Career advice for PhD students: How to get the most out of your time in the PhD program

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Career advice for PhD students How to get the
most out of your time in the PhD program

• Cristian Borcea

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Preamble

• Why am I doing this?
• Not many resources to learn how to be a
  successful PhD student ? trying to help you
• Faculty create new knowledge and next generation
  of researchers
• A professor is as good as his best student
• Why now?
• As every September, we got fresh PhD students
• I might soon forget my PhD student experiences ?
• Talk applies to any CS PhD student despite
  influence from personal experiences and
  systems/networking background
• Acknowledgment I admit to stealing advices
  from many successful people (too many to be
  listed)

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Outline

• PhD student stages
• Thinking about doing a PhD
• Taking classes and getting involved in some
  research
• Choosing research area, topic, and advisor
• Doing research
• Writing the thesis
• Getting a job

• Slightly different view of these stages
• Student I know everything Advisor smiles
• Student I dont know anything Advisor Lets
  talk
• Advisor Lets do X Student Youre wrong
  because of Y and Z

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Why are you getting a PhD?

• Prerequisite to a research career
• A PhD degree should ensure that the student can
  later take on independent, long-term research
  commitments
• The work required to earn a PhD is not worth the
  effort if you dont intend to do research
• You can do better with an MS degree in such a
  case
• How do you know if research is for you?
• Have inquisitive mind and critical thinking
• Like to understand how things work
• Like to identify problems and come up with
  solutions
• Did some research during undergraduate studies
  and liked it
• More philosophical reasons dream of changing the
  world, good way to have a legacy beyond your
  family

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Bad reasons for pursuing a PhD

• Afraid of going out in the real world
• If you never had a job and not sure about going
  for a PhD, go and work one-two years
• Ego
• Impress your girlfriend/boyfriend/parents
• Opportunity to work/emigrate in US
• OK if your goal is to do research in (still) the
  best place for that in the world
• Otherwise, working very hard for something that
  you dont care much while living on a PhD stipend
  will soon make you unhappy
• Money (i.e., amount of money you make is more
  important than what you do)
• While starting salaries of CS PhD graduates are
  good, can reach higher salary if you worked since
  you got your BS/MS degree
• Plus money earned during that time

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What qualities do you need to be successful in
the PhD program?

• Passion and Self-Motivation
• Doing a PhD is a life changing decision
• Be sure that this is the path you want to follow
  in life (yes, its normal to have doubts
  sometimes)
• Perseverance and Self-Confidence
• It could be heartbreaking to work hard for
  one-two years and get your paper rejected
• Trust yourself (and your ideas) and dont give up
• Independence
• Its your PhD you should know what you want to
  do, how you want to do it, etc.
• Obviously, you need intelligence
• Many times you dont know how smart you are until
  somebody challenges you

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CS department expectations

• Take qualifying exams after first year and pass
  them all after second year
• Proves that you are good enough to continue in
  the program
• Find advisor and choose thesis topic after second
  year
• Defend thesis proposal by the end of third year
• Not very strict deadline (depends on progress and
  advisor)
• Defend thesis by the end of fourth year
• Can stay longer if necessary if advisor awards
  you RAship
• Take a number of courses and maintain a decent
  GPA (e.g., 3.5) throughout these years
• refer to full time, department-supported
  students

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Advisor expectations

• Every PhD student must have thesis/research
  advisor
• Advisor decides when student is ready to graduate
• Process very similar to apprenticeship
• Thesis committee makes sure advisors decision is
  correct and gives feedback to improve work
• Each advisor has own requirements, but they can
  be generalized as
• Have enough background in CS and depth in your
  research area
• Work on one or multiple projects and publish the
  results in several good conference/journal papers
• Be able to clearly present your ideas and results
• Write a good thesis
• Your papers and thesis must include your novel
  ideas
• Of course, they include your advisors ideas as
  well

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First year

• Get involved in research!
• Ask professors with research interests matching
  yours
• Combine reading with working on a small part of a
  project
• Steal tricks of the trade from advisor and more
  senior students
• Classes and the qualifying exam are required, but
  dont spend more time than necessary on them
• Nobody cares about the grades of someone with a
  PhD degree
• Dont get bogged down with teaching/grading
• Need to do a decent job, but make sure you dont
  work more than the required 20 hours/week (many
  times you can work a lot less)

