How to Succeed in Graduate School:

A Guide for Students and AdvisorsSubmitted to Crossroads, October 1994

Marie desJardinsmarie@erg.sri.com

Abstract

This paper attempts to raise some issues thatare important for graduate students to be suc-cessful and to get as much out of the processas possible, and for advisors who wish to helptheir students be successful. The intent is notto provide prescriptive advice – no formulas forfinishing a thesis or twelve-step programs for be-coming a better advisor are given – but to raiseawareness on both sides of the advisor-studentrelationship as to what the expectations are andshould be for this relationship, what a graduatestudent should expect to accomplish, commonproblems, and where to go if the advisor is notforthcoming.

1 Introduction

This article originated with a discussion I hadwith several women professors about the prob-lems women face in graduate school, and howmore women could be encouraged to go to grad-uate school in computer science. Eventually,the conversation turned to the question of whatthese women could do in their interactions withwomen students to support and encourage them.I volunteered that over the course of my gradu-ate career I had collected a variety of papers ande-mail discussions about how to be a good ad-visor, how to get through graduate school, andissues facing women. They were eager to get thismaterial, and I told them I would sort throughit when I got a chance.After mentioning this project to a number of

people, both graduate students and faculty –

all of whom expressed an interest in anythingI could give them – I realized two things: first,the issues that we were talking about really werenot just women’s issues but were of interest toall graduate students, and to all caring advisors.Second, in order to disseminate the informationI had collected (and was starting to collect fromothers) it seemed to make more sense to com-pile a bibliography, and write a paper that wouldsummarize the most useful advice and sugges-tions I had collected.I solicited inputs from friends and colleagues

via mailing lists and Internet bulletin boards,and collected almost an overwhelming amountof information. Sorting through it and attempt-ing to distill the collective wisdom of dozens ofarticles and hundreds of e-mail messages has notbeen an easy task, but I hope that the resultsprovide a useful resource for graduate studentsand advisors alike. The advice I give here is di-rected towards Ph.D. students in computer sci-ence and their advisors, since that is my back-ground, but I believe that much of it applies tograduate students in other areas as well.In my experience, the two main things that

make graduate school hard are the unstructurednature of the process, and the lack of informa-tion about what you should spend your timeon. I hope that this article will provide infor-mation for both graduate students and advisorsthat will help make the process less painful. Iwant to emphasize that graduate school is noteasy, and these suggestions will not always beeasy or even possible to follow (and they maynot even be the ideal goal for you, personally,to strive for). You shouldn’t let that discourage

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you: start small, think big, and keep yourself fo-cused on your ultimate goal, which shouldn’t justbe to get through graduate school, but to enjoyyourself, make progress towards being able to dowhat you want to do with your life, and learnsomething in the process.I owe a debt of gratitude to David Chapman,

whose paper ([Chapman, 1988]) was an invalu-able reference for me not only during the writingof this article, but during graduate school as well.The goals of this article are to raise awareness

of the need for a healthy and interactive graduatestudent-advisor relationship, to provide point-ers and guidance for both advisors and graduatestudents in navigating the maze of a doctoraldegree, and to give references and resources forthose who hope to learn more.

2 Before You Start

Many headaches can be avoided by doing someadvance planning. First, why go to graduateschool at all? The usual reasons given are that aPh.D. is required or preferred for some jobs, es-pecially research and academic positions; that itgives you a chance to learn a great deal about aspecific area; and that it provides an opportunityto develop ideas and perform original research.Wanting to delay your job hunt is probably nota good enough reason. Over the past decade, re-search and academic positions have become moredifficult to find, and many recent Ph.D.s endup “killing time” in a series of postdoctoral po-sitions, or taking non-research jobs. Having aPh.D. is not a guarantee of finding a better jobin and of itself! In addition, graduate school isa lot of work and requires strong motivation andfocus. You have to really want to be there tomake it through.It helps to have a good idea of what area you

want to specialize in, and preferably a coupleof particular research projects you might liketo work on, although many graduate studentschange their minds about research projects andeven specialization field after they start school.Look for books and current journals and confer-ence proceedings in your area, and read through

