being a phd student: experiences and challenges
TRANSCRIPT
Being a PhD Student:Experiences and Challenges
Faegheh Hasibi March 16, 2016
PhD machine
PhD machine
You are the engine
Take the responsibility and carry on
Research process
Read Experiment
Publish Networking
Time (#semester)
Rea
ding
, con
fusi
on
Start early …
Do not waste time in early years
Find your research topic
M. Shokouhi. “Recipes for PhD”, http://www.slideshare.net/shokouhi1/recipes-for-phd
Research topic
• Find a common ground between you and your supervisor’s interest
• Not too mature area
• Not too immature area
• Trendy area
M. Shokouhi. “Recipes for PhD”, http://www.slideshare.net/shokouhi1/recipes-for-phd
Reading
Read high quality papers
• Read papers from top venues in your field
• Read papers of top researchers in your field
• Follow the citations and read the related papers
Write a summary for each paper
M. Shokouhi. “Recipes for PhD”, http://www.slideshare.net/shokouhi1/recipes-for-phd
Use a reference manager
Only for writing inLatex/Word
Reading, annotating, sharing, organizing
Experimenting
Experiments
• Start with easy and incremental ones
• Be accurate and avoid making careless mistakes
• Create reliable and reproducible results
Document Document
Document Document
Document
• Keep a log of all results you get
• Write neat and documented code
Ben Hamner
When you write code, keep in mind that
you're collaborating with your future self.
Back up• Use a version control tool
• Bitbucket/ Github are your friends
Publishing
Publishing• Start publishing early
• Target a conference • Now you have a deadline!
• Plan ahead • Last minute papers are more likely to be rejected
Writing style
Take papers from the past years …, and “copy”
• It is not about plagiarism
• Quality papers are similar in their writing style, structure, terminology, methodology, …
✗
S. Lia-Jonassen. “Ten things I wish I knew before starting on a PhD”, http://s-j.github.io/ten-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-starting-on-a-phd/
Be persistent and keep pushing!
Paper acceptance factors
Low acceptance rates ~20%33%
33%
33%
Novelty Presentation Luck
S. Lia-Jonassen. “Ten things I wish I knew before starting on a PhD”, http://s-j.github.io/ten-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-starting-on-a-phd/
Networking
At your group• Join the coffee breaks
• Talk about your research with your colleages
At the conferences
• Mingle with other PhD students (future colleagues)
• Do not be shy • Help others to network and get helped!
• Talk to professors
Research visit
• Choose the right time to go abroad
• Early: Spending time on learning
• Late: Focus on publishing
Find a research group
• Ask your supervisor
• Meet at a conference
• Apply for an internship • e.g., Microsoft, Google, …
To make it productive…
• Go with a clear plan
• Keep in touch beforehand
• Discuss about the plan/paper ideas
Research process
Read Experiment
Publish Networking
General advices
Meetings
• Have an agenda for the meeting • What you did since the last meeting
• Questions you would like to discuss
• Take note of all the next action items
• Keep minutes of all the meetings
Research-related activities
• Become a reviewer
• Mentor master students
• If possible, do some teaching
Keep an eye out!
• Attend NTNU courses • https://innsida.ntnu.no/kurs
• Attend summer schools • Learning, networking, fun
• Find the news channel • Twitter, Mailing list, …
Life “outside” PhDBeing in the same group is more than
being in the same mailing list!
Photos by Jan R. Benetka