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TAship vs. RAship

• RAship is better
• Can spend time on you research instead of
  teaching
• Being awarded an RAship means youre doing well
• Since RAship comes from a grant, the advisor will
  ask you to work on the project defined by that
  grant
• Advisor can ask you to work on demos or robust
  implementations as required by grant (which are
  not necessarily research)
• TAship has some advantages as well
• Independent to work with several professors
  before deciding about advisor
• Teaching experience required if you think of
  academic career
• Teaching helps you improve communication skills
• Every PhD student should teach at least one
  semester

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Choosing research area

• Dont celebrate too much passing the qualifying
  exams
• You are expected to pass ?
• Choose area based on your research interests
• Must like it otherwise, the next few years will
  be painful
• Dont choose it just because you can get an
  RAship
• Need to think strategically as well
• Is this a hot area?
• Will you get a good job in this area after
  graduation?
• Hard to predict if certain areas that are hot now
  will still be hot in 4 years

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Choosing advisor

• Should be compatible with advisor/get well
  together
• Tenured advisors
• Have more experience, could have more money,
  could have more connections
• Dont push you hard, dont have time to work
  closely with you
• Tenure-track advisors
• Will push you hard (their future career depends
  on your results), but will work with you (i.e.,
  co-authors of thesis)
• Might have more up-to-date information about job
  searching

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Choosing thesis topic

• Its your topic, but the advisor must approve it
• Its rare to know the topic from the moment you
  start working with advisor
• If work supported by a grant, the general topic
  is somewhat clearer
• More common to work on several related topics in
  your chosen area
• First ideas might not work, new ideas could come
  up
• Some will be more successful than others
  publication-wise
• Many times, thesis will define a common framework
  for topics covered by publications

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Take ownership of your PhD

• No one is responsible for getting your degree but
  you
• Faculty set up opportunity, but its up to you to
  leverage it

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Doing research (1)

• Be proactive!
• Dont wait for advisor to push you
• Reading papers
• Develop critical thinking identify both strong
  and weak points
• Advisor will point you to important papers as
  well as conferences and journals in your area
• You responsibility to find more papers starting
  from these pointers
• Must read a few papers every week
• Read outside your area as well
• Follow technology news to know where the world is
  going
• Let advisor/colleagues know about interesting
  things you read
• Robin Kravetss advices for reading/presenting
  papers
• http//www.cs.njit.edu/borcea/reading-papers-talk
  .pdf

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Doing research (2)

• Identifying important and hard problems
• Learn to differentiate between cool problems and
  junk
• Advisor will offer a lot of guidance
• By graduation time, acquire good taste for
  selecting problems
• Problem solving/design
• Always ask yourself whats the novelty of my
  solution?
• Also how is it different from/similar to
  alternative solutions?
• Advisor suggests a potential solution
• Never go back and say doesnt work!
• Instead, say X didnt work, but how about Y or
  Z?
• Dont get upset/discouraged if advisor points out
  drawbacks in your solutions its technical, not
  personal

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Doing research (3)

• Implementation
• Except for purely theoretical CS, will have to
  implement your ideas
• Every successful project goes through this
  unglamorous, hard phase
• Design is more fun than implementing it
• No magic here work hard!
• Dont suffer in silence if you dont know how to
  implement something or have troubles with a bug
  ask colleagues or advisor for help
• Evaluation
• Prove that your solution works as claimed
• Should know from the design time experiments and
  metrics
• Form a hypothesis what type of results you
  expect
• Experiments contradict hypothesis think of
  potential reasons and discuss them with advisor
• Work in the lab a significant amount of time
• Learn from interactions with colleagues/advisor

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Mutual trust between student and advisor

• Trust advisor and earn his/her trust (e.g.,
  through good work, reliability)
• Advisors, being human, are not perfect, but try
  their best to help
• Almost everyone goes through periods when doubts
  advisor (the converse holds as well)
• Papers getting rejected
• Different opinions on how to proceed with a
  project
• Seemingly advisor cares only about his career
• During these periods, remember the
  advisor/student symbiosis
• Advisors work hard to get grants to support your
  work
• You work hard to produce results that will enable
  new grants
• Typically, what is good for advisor is good for
  student, and what is good for student is good for
  advisor

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Communicating your results

• Clear communication separates top students from
  average
• An unknown brilliant result is useless
• Write and publish papers in conferences/journals
• If you didnt write it down, it didnt happen
• Publish or perish
• Reviewed by peers
• Hard to get accepted (good publication venues
  have 10-15 acceptance ratio)
• Can start small with conference posters or
  workshop papers
• Talks
• Presentations of accepted conference papers (or
  invited talks)
• Good chance to convince people that you did great
  research
• Successful researchers spend 50 of time writing
  papers and preparing talks