them to get an idea of who’s doing what where.(You’ll be doing a lot of reading once you startgraduate school, so you might as well get usedto it.) This is where advisors first enter thescene: faculty members ought to be willing totalk to undergraduates and help them find outmore about research areas and graduate schools.Try to get involved in research: ask professorsand TAs (teaching assistants) whether they needsomeone to work on an ongoing project, or startan independent research project, with guidancefrom a faculty member.Contact faculty members and graduate stu-

dents at the schools you’re interested in. Tellthem about your background and interests andask them what research projects they’re workingon. A good way to do this is via electronic mail ifpossible – e-mail is much easier and quicker to re-spond to than a paper letter. A good advisor willbe willing to answer these kinds of inquiries (al-though if they’re busy they may give you only abrief answer or point you towards a graduate stu-dent – you’ll have to use your intuition to decidewhether they’re brushing you off or just busy).If you can’t get any answer at all, consider thatthat individual might not end up being a very ac-cessible advisor. Asking these questions will helpyou narrow down your choices and may increaseyour chances of admission if the professors youcontact become interested in working with you.Your best bet is to find a school where there

are at least two faculty members you’d be inter-ested in working with. That way, if one doesn’twork out, or is too busy to take on a new stu-dent, you have a fallback position. Breadth ofthe graduate program (i.e., high-quality facultyin a broad range of subareas) is also a good thingto look for in a school, especially if you’re not en-tirely certain what you want to specialize in.It’s also important to most people to feel com-

fortable with the community of graduate stu-dents. It pays to talk to some of the graduatestudents (both junior and senior) to find out howthey like it, which advisors are good, and whatkinds of support (financial and psychological) areavailable. Because there are so many studentsapplying to each school, even highly qualified ap-

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plicants are often rejected. You should apply to arange of programs – and don’t take it personallyif you do get rejected by some of them.

You can increase your chances of getting intograduate school by developing good relationshipswith your professors and work managers (thisis very important for getting good recommen-dations), working on a research project, hav-ing a clear sense of what you want to work on(although it’s always all right to change yourmind later), having a broad background in yourfield and in related fields (for example, psychol-ogy classes are useful for AI students), gettinggood grades (especially in upper division classesin your area of interest), and getting a high scoreon the GRE if required. Also, it’s a good ideato start thinking early about sources of funding:apply for an NSF fellowship, for example (seeSection 3.5 for more ideas on finding funding).

3 Doing Research

For many new graduate students, graduateschool is unlike anything else they’ve done.Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what it isyou’re supposed to be learning. Yes, you have tocomplete a dissertation, but how do you start?What should you spend your time doing?

Graduate school is a very unstructured envi-ronment in most cases. Graduate students typ-ically take nine hours or less of coursework persemester, especially after the second year. Formany, the third year – after coursework is largelyfinished and preliminary exams have been com-pleted – is a very difficult and stressful period.This is when you’re supposed to find a thesistopic, if you’re not one of the lucky few who hasalready found one. Once you do find a topic, youcan expect two or more years until completion,with very few landmarks or milestones in sight.

The following sections talk about the day-to-day process of doing research, criticism and feed-back, working on the thesis, and financial sup-port for research.

3.1 The Daily Grind

Being a good researcher involves more than“merely” coming up with brilliant ideas and im-plementing them. Most researchers spend themajority of their time reading papers, discussingideas with colleagues, writing and revising pa-pers, staring blankly into space – and, of course,having brilliant ideas and implementing them.Section 4 discusses the process and importance

of becoming part of a larger research community,which is a critical aspect of being a successful re-searcher. This section contains ideas on keepingtrack of where you’re going, and where you’vebeen, with your research, staying motivated, andhow to spend your time wisely.Keeping a journal of your research activities

and ideas is very useful. Write down specula-tions, interesting problems, possible solutions,random ideas, references to look up, notes onpapers you’ve read, outlines of papers to write,and interesting quotes. Read back through itperiodically. You’ll notice that the bits of ran-dom thoughts start to come together and forma pattern, often turning into a research projector even a thesis topic. I was surprised, lookingback through my journal as I was finishing upmy thesis, how early and often similar ideas hadcropped up in my thinking, and how they grad-ually evolved into a dissertation.You’ll have to read a lot of technical papers

to become familiar with any field, and to staycurrent once you’ve caught up. You may findyourself spending over half of your time reading,especially at the beginning. This is normal. It’salso normal to be overwhelmed by the amountof reading you think you “should” do. Try to re-member that it’s impossible to read everythingthat might be relevant: instead, read selectively.When you first start reading up on a new field,ask your advisor or a fellow student what themost useful journals and conference proceedingsare in your field, and ask for a list of seminal or“classic” papers that you should definitely read.For AI researchers, a useful (if slightly outdated)starting point is Agre’s [1982] summary of basicAI references. Similar documents may exist for

