Shattered Assumptions

Before becoming a graduate student, I used to hold lots of really bad assumptions about graduate school.  Some of those bad assumptions included things like “once I get my Master’s degree, I’ll have mastered the subjects I’ve studied,” or “when I'm in graduate school, I’ll be able to research whatever I want!”  However, the most damning belief I held was the following: good ideas take a long time to get.  

This couldn’t be more wrong.  

The reality is that good ideas can come fast and easy.  What’s hard and time-consuming is fleshing out the details of a good idea.  At MIT, I see people come up with tons of great ideas within minutes (even seconds!) of looking at a problem.  Don’t spend gobs of time waiting for some good idea to hit you.  It probably already did.  Now, it’s time for you to get to work on the details!

A Sign of Intelligence

A key sign of intelligence is knowing when you don't really understand something.  We live in a world where people often "fake it 'til they make it."  This act may get one mileage until he or she runs into a person who really knows her stuff.  Failure to know your knowledge boundaries will make you look all the more foolish. 

Moral: know your knowledge boundaries!       

More critical than potentially embarrassing yourself, knowing what you don't understand helps guide the learning process. When you know exactly what you don't understand, you can focus all your energy on the thing you don't understand in an efficient manner.  If you can't articulate what you don't understand, the job of figuring out what you don't know becomes harder and may not converge in a timely fashion.  Saying you don't understand the "E" in "E = MC^2" is dramatically different from saying you don't understand physics.  You'd end up doing very different actions in these two scenarios. 

And believe it or not, when you are able to articulate what you don't understand (or what you think you don't understand), you'll find that the articulation will actually help you figure out the problem!  Articulating something you don't understand forces your brain to make sense out of things that "don't make sense."  In doing so, your brain may detect a latent pattern.  If you've ever programmed you know what I mean.  Have you ever asked someone about some bug you were having, and as you were explaining, you figured out the bug?  I sure have.  

So, from here on out, do yourself a favor: know what you don't understand.      

Don't Be Fooled

I’ve been in the Cambridge area for a little while now.  I’ve come across a handful of MIT students, and I’ve noticed a pattern.  

They work hard as hell.    

There might be some that don’t really study for anything and still do well--but I haven’t met them.  I’d consider such people the exception and not the rule.  The typical MIT student has raw intelligence that is coupled with really, really hard work.  

The media rarely advertises how hard they work, but don’t let that fool you.  They’re putting in massive amounts of hours and leveraging multiple resources (e.g., other students, library, online resources).  MIT has a reputation and the students understand there’s a reputation to uphold. And unfortunately, in trying to keep up, some students burn out, but we rarely hear about those cases.  Again, thank the media for this.  So don’t be fooled!  Burning out and consequently dropping out totally happens.  

If you’d like to mimic the typical to excellent MIT grad: 

Work.  Hard.  As.  Hell. 

You’ll be damn good.  

“Read This Paper!”: What Does That Really Mean?

It’s not unusual for an advisor to occasionally tell you to read certain papers because she thinks the papers are relevant to your career or research. The suggestion (or commandment) to read the paper, if interpreted by most laypeople would probably translate to “read the words in this paper.” And this, unfortunately, is how many freshmen PhD students interpret the suggestion from their advisor. Poor souls...

When an advisor admonishes you to “read this paper,” she’s really saying “understand this paper and anything this paper relies on.” So what does that mean? That means you should also be reading any papers that the paper references. It means, if you don’t really get a concept, try to implement it in some small cheap way. Until you’ve become mature in your chosen field, you’ll rarely know and have understood all the references cited by the paper you’re reading and thus be able to avoid this “extra legwork.” And even when you have matured, you may come across a paper that uses linear algebra or statistical techniques you haven’t seen before. Can you guess what you’ll have to do? More legwork? Bingo!

You might be saying to yourself at this point: That sounds laborious. Newsflash: IT IS. Nobody promised you that your PhD program would be a walk in the park. And if someone did, shame on him for lying, and shame on you for believing him.

