BC EDUCATION
Saved by @Alex1Powell

Starting PhD student pro tips:

- Keep a backlog of “small ideas” that you don’t find the time to work on. Soon enough you will be asked to supervise undergrad students in some capacity, and these ideas will be exactly what they need to get started.

 - In the first two years worry about learning and getting settled in your research field. In year 3+ you can worry about churning out papers (but that’s much easier of you have a good understanding of the field and its methods).
- Believe your advisor on strategy matters, believe in yourself when it comes to details and results (we have good intuition about what’s interesting and important, but only you know what you have actually done and what it means).
- Talk to other students as often as you can. No, they likely won’t know how to solve the specific issue you are currently having, but over time you will learn more from your colleagues than from your advisor.
- Relatedly, other people (your advisor, other profs, other students, reviewers) are neither idiots nor almighty gods of knowledge. They will have insights, but some of the things they tell you will turn out to be garbage.
- Always remember that they laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

(read: if people consistently don’t buy your idea, consider that they may be correct)
- When assessing if your paper is good enough for a specific venue, don’t take the worst paper you can find as baseline. Peer review isn’t nearly that fair, and standards increase over the years

(but probably submit anyway - better to aim high and fail than to aim low)
- The earlier you learn to see rejection as a temporary setback the better. Your stuff will get rejected, and often for unfair reasons. But very rarely does actual research not get accepted anywhere.

(P.S.: still working on this one myself - I may get there in retirement)
- The one skill that every PhD student in applied CS needs to master is writing in English. Weaknesses in basically anything else can be mitigated by selecting a research topic that plays to your strengths, but if you can’t write it up well then nothing else really matters.
- The best way to improve your writing (besides writing a lot) is reading many, many good papers. Observe not only what results they report, but also how they construct their story and how they structure and build paragraphs, and what plots they use. Copy liberally what you like.

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You've finished your interview(s) and you're tired, but it's not over quite yet! What should you do after interviews?

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Firstly, congratulate yourself for making it through the interview! Take some time to relax and reflect on your experience, especially if you have forthcoming interviews for other programs. Take note of questions and positive and negative moments that stuck out to you.

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I’ve had a fantastic MSc experience (almost done!) and have been talking to a lot of incoming or current students. Some topics / questions come up a lot. Here’s what I know!

🧵 Tips for an awesome MSc experience.

#AcademicTwitter #AcademicChatter @OpenAcademics @academeology

1/ Ok to start, some context: I started my MSc in September 2019 in Organizational Behaviour. I start my PhD this September.

A lot happened in my MSc: I won several scholarships, my Dad died, I submitted my thesis work to a major conference, annnd there was the pandemic.

2/ Let’s get into it!

Choosing a thesis topic: Read read read.

What are you interested? Pick an umbrella topic and start reading. Follow the rabbit holes. Write questions, answers, more questions. When you find questions you cannot answer, you might have a thesis topic.

3/ Don’t get stuck on the idea you came in with.

My first semester a professor said “if your research ideas don’t change, you haven’t learned anything.”

No one is going to pull up your SOP and hold you to whatever you said you were interested in upfront.

4/ Pin down a thesis format

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I've been serving on grad admissions committees at MIT for 5 years - in EECS and Media Lab

If you want to get into a PhD at a place like MIT, here's a thread with some advice based on my observations

1/13

1. Grades do matter, especially in courses that are important for your chosen field

2. Research matters, even more than grades

3. Publications matter, but letters of recommendation matter even more

4. Your statement of purpose should be the cherry on top of the cake

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When I say grades matter, it doesn't mean that you need 100/100 or A+ in every course. It does mean that you are expected to have strong competence (close to straight A/A+/A-) in technical courses relevant to your field of interest

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While grades show competence, a PhD is about research. So, the more your application demonstrates research potential, the higher your chances for acceptance. It's not about the number of papers (if any), but about the quality of research you pursue

4/13

This is why the best evaluation of research potential often comes from letters of recommendation (LoRs)

Letters shed light on technical competence, creativity, work ethic, & personal interaction. All of which are important for a successful PhD

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