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other research areas – ask around, and cruise theinformation superhighway. Start with these pa-pers and the last few years of journals and pro-ceedings.Before bothering to read any paper, make sure

it’s worth it. Scan the title, then the abstract,then – if you haven’t completely lost interest al-ready – glance at the introduction and conclu-sions. (Of course, if your advisor tells you thatthis is an important paper, skip this preliminarystep and jump right in!) Before you try to get allof the nitty-gritty details of the paper, skim thewhole thing, and try to get a feel for the mostimportant points. If it still seems worthwhileand relevant, go back and read the whole thing.Many people find it useful to take notes whilethey read. Even if you don’t go back later andreread them, it helps to focus your attention andforces you to summarize as you read. And if youdo need to refresh your memory later, rereadingyour notes is much easier and faster than readingthe whole paper.A few other points to keep in mind as you read

and evaluate papers:

• Make sure the ideas described really worked(as opposed to just being theoretically valid,or tested on a few toy examples).

• Try to get past buzzwords: they may soundgood, but not mean much. Is there sub-stance and an interesting idea underneaththe jargon?

• To really understand a paper, you have tounderstand the motivations for the problemposed, the choices made in finding a solu-tion, the assumptions behind the solution,whether the assumptions are realistic andwhether they can be removed without inval-idating the approach, future directions forresearch, what was actually accomplished orimplemented, the validity (or lack thereof)of the theoretical justifications or empiricaldemonstrations, and the potential for ex-tending and scaling the algorithm up.

Keep the papers you read filed away so youcan find them again later, and set up an online

bibliography (BibTeX is a popular format, butanything consistent will do). I find it useful toadd extra fields for keywords, the location of thepaper (if you borrowed the reference from thelibrary or a friend), and a short summary of par-ticularly interesting papers. This bibliographywill be useful for later reference, for writing yourdissertation, and for sharing with other graduatestudents (and eventually, perhaps, advisees).

3.2 Staying Motivated

At times, particularly in the “middle years,” itcan be very hard to maintain a positive attitudeand stay motivated. Many graduate studentssuffer from insecurity, anxiety, and even bore-dom. First of all, realize that these are normalfeelings. Try to find a sympathetic ear – anothergraduate student, your advisor, or a friend out-side of school. Next, try to identify why you’rehaving trouble and identify concrete steps thatyou can take to improve the situation. To stayfocused and motivated, it often helps to have or-ganized activities to force you to manage yourtime and to do something every day. Settingup regular meetings with your advisor, attend-ing seminars, or even extracurricular activitiessuch as sports or music can help you to maintaina regular schedule.Chapman [1988] enumerates a number of “im-

mobilizing shoulds” that can make you feelso guilty and unworthy that you stop makingprogress. Telling yourself that you should have agreat topic, that you should finish in n years, thatyou should work 4, or 8, or 12 hours a day isn’thelpful for most people. Be realistic about whatyou can accomplish, and try to concentrate ongiving yourself positive feedback for tasks you docomplete, instead of negative feedback for thoseyou don’t.Setting daily, weekly, and monthly goals is a

good idea, and works even better if you use a“buddy system” where you and another studentmeet at regular intervals to review your progress.Try to find people to work with: doing researchis much easier if you have someone to bounceideas off of and to give you feedback.

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Breaking down any project into smaller piecesis always a good tactic when things seem unman-ageable. At the highest level, doing a master’sproject before diving into a Ph.D. dissertationis generally a good idea (and is mandatory atsome schools). A master’s gives you a chance tolearn more about an area, do a smaller researchproject, and establish working relationships withyour advisor and fellow students.The divide-and-conquer strategy works on a

day-to-day level as well. Instead of writing anentire thesis, focus on the goal of writing a chap-ter, section, or outline. Instead of implementinga large system, break off pieces and implementone module at a time. Identify tasks that youcan do in an hour or less; then you can comeup with a realistic daily schedule. If you havedoubts, don’t let them stop you from accomplish-ing something – take it one day at a time. Re-member, every task you complete gets you closerto finishing. Even if you don’t make any obvi-ous progress, you’ll have learned something, al-though it may be “don’t waste your time on thistask again!”

