouldn't have changed a thing). Or maybe I am overly skeptical of simplistic life-advice? Is there any take-home message that changed your way of actin…
I disagree, honestly. I don't think creativity is an important part of doctoral work. The 'new' requirement is certainly true, but that can simply be an extension in relatively predictable territory. A PhD demonstrates that you can successfully conduct original research. Period. The time for creativity and really making a name for yourself is in a post-doc. That's when you differentiate yourself. You can do this duri…