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Writing papers

• A lot harder than you think!
• Good results are not published due to sloppy
  writing
• Ask advisor for models of good papers
• Get feedback from advisor early and often then
  re-write
• Read Shrunk and White book on writing
• One idea per paragraph
• Do paragraphs follow one another in a logical
  structure?
• Typical structure abstract, introduction,
  related work, design, implementation, evaluation,
  conclusions
• Have clear abstract/introduction
• If vague or poorly written, reviewers will just
  look for reasons to reject afterwards
• Dont claim more than you did
• Distinguish between will do and have been done

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Conference talks

• Goal is to make audience read your paper and talk
  with you
• Emphasize the main idea, skip some details
• Shouldnt follow too closely the structure of the
  paper
• Pay special attention to motivation
• The more illustrations, the better
• A picture is worth 1000 words
• Dont take this talk as model ?
• The more you practice, the fewer surprises during
  the actual talk
• Time management is your responsibility be
  prepared to skip slides
• Show excitement
• If you are not excited, then why would anyone
  else be?
• Be clear, firm, and polite when answering
  questions
• Show belief in your work

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Attending conferences

• Typically, you go when have an accepted paper
• Could ask advisor to pay or get travel grants to
  go to top conferences even if you dont have
  paper there
• Check technical program ahead of time and
  identify papers/people of interest
• Goal is to do networking, not just hear technical
  talks
• Take advantage of coffee breaks/lunches/receptions
  to talk with people
• Be prepared to initiate conversations and
  introduce your work (prepare an elevator pitch)
• Get contact information from people you want to
  stay in touch
• Learn how top researchers present their work and
  answer questions
• People you meet there can hire you, review your
  papers, or become future collaborators

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Summer internships

• You should go once or twice
• Get real-world experience, make connections
• Must do it if plan to work in research
  labs/industry
• Go in research oriented places
• Doing an internship just for money is not worth
  the time
• Decide together with advisor when and where to go
• Advisor can help you go to good places (e.g., IBM
  Research, Microsoft Research)
• Better go once you have at least one publication
  can select internship that allows you to work on
  related topics
• Be aware that they can delay graduation as
  summers can be very productive research-wise
• Cant have the cake and eat it too

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How much should you work?

• Work only the number of hours you are paid!
• Dont let the master class exploit the workers!

• Students in high-ranked schools work between 60
  and 80 hours per week
• Faculty spend a similar amount of time
• Dont get fooled that you do better than some
  colleagues while spending a lot less time
• You will compete for jobs with students form
  other schools as well
• Citing my advisor school breaks are for
  undergrad students
• Good time to work in case you have teaching
  duties
• The advisor has more free time to help you

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Dont have time to finish all your tasks?

• Must acquire time management skills
• Write down your tasks (both work-related and
  personal), set deadlines, and categorize them
  function of importance
• Randy Pauschs graph for task time management

Importance
Urgency
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More on time management

• Dont have time for personal life?
• Some personal tasks must have high importance
• Family/friends help you avoid going nuts ?
• According to previous slide, you might end up not
  doing urgent, but not important tasks its ok,
  the world goes on
• Know yourself and manage advisors expectations
• Learn to estimate accurately the time it takes to
  do certain tasks
• Learn to say no if its not possible to do a
  task before a deadline
• Try hard to respect deadlines once you agreed to
  them
• Inform your advisor as soon as you are getting
  behind the schedule

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When to graduate?

• Graduating as fast as possible might not be the
  best idea
• This is not the Olympics where the best finishes
  first
• Should become a well-rounded researcher, not just
  someone very narrow expertise
• Working on larger/higher impact project might
  take longer, but help you become a better
  researcher and get a better job
• Taking classes outside your area and attending
  seminars/talks can improve your overall
  background
• Doing paper reviews or helping advisor with grant
  proposals can take time, but are invaluable
  learning experiences
• Job market conditions may delay graduation
• Taking longer than 6 years not good either
• Potential employers dont like it
• Even advisor might lose interest in you

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Thesis (1)

• Thesis one sentence to describe your
  contribution to the progress of humankind
• Dissertation the 100s pages that prove the
  thesis
• Dissertation is very much a collection of your
  publications
• Of course, need to link them well under one clear
  thesis
• Also, need extensive related work and potentially
  more experiments
• Thesis proposal
• thesis without a chapter or two
• Not as important as you may think because early
  validation of your research comes from good
  publications
• Form thesis committee and get feedback from
  committee members
• Both student and advisor must agree on committee
  members
• Contract between you and committee agree on
  content to be added in the final thesis

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Thesis (2)