3.3 Getting to the Thesis

The hardest part of getting a Ph.D. is, of course,writing the dissertation. The process of finding athesis topic, doing the research, and writing thethesis is different from anything most studentshave done before. If you have a good advisorand support network, you’ll be able to get adviceand help in setting directions and goals. If not,you may need to be more independent. If thisis the case, don’t just isolate yourself from theworld: try to go out and find the resources andsupport you need from professors, other gradu-ate students, mailing lists, friends, family, andpublications like this one.

3.3.1 Finding an Advisor

Finding the right advisor can help you immea-surably in successfully completing a thesis. Youshould ideally have selected the schools you ap-plied to by identifying faculty members you’dlike to work with. If not, start looking around

as early as possible. Of course, the ideal advi-sor will be in the area you’re interested in work-ing in, will actively be doing high-quality reseachand be involved in and respected by the researchcommunity, and (not least) will be someone youcan get along with.Read research summaries by faculty members

(which are usually published by the department),go to talks they give, and attend or audit coursesgiven by professors you might be interested inworking with. Talk to other graduate studentsand recent graduates. Ask them how their re-lationships with their advisors are/were, howquickly the advisor’s students graduate, and howsuccessful (well recognized, high-quality) theirresearch is. What kinds of relationships do theyhave – frequent interactions, collaborative work,encouraging independence? handing out topicsor helping students to create individual researchareas, or a more hands-off style?Other things to find out about potential advi-

sors:

• What is the average time their Ph.D. stu-dents take to finish their degrees? What isthe dropout rate for their students?

• How long have they been on the faculty?There are advantages and disadvantages tobeing one of the first members of a new re-search group. On the positive side, you of-ten have more freedom to choose your re-search topic and to influence the direction ofthe group’s research. On the negative side,you may be more isolated (since there won’tbe older graduate students in the group),your advisor won’t have as much experience,and if they don’t get tenure you may bescrambling for a new advisor several yearsinto your thesis.

A good advisor will serve as a mentor as wellas a source of technical assistance. A mentorshould provide, or help you to find, the resourcesyou need (financial, equipment, and psycholog-ical support); introduce you and promote yourwork to important people in your field; encour-age your own interests, rather than promoting

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their own; be available to give you advice on thedirection of your thesis and your career; and helpyou to find a job when you finish. They shouldhelp you to set and achieve long-term and short-term goals.

Once you identify one or more potential advi-sors, get to know them. Introduce yourself anddescribe the area you’re interested in. Attendtheir research group meetings if they hold themregularly. Give them a copy of a research pro-posal if you have a good idea of what you wantto work on, and ask for comments. Ask whetherthey have any TA or RA (research assistant) po-sitions available, or if there are any ongoing re-search projects that you could get involved with.Read their published papers, and the work oftheir students. Drop by during office hours andask questions or make comments. Offer to readdrafts of papers – and do more than just proof-read (see Section 3.4).

The type of relationship that each studentneeds with an advisor will be different. Somestudents prefer to be given more direction, tohave frequent contact, and to be “checked upon.” Others are more independent. Some mayneed contact but be self-conscious about askingfor it. Other things that vary include what kindsof feedback is preferred (lots of “random” ideasvs. very directed feedback (pointers)), workingindividually vs. in groups, working on an estab-lished research project vs. a new, independenteffort; working in the same area as your advisoror doing an “outside” thesis.

You may find that your thesis advisor doesn’talways give you all of the mentoring that youneed. Multiple mentors are common and useful;they may include other faculty members in yourdepartment or elsewhere, senior graduate stu-dents, or other colleagues (see Section 4.3). Youmay want to seriously consider changing thesisadvisors if your advisor is inaccessible or disinter-ested, gives you only negative feedback, doesn’thave the technical background to advise you onyour thesis, or harasses you (see Section 7).

The most important thing is to ask for (i.e.,demand politely) what you need.