Trials and Tribulations: Keep Going

After spending whatever you consider to be "a lot of time" in a PhD program, it's easy to lose heart.  It's easy to doubt yourself and the path you're choosing. It's easy to take the attractive offer from Big Company X and to say "what the hell."  It's easy to conjure up all the obstacles you're facing and will have to face.  All of us that go through challenging PhD programs have those dark moments.  And to succeed, you must see yourself through those times.     

Let me share with you one of the MANY things that kept me going in those so called "dark moments."  One thing I used to say from time to time that helped put things into perspective was the following: 

The pain of the PhD program is temporary, but the pride (and everything else) that comes with having a PhD is forever. 

Get through a program that lasts 4 - 6+ years of your life, and get to be called "Dr." for the rest of your life.  Not too bad of a trade eh?   

Should You Get a PhD?

More students than you think actually aren’t 100% certain that they want to get a PhD. There are some people that desire positions that have a PhD as a prerequisite (e.g., being a tenure-track professor). If what you want to be requires a PhD, then it’s probably in a student’s best interest to be certain she wants the PhD.

So for the rest of us out there who don’t need a PhD for some job we desire, the question is "should we get PhDs?”

I believe you should obtain a PhD if you believe its attainment will add substantial value to your life. 

When some people see the word value, they sometimes immediately think of money, but value is obviously more than that. Take me for example. The number one reason I decided to complete my PhD was that, because I knew I wouldn’t enter into academia, my life had a greater probability of being “interesting”--I couldn’t predict how my life would be altered--I just knew it would be altered, and it would be positive.  Now, I'm not going to lie, I also figured monetarily, if I played my cards I could come out on top financially as well--but this thought wasn't the primary motivation.  Quitting the PhD program after my Master’s to enter the workforce just seemed too boring and predictable a life.

The perceived greater potential of a “interesting life” was enough to drive me to finish my PhD. The trick is to find out if such a drive--that is, something valuable that’s derived from obtaining a PhD--exists for you in your life. Good luck!

The Value of Research Reading Groups

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, doing a Ph.D. by yourself sucks. As a PhD student, much is demanded from you: coursework, teaching, research, publications, and becoming expert at something being among the things demanded from you. There’s so much going on in your field. How could you really read all of it in a reasonable amount of time?

News flash: You can’t.

So what is a Ph.D. student to do? Join a reading group related to your research area. In a reading group, at each meeting of the group, a different member takes the responsibility of reading a “important” paper in the area, and presents it to the rest of the group. This strategy spreads out the work required to stay on top of your field.

But what if there are no groups in your research area? Start one. Are you the only student in your department interested in your field? If so, that isn’t very healthy. In this case, you’ll want to at least occasionally attend another research group’s meetings. A great many ideas have been had by taking ideas from one area, and applying to another area.

Don't Sleep B/c The Semester's Light (Thus Far)

We’re about two-thirds into January and that means for a number of graduate students, they’ve been back in the classroom for the past couple of weeks going over the introductory material needed for topics that come later in the semester.  Academically, everything probably seems fairly under control at this point.  Compared to the final weeks of last semester, you’re probably finding yourself taking more “chill pill sessions.”  

While I’m not against taking “chill pill sessions,” I am an advocate of trading in some of those chill pill sessions for grind sessions.  Now, what’s meant by “grind sessions?”  Do you recall how you behaved at the end of last semester?  That’s one manifestation of a grind session.  You were in the throes of preparing for final exams. This form of grinding is especially relevant for any course where you’re not 100% confident you understand everything presented thus far.

Now, if you’ve got your courses under control, there’s still something you could be doing: 

PILING UP THE RESEARCH HOURS.  