• Finish writing during your final year
• In parallel with job searching
• Models theses that received ACM awards
• Thesis defense is reason to celebrate
• Advisor/committee wont allow you to defend if
  not ready
• Not a good idea to defend if you dont have a job
  (especially for foreign students who plan to stay
  in US)
• Unless you dont receive support any longer
• You could get job before thesis defense
• Risk you might never get the drive to finish
• Useful things to know about PhD thesis research
  by H.T. Kung
• http//www.eecs.harvard.edu/htk/thesis.htm

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Job searching

• Once advisor confirms you will be ready to
  graduate that year, prepare
• CV (long, not the typical 2-page resume)
• Research statement (at least 2 pages) outlining
  your research contributions and future plans
• Teaching statement (if applying to academia)
  outlining your teaching experience, teaching
  philosophy, etc
• List of references
• Have them ready by early December
• Most academia and research jobs are posted by
  January
• Must submit the above-mentioned documents by
  their deadlines
• Have your job talk ready by January
• Learn about research interviews by January
• Wait for call/email and hope ?

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Job in academia

• Research universities have similar starting
  salary with research labs (but doesnt increase
  at the same rate)
• Teaching university have significantly lower
  salary (and no research)
• Flexibility to choose research topics
• Can work on fundamental research and explore
  higher risk ideas
• Need to get them funded through grants
• Can publish and go to conferences more often than
  in research labs
• Can make your own schedule
• In the beginning, you work more than in industry
• Can influence people directly through education
• Safer job (after tenure)

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Job in research lab

• Over a number of years, salary will be slightly
  higher than academia (could go for management
  positions as well)
• Can have impact on real world through products
  incorporating your ideas
• Research topics need to be in line with companys
  goals and approved by managers
• Short-term profit-oriented research may preclude
  you from working on fundamental or high risk
  topics
• Working in an RD department is even more about
  practical research that can quickly turn into
  profit
• Still need to worry about funding (convince your
  managers to invest in your ideas)
• Cant publish everything
• Patents first, publication later (if at all)
• Job safety depends on company health market

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What do interviewers look for in your CV?

• Thesis title, research interests, and name of
  advisor
• The advisors reputation matters a lot
• Research contributions
• Projects you worked on and their main results
• Software distributions
• List of papers talks ( patents if any)
• Teaching experience (for academia)
• List of references
• Reference letters are very important
• CS community service (e.g., conference/journal
  reviewer)
• NO!
• GPA
• Programming languages, tools, etc (you have a PhD
  in CS! Youre supposed to either know or be able
  to learn everything)

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Job talk

• Single most important part of your interview
• Two main purposes
• Sell yourself
• Sell your research
• Write down 3-4 ideas youre going to say per
  slide
• Practice and remember those ideas
• Do dry runs with advisor, colleagues, friends
• Videotape yourself and try to improve after the
  shock of watching the recording has passed ?
• Practice questions and answers
• More information on job talks and interviews from
  Jeanette Wing
• http//www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/wing/www/tips.p
  df

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One-to-one interviews

• Typically, 30 minutes about your research and
  everything else
• They look for
• Creativity
• Brainpower
• Independence
• Technical skills
• Leadership
• Energy
• Fitting in
• Be prepared, articulated, honest, genuinely
  curious
• Ask questions about the persons research
• Ask questions about the place to see if its
  right for you
• OK to engage in less technical discussions (e.g.,
  benefits, housing)

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Selecting a job

• Congratulations, you got several job offers! ?
• Many factors to consider besides money
• Reputation of the place
• Can you grow there? Possibilities for promotion?
• Will you get along well with your
  colleagues/bosses?
• Geography
• Two-body problem
• Cost of living
• Quality of schools
• Are you a city person or more of the outdoor-type?

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More readings instead of conclusion

• How to Be a Good Graduate Student by Marie
  desJardins
• http//www.cs.indiana.edu/how.2b/how.2b.html
• So long, and thanks for the Ph.D.! by Ronald T.
  Azuma
• http//www.cs.unc.edu/azuma/hitch4.html
• You and your research by Richard Hamming
• http//www.cs.virginia.edu/robins/YouAndYourResea
  rch.html
• Technology and courage by Ivan Sutherland
• http//research.sun.com/techrep/Perspectives/smli_
  ps-1.pdf
• How to have a bad career in academia by David
  Patterson
• http//www.cs.berkeley.edu/pattrsn/talks/BadCaree
  r.ppt
• Paper writing and presentation by Armando Fox
• http//www.cs.berkeley.edu/fox/paper_writing.html
  

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• Your time in the PhD program is a unique
  experience Enjoy it!
• Good luck and make us proud!