3.3.2 Finding a Thesis Topic

Doing a master’s project is often a good idea(and is required by some schools). Althoughchoosing an appropriately scaled-down topicmay be difficult, having the ideal topic is alsoless important, since you will have the chance tomove on after only a year or so. If you have agood idea of what you want to do your Ph.D.dissertation on, choosing a master’s project thatwill lead into the dissertation is wise: you willget a head start on the Ph.D., or may decidethat you’re not interested in pursuing the topicafter all (saving yourself a lot of work and grieffarther down the road).A good source of ideas for master’s projects

(and sometimes for dissertation topics) is the fu-ture work section of papers you’re interested in.Try developing and implementing an extensionto an existing system or technique.Generally speaking, a good Ph.D. thesis topic

is interesting to you, to your advisor, and to theresearch community. As with many aspects ofgraduate school, the balance you find will de-pend at least in part on the relationship youhave with your advisor. Some professors havewell defined long-term research programs and ex-pect their students to contribute directly to thisprogram. Others have much looser, but still re-lated ongoing projects. Still others will take onanyone with an interesting idea, and may havea broad range of interesting ideas to offer theirstudents. Be wary of the advisor who seems will-ing to let you pursue any research direction atall. You probably won’t get the technical sup-port you need, and they may lose interest in youwhen the next graduate student with a neat ideacomes along.If you pick a topic that you’re not truly inter-

ested in simply because it’s your advisor’s petarea, it will be difficult to stay focused and mo-tivated – and you may be left hanging if youradvisor moves on to a different research area be-fore you finish. The same is true for choosing atopic because of its marketability: if you’re notpersonally excited about the topic, you’ll have aharder time finishing and a harder time convinc-

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ing other people that your research is interesting.Besides, markets change more quickly than mostpeople finish dissertations.In order to do original research, you must be

aware of ongoing research in your field. Moststudents spend up to a year reading and study-ing current research to identify important openproblems. However, you’ll never be able to readeverything that might be relevant – and newwork is always being published.Try to become aware and stay aware of directly

related research – but if you see new work thatseems to be doing exactly what you’re workingon, don’t panic. It’s common for graduate stu-dents to see a related piece of work and thinkthat their topic is ruined. If this happens toyou, reread the paper several times to get a goodunderstanding of what they’ve really been ac-complished. Show the paper to your advisor orsomeone else who’s familiar with your topic andwhose opinions you respect. Introduce yourselfto the author at a conference or by e-mail, andtell them about your work. By starting a dia-logue, you will usually find that their work isn’tquite the same, and that there are still direc-tions open to you. You may even end up collab-orating with them. Good researchers welcomethe opportunity to interact and collaborate withsomeone who’s interested in the same problemsthey are.To finish quickly, it’s usually best to pick a

narrow, well defined topic. The downside of thisapproach is that it may not be as exciting to youor to the research community. If you’re more of arisk-taker, choose a topic that branches out in anew direction. The danger here is that it can bedifficult to carefully define the problem, and toevaluate the solution you develop. If you have atopic like this, it helps a lot to have an advisor ormentor who is good at helping you to focus andwho can help you maintain a reasonably rigorousapproach to the problem.In the extreme case, if your topic is so out

of the ordinary that it’s unrelated to anythingelse, you may have difficulty convincing peopleit’s worthwhile. Truly innovative research is, ofcourse, exciting and often pays back in recogni-

tion from the research community – or you couldjust be out in left field. If you have a far-outtopic, be sure that people are actually interestedin it, or you’ll never be able to “sell” it later,and will probably have trouble getting your workpublished and finding a job. In addition, it willbe hard to find colleagues who are interested inthe same problems and who can give you adviceand feedback.In any case, a good topic will address impor-

tant issues. You should be trying to solve a realproblem, not a toy problem (or worse yet, noproblem at all); you should have solid theoreticalwork, good empirical results or, preferably, both;and the topic will be connected to – but not be asimple variation on or extension of – existing re-search. It will also be significant yet manageable.Finding the right size problem can be difficult.One good way of identifying the right size is toread other dissertations. It’s also useful to havewhat Chapman [1988] calls a “telescoping orga-nization” – a central problem that’s solvable andacceptable, with extensions and additions thatare “successively riskier and that will make thethesis more exciting.” If the gee-whiz additionsdon’t pan out, you’ll still have a solid result.A good way to focus on a topic is to write one-

sentence and one-paragraph descriptions of theproblem you want to address, and do the samefor your proposed solution; then write an outlineof what a thesis that solved this problem wouldlook like (i.e., what chapters would be included,or if you’re ambitious, what sections in the chap-ter).Sometimes finding a small problem to work

on and building on it in a “bottom up” fashioncan work equally well, as long as you don’t fallinto the trap of solving lots of small unrelatedproblems that don’t lead to a coherent, solid,substantial piece of research (i.e., a thesis).Remember that a thesis is only a few years

of your work, and that – if all goes well – yourresearch career will continue for another 30 or40. Don’t be afraid to leave part of the problemfor future work, and don’t compare yourself tosenior researchers who have years of work andpublications to show for it. (On the other hand,

