How-to PhD

Under Construction Please check back later! This is still mostly under construction.

This website is intended to serve as a collection of pointers to helpful resources, interviews, presentations, etc. which help teach a set of concrete skills that are integral to effectively pursuing a PhD (particularly in computer science). These skills are divided into modules, listed below, but this is in no way intended to be a comprehensive or objective list.

Key disclaimer: I link to a lot of external resources here. However, due to a number of reasons relating to time management and this not being a formal paper, few of them are given formal citations. I’ve done my best, however, to link to all of them and attribute authors directly as well—in any case you feel this is insufficient, or a link/concept deserves further attribution, please feel free to contribute or contact me directly so that can be remedied.

Another key disclaimer: These are my own opinions, based on my own experiences, and I could very well be wrong! If you think anything I’m saying here is incorrect, unhelpful, or worse, unethical for any reason, please contact me so we can work to correct it. The purpose of this guide is to help new students—whatever we can do collectively to acheive that, I’m all for.

Index

1. Adapting to the Foundation Model Era
   1. Making the best use of foundation models as tools for your research
2. Research
   1. Finding / Designing New Projects
   2. Starting Projects
   3. Finishing Projects
3. Technology
   1. What technical skills do you need expertise in, and how can you gain that expertise?
   2. Balancing Unstructured vs. Structured Learning?
   3. Effective Infrastructure Management for Academic Groups / Research Projects
4. Communication
   1. How do you write papers?
   2. How do you review papers?
   3. How do you make good figures?
5. Intrapersonal
   1. Balancing Priorities
   2. Time management
   3. Dealing with Failure & Rejection
   4. Information channels
6. Moving On
   1. Thesis & Graduation
   2. Academic Careers
   3. Industry Careers
7. The Big Stuff
   1. What are critical things you should know about your lab/advisor/institution?
   2. What are “Red Flag” situations, and how do you respond to them?
   3. How do you navigate a difficult relationship with an advisor?

Other Resources

1. How to Be a Successful PhD Student (Mark Dredze & Hanna M. Wallach, 03/2012)
2. So long, and thanks for the Ph.D.! (Ronald T. Azuma, 1997; rev. 2019)
3. A Survival Guide to a PhD (Andrej Karapthy, 2016)