If you’re taking challenging courses and doing research, you’ll probably find that research eventually takes a backseat to coursework diminishing research productivity.  Allow me to let you in on a little secret you already know: your coursework WILL pick up and subsequently your research productivity WILL go down.  Given this clairvoyance, you can take some offsetting actions: namely, cranking up your research effort.  In any scenario, make good use of this time in the semester--it won’t always be here.  

photo credit: Peter Szustka

All the Value is in the Middle

When it comes to activities, we tend to want to jump to the end.  I just opened to the first chapter of “Introduction to Algorithms,” and I want to immediately get to the end of the chapter.  I’m in lecture and I’m thinking to myself “damn...how much longer is he going to go for?”  The clear problem with wanting to be done immediately with a task we initiated is that all the value in the task occurs between the beginning and the end.  

In other words, all the value in the activity occurs between the beginning and the end--the middle.

All the value in a relationship happens in the middle.  All the value in your college education occurred between the beginning and end of your college experience.  When you go to the gym, all the value you receive comes from all the stuff you do between the beginning and ending of your time at the gym.  This observation points to the importance of how you spend the time during the activity.  If you flip through a dense textbook on biomedical engineering, not even skimming the pages, the value of that process would be unsurprisingly zero.  The same would be true if you jumped directly to the end of a relationship, if you jumped directly to the end of your college education, or if you jumped directly to the end of your workout in the gym.  It’s clear in these examples that you’d be getting nothing out of these experiences if the time between the beginning and the end didn’t exist or wasn’t well spent.   

Whenever you feel the urge to jump to end of something, know that all the value of whatever you’re doing is in all the “middle stuff.”  If you don’t give the middle stuff its appropriate attention, you won’t be extracting as much value out of the experience as you can.  Thus, the next time you find yourself wanting to jump to end of something, remember: all the value is in the *middle.*

Photo credit: Ramzi Hashisho

Beating the 3rd Year Curse

There comes a point in every doctoral student's career when enough is enough and all desires of completing any project, dissertation, paper, etc. goes out the window. You have this overwhelming feeling, a strong desire, to just take your master's and quit. Don't worry you are not alone, over 30% of doctoral students drop out or are dismissed in their 3rd year. While for some the desire to quit is fleeting, for others it is constantly on your mind but you can beat the feeling.

1. Join a graduate student group at your university, like the Math Graduate Student Association, Black Graduate Student Association, etc. Organizations like these offer support, networking, and social activities three things that always benefit a graduate student. In a graduate student organization you are guaranteed to find at least one person that you can relate to.

2. Get a hobby (i.e. working out, volunteering, hiking, etc.), I am not encouraging you to go and get overly involved with some cause or to start working out 3 hours a day. However a healthy diversion from studying and research is needed from time to time. Remember it is physically impossible to work 24/7 because your body requires food and rest, but a having a hobby can give you the time to clear your mind thus resulting in more efficient studying and research.

3. Relax and tap into your faith. No matter what you believe in Christianity, Islam, Buddism, a higher power, or karma, some things are out of your control. You have to keep realistic goals for the completion of your program. I know it's cliche but Rome wasn't built in a day, so you cannot earn a doctorate in a year, but maybe in 4 to 5!

Grades Don't Matter for PhD Students: What a Terrible Lie

Here’s a typical scenario:

• A student laments about the rigor of her coursework to a professor (or at least in earshot of a professor).

• The professor assures the student that her grades don’t matter. She’s a PhD student, it’s all about research.

• The student feels a sense of relief, but isn’t completely convinced...

Intermission:

About half of the students who begin PhD programs believe they will go on to be professors doing research when they begin their PhD program. However, by the end of their PhD program this ambition is beaten out of them as many choose an alternative path.

Now back to the scenario...

• When the student applies for a non-academic position (like most of his peers--see the Intermission), the student is floored when the recruiter at the lab/company/government requests her graduate transcripts and GPAs for her Master’s and PhD degrees.

What Does this Scenario Tell us?

It tells us that many professors have a myopic view of career paths for PhD students even though the data suggests otherwise (see the Intermission). When a professor tells you “grades don’t matter,” what he is forgetting to append to that statement is “if you want to be a professor somewhere and do stellar research.” So this famous piece of advice is really the following: “Grades don’t matter...if you want to be a professor and do stellar research to offset subpar grades.”

So What's Better Advice?