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if you identify too much future work, your thesiswon’t look very exciting by comparison.) Grad-uate students often pick overly ambitious topics(in theory, your advisor will help you to iden-tify a realistic size problem). Don’t overestimatewhat other people have done. Learn to read be-tween the lines of grandiose claims (somethingelse a good advisor will help you to do).Some schools may require that you write a the-

sis proposal. Even if they don’t, this is a goodfirst step to take. It forces you to define the prob-lem, outline possible solutions, and identify eval-uation criteria; and it will help you to get usefulfeedback from your advisor and other colleagues.Writing a good thesis proposal will take up toseveral months, depending on how much back-ground work and thinking you’ve already donein the process of choosing the topic.The proposal should provide a foundation for

the dissertation. First, you must circumscribethe problem and argue convincingly that it needsto be solved, and that you have a methodologyfor solving it. You must identify and discussrelated work: has this problem been addressedbefore? What are the shortcomings of existingwork in the area, and how will your approachdiffer from and be an improvement over thesemethods?Present your ideas for solving the problem in

as much detail as possible, and give a detailedplan of the remaining research to be done. Theproposal should include, or be structured as, arough outline of the thesis itself. In fact, un-less your final topic differs significantly from yourproposed topic (which many do), you may beable to reuse parts of the proposal in the thesis.You will probably have to take an oral exam

in which you present and/or answer questionsabout your proposal. Be sure that your com-mittee members are as familiar as possible withyour work beforehand. Give them copies of theproposal, and talk to them about it. During theexam, don’t panic if you don’t know the answerto a question. Simply say, “I’m not sure” andthen do your best to analyze the question andpresent possible answers. Your examining com-mittee wants to see your analytical skills, not

just hear canned answers to questions you wereexpecting. Give a practice talk to other studentsand faculty members. Remember: you knowmore about your thesis topic than your commit-tee; you’re teaching them something for a change.

3.3.3 Writing the Thesis

Graduate students often think that the thesishappens in two distinct phases: doing the re-search, and writing the dissertation. This maybe the case for some students, but more often,these phases overlap and interact with one an-other. Sometimes it’s difficult to formalize anidea well enough to test and prove it until you’vewritten it up; the results of your tests often re-quire you to make changes that mean that youhave to go back and rewrite parts of the thesis;and the process of developing and testing yourideas is almost never complete (there’s alwaysmore that you could do) so that many graduatestudents end up “doing research” right up untilthe day or two before the thesis is turned in.The divide-and-conquer approach works as

well for writing as it does for research. A prob-lem that many graduate students face is thattheir only goal seems to be “finish the thesis.” Itis essential that you break this down into man-ageable stages, both in terms of doing the re-search and when writing the thesis. Tasks thatyou can finish in a week, a day, or even as lit-tle as half an hour are much more realistic goals.Try to come up with a range of tasks, both interms of duration and difficulty. That way, ondays when you feel energetic and enthusiastic,you can sink your teeth into a solid problem,but on days when you’re run-down and unmoti-vated, you can at least accomplish a few smalltasks and get them off your queue.It also helps to start writing at a coarse gran-

ularity and successively refine your thesis. Don’tsit down and try to start writing the entire thesisfrom beginning to end. First jot down notes onwhat you want to cover; then organize these intoan outline (which will probably change as youprogress in your research and writing). Startdrafting sections, beginning with those you’re

