Life After Grad School

1
Life After Grad School

• Craig Knoblock

2
Outline

• Academia
• Research labs
• Large Companies
• Startups
• Starting Your Own Company

3
Academia

• Significant emphasis on teaching and research
• You have significant freedom to do what you want
• Sabbaticals, consulting, free summers, travel,
  etc.
• But you need to be a self starter

4
Writing Papers

• Need to write at least 2 conference and 2 journal
  papers every year
• Submit your papers to workshops, conferences and
  journals
• Submit early work to workshops, rewrite for
  conferences, and put in all the details in your
  journal articles
• Dont get discouraged!
• Many good papers get rejected
• Learn from the reviews
• Submit polished papers, not rough drafts
• Submit papers that you are proud of it is your
  reputation

5
Getting Funding

• Need to identify research topics that
  agencies/organizations care enough about to fund
• This may just involve identifying good
  applications of your research
• Be proactive understand the real-world problems
  and submit your ideas to the appropraite funding
  source
• Many possible sources of funding
• NSF, DARPA, AFOSR, ONR, NIH, etc.
• Learn how these different organizations work
• Write white papers about your ideas and solicit
  feedback
• Participate in funding panels to better
  understand the review process
• Write proposals on topics your care about
• If you fail the first time, keep trying!

6
Building a Community

• In some cases your research may fall squarely
  into a community and in others you may span
  several different communitites
• Find the people that care about what you are
  working on and you care about what they are
  working on
• Publish your work in the conferences they attend
• Attend those conferences every year if you can
• Dont just hang out with the people you know
• Seek out people that are working on related
  topics
• Send those people copies or pointers to your
  papers
• These are the people that may some day be asked
  to write you a letter of recommendation

7
Research Labs

• Two types of places
• Research is funded externally and you will need
  to spend time writing proposals (ISI, Parc, SRI,
  BBN, Fetch Labs)
• Research is funded internally and you need to
  justify your research to the mission of the
  company (Microsoft Research, Bell Labs, IBM)
• Usually no teaching or students, but sometime
  there are staff support the research (ISI is an
  exception here)
• Research labs can be a good place to develop a
  research career
• As long as you are publishing, you can transition
  to an academic position later
• Important to find an organization that fits what
  you like to do

8
Large Companies

• Microsoft, Google, IBM, Adobe, Apple, etc
• Many of these are large stable companies that
  provide good long-term employment
• Typically you get assigned to a specific product
  group and the focus can be quite narrow
• Good for people that are risk adverse and are not
  willing to work long hours
• Can be difficult/impossible to transition back to
  academia from these places
• Compensation can be very good, but less likely to
  make a lot of money on stock or options
• Summer internships are a good way to explore this
  option

9
Startups

• Can be a more exciting place to work with
  opportunities to contribute to all aspects of a
  business
• Significantly higher risk (9 out of 10 startups
  fail!)
• Salaries are often lower, but it is made up in
  stock options
• Hours can be much longer, but this depends on the
  place and the culture
• Payoff can be significantly higher if the company
  is successful
• Do your homework before taking a position
• Do you believe that the company has a strong
  future
• Is the overall compensation package fair?

10
Starting Your Own Company

• Step 1 Need a business idea that will make money
• A technology does not make a business
• Need to figure out how to apply the technology to
  solve a problem people care about
• Step 2 Protect your IP
• If developed at USC, file an invention disclosure
  and try to get USC to pay for the patent
• Step 3 Raise funding
• STTR and SBIR programs are a great source of
  funding for startups
• Angels may also be a good initial source of
  investment
• VCs usually get involved later
• Step 4 Build a strong team
• Need strong technical people
• But you also need to find people that know how to
  build a business

11
Conclusion

• Select a type of place that fits you
• Make sure that you will work on things that
  interest you
• Find a place that has a culture that you like
• Consider other relevant aspects, such as
  location, compensation, cost of living,
  opportunities for advancement, etc.