Get the best grades you possibly can AND do good research. Saying you have to choose one or the other (grades or good research) is a false dichotomy. Juggling both gives you the most opportunity career-wise. And seeing that you will most likely not end up being a professor when you graduate, you’ll want to make sure that your grades are as good as they can be. You see, most people don’t understand what a PhD is all about. They think getting a PhD is like getting another undergrad degree. Thus, your GPA is critical in determining how good you are--at least in their eyes. There’s nothing you can do to change this perception since it’s widespread. The best you can do is play the game and ensure your grades are on point.

The next time a professor gives you the profoundly bad piece of advice of "grades don't matter!", smile and nod...then, dutifully ignore him.

6 Reasons Why You Fail to Understand Tech Talks

1. You don’t belong in the audience.  If you’re an anthropologist and go to a supercomputing conference and visit a workshop on cluster computing, and fail to understand anything, it’s because you don’t have the appropriate background.

2. The presenter doesn’t understand what he/she is doing.  Believe it or not, once you get deep into a subject, it’s actually far easier to stay in the jargon world then it is to come back down to the real world where earthlings reside and explain the concepts for people outside of your esoteric community. And if you can't explain what you're doing for people outside your community, then you don't really understand what you're doing.

3. The presenter sucks at presenting.  This is separate from the material being crap.  This point has to do with the presenter’s inability to present.  This may manifest as an inaudible voice.  Alternatively (or additionally) you may notice it in the terribly prepared slides with tons and tons of text.  Another red flag is when you see an overly complicated slide with too much information, or information that’s thrown at you all at once instead of piece by piece.

4. The presenter doesn’t have enough time to present the material the right way.  This is a pretty popular reason.  Think about this.  As a PhD student, you’ve spent 3+ years of your life on a research topic.  You are now trying to distill all of it (for job talks) or some of it (for conferences) to anywhere from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.  Not. Possible.  If an hour to 90 minutes is given, somehow magically, that seems to be enough time.    

5.  You haven’t eaten.  When you’re hella hungry, you can’t think straight.  No matter how elementary the material, if your stomach is screaming at you, you’ll probably fail to understand what’s being presented.   

6. You’ve just eaten.  And by eaten, I mean stuffed yourself.  Stuffing yourself full of yummy food is the best way to lull yourself to sleep at something that’s as typically dry as a tech talk.

Interrupting Your Interruptions

The following is an instance where research is actually useful.

In the pursuit of a PhD in this highly dynamic world, interruptions are ever-present. You are constantly bombarded by entities that demand your attention. Your email icon bounces around demanding to be read, text messages beep and demand to be answered, Google chat contacts demand to know how you are doing, office mates desire your attention to double check their work, all while Twitter keeps you up to date with the play by play of everything that is happening to everyone who knows you (relevant or otherwise) !

In Trafton's research on resuming interrupted tasks, he analyzes the responses of people who are interrupted while performing a task. Half of the subjects receive a warning preceding the interruption, while the other half of the subjects are immediately interrupted with no warning. The subjects who were warned of an impending interruption were able to prepare more for the divergence than participants in the immediate interruption condition, and resumed the interrupted task more quickly.

So what does this mean to you? When you are hard away at work on that important research paper, analysis, brainstorming session, and you are interrupted by a distraction, take that interruption signal as a warning. Give yourself some time to prepare to leave the task. Get yourself to a nice "stopping point" before you service the interruption. This will help you to return to your research much quickly, without getting distracted and wondering ".... now what was I doing ???" post-distraction. Interrupt the interruption by taking ownership of how and when you will choose to leave your task. This will help to ensure that you will be able to easily resume working.

J. Gregory Trafton, Erik M. Altmann, Derek P. Brock, Farilee E. Mintz, Preparing to resume an interrupted task: effects of prospective goal encoding and retrospective rehearsal, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Volume 58, Issue 5, Notification User Interfaces, May 2003, Pages 583-603, ISSN 1071-5819, DOI: 10.1016/S1071-5819(03)00023-5.

The Invisible Grad

You have come into contact with this person ... you think. They are that one person in your department who you recall seeing once or twice, but you never saw them again. The next time you see this individual (maybe 6 months to a year later), they have good news to report of presentations, publications, and candidacy.You begin to ask yourself, "How are they able to have so many spectacular achievements, yet I never see them in the department?". The reason that they get so much work done is due to the fact that you never see them.

Introducing the Invisible Grad

Once a certain point has been reached within your research as a PhD student, one should become relatively autonomous and not need to come into the lab as much as your less experienced colleagues. Who would want to come into the lab anyway? It's counterproductive and full of distractions. In the office, my days would typically end up looking like this:

9:00 - start work

11:00 - fire drill

12:00 - get dragged out of your lab for lunch with other students

1:30 - return from lunch

3:00 - department seminar/lecture

5:00 - time to leave! (after all, you HAVE worked an 8 hour day)

* Note: i haven't even factored in teaching/office hours for those of us who have classes as well as other graduate student popping into the lab to "shoot the breeze".

Away from the lab (perhaps at home, a coffee shop, library) these distractions are virtually non existent allowing more time to concentrate on the real reason you are in grad school, to do research! Take some advice from the Invisible Grad, and disappear from the distractions and emerge with PROGRESS !!!

Why Senior Ph.D. Students Are Ghost: McMullen's Theorem

"The rate at which one is ghost from the department is proportional to the rate at which one finishes." --K. McMullen

Have you ever wondered as a new graduate student why you never see the more senior Ph.D. students around the department?  The quote above, that I've dubbed "McMullen's Theorem," gives you a clue as to why, but this article will end your wondering.

• They're chronologically old.  As you become chronologically old, moving around becomes more and more of a hassle.  Don't believe me?  Go to a party where the minimum age to enter is 18 years old.  Spend an hour there.  Then immediately go to another party where the average age range is 25 and up.  You will see a stark contrast in activity level.   

• Most of the friends they came in with are gone.  Many students enter graduate programs with some idea of potentially pursuing a Ph.D.  The fact is that by the end of year 2, most take their Master degrees, big paychecks, fringe benefits, and run away from academia never looking back.  If you are in the minority that decided to stay for a Ph.D., year 3 for you will test your social skills.  Most of us who stay behind, however, don't even try.  Consequently, you end up with 3rd years that are vaguely familiar with 1st years.  And that's not it.  This "vagueness" increases with each new incoming class.        

• Time savings.  Have you ever calculated the amount of time you spend commuting and getting ready to commute to and from campus?  That's time you could be working.  That's time you could be taking a chill pill.  That's time you could be eating.  Why forfeit those things for going to a campus you've been going to for years? 

• No "good" reason to.  Some time in year 4, you sort of learn the "game."  By game, I mean the Ph.D. game at your university in your department with your advisor.  And it is also around this time, that you begin to decide that you will no longer play this game (e.g., showing face at meetings, volunteering for things). 

• Less random distractions.  When you're secluded in your home working, nobody can bother you.  Yes, maybe your neighbor can bother you, but there are only so many neighbors.  And besides, they're probably responsible and have day jobs or classes they have to attend.  This makes home a viable option for many senior Ph.D. students.  For some people,  alternative places like coffee shops work best.  However, regardless of the alternative location, where ever it is, it tends to have the attribute of "being left the hell alone."  

• Resents "still being a Ph.D. student" at some level.  When you look around and see your friends living "life" some part of you envies them.  You see them as not having a care in the world after they get off work, knowing that they don't have to think about work again until they're physically there the next day or week, you envy them. You envy the grown up money they're making.  When you've been in a Ph.D. program for some years, you tend to grow a strong feeling that says that you need to move on with your life.  But you can't move on until your dissertation's written.  So for the time being, you're "stuck." Resentment increases.

Hopefully this explains why you tend to not see your more senior Ph.D. students.  It's not because they're uber anti-social (okay, yeah, well sometimes that is it), it's because of all these reasons I've outlined above.