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most confident about. Don’t feel obligated towrite it perfectly the first time: if you can’t geta paragraph or phrase right, just write something(a rough cut, a note to yourself, a list of bulletedpoints) and move on. You can always come backto the hard parts later; the important thing is tomake steady progress.When writing a thesis, or any technical pa-

per, realize that your audience is almost guaran-teed to be less familiar with your subject thanyou are. Explain your motivations, goals, andmethodology clearly. Be repetitive without be-ing boring, by presenting your ideas at severallevels of abstraction, and by using examples toconvey the ideas in a different way.Having a “writing buddy” is a good idea. If

they’re working on their thesis at the same time,so much the better, but the most importantthing is that they be willing to give you feed-back on rough drafts, meet regularly to chartyour progress and give you psychological sup-port, and preferably that they be familiar enoughwith your field to understand and review yourwriting.You may find Sloman’s extensive notes on

writing a thesis [Sloman, ] helpful; although theyare intended for AI software-development theses,many of his points apply to thesis writing in gen-eral.

3.4 Getting Feedback

To be successful at research, it is essential thatyou learn to cope with criticism, and even thatyou actively seek it out. Learn to listen to valid,constructive criticism and to ignore destructive,pointless criticism (after finding any pearls ofwisdom that may be buried in it).In order to get feedback, you have to present

your ideas. Write up what you’re working on,even if you’re not ready to write a full conferenceor journal paper, and show it to people. Evenfor pre-publishable papers, write carefully andclearly, to maximize your chances of getting use-ful comments (and of having people read whatyou wrote at all).Give presentations at seminar series at your

university, at conferences, and at other universi-ties and research labs when you get the chance.Your advisor should help you find appropriateforums to present your work and ideas. Manyfields have informal workshops that are ideal forpresenting work in progress.Attend conferences and talk about your re-

search. When you meet someone new and theyask you what you’re working on, seize the op-portunity. Don’t just say “I’m doing my thesison foobar applications of whatsis algorithms” –tell them as much as they’re willing to listen to.You should have 30-second, 2-minute, 5-minuteand 10-minute summaries of your thesis readyat a moment’s notice (but not memorized word-for-word; nobody wants to listen to a cannedspeech).Talking to other people will help you to realize

which aspects of your research are truly differ-ent and innovative, how your work fits into thecurrent state of your field and where it’s going,and which aspects of your work are harder to sell(and, therefore, which aspects you need to thinkmore about justifying).Giving feedback to other students and col-

leagues is useful for many reasons. First, it helpsyou to polish your critical skills, which are help-ful both in understanding other people’s workand in evaluating your own. Second, it helpsyou to build a network of people who will beyour colleagues for years to come. Finally, if yougive useful feedback, those people will be morelikely to make an effort to do the same for you.It will be helpful (to you and to the person

whose paper you’re reviewing) to organize com-ments on a paper in descending order of ab-straction: high-level content-oriented comments,mid-level stylistic and presentation comments,and low-level nitpicky comments on syntax andgrammar. Try to keep your comments construc-tive (“this would read better if you defined Xbefore introducing Y”) rather than destructive(“this is nonsense”).You’ll want to read a paper at least twice –

once to get the basic ideas, then a second timeto mark down comments. High-level commentsdescribing your overall impression of the paper,

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making suggestions for organization, presenta-tion and alternative approaches to try, potentialextensions, and relevant references are generallythe most useful and the hardest to give. Low-level comments are more appropriate for a paperthat is being submitted for publication than foran unpublished paper such as a proposal or de-scription of preliminary research.See [Parberry, 1989] for more suggestions on

reviewing papers.

3.5 Getting Financial Support

Most graduate students (at least in the nat-ural sciences) have a source of financial sup-port that pays their tuition and a small livingstipend. Although nobody ever got rich beinga graduate student, you probably won’t starveeither. Sources of funding include fellowships(from NSF, universisites, foundations, govern-ment agencies, and industry), employer support,research assistantships (i.e., money from a fac-ulty member’s research grant) and teaching as-sistantships. Kantrowitz [1994] provides an ex-tensive list of funding sources for math, science,and engineering graduate students.Start looking for money early. Many schools

arrange support in the form of an RA or TAposition in the first year, but after that, you’reon your own. Deadlines for applications vary,and if you miss one, you’ll probably have towait another year. After you apply, it can takesix months or so to review the applications andseveral more months to actually start receivingmoney.Ask faculty members (especially your advisor,

who should be helping you to find support or pro-viding support out of his or her grant money),department administrators, and fellow graduatestudents about available funding. Go to youruniversity’s fellowship office or its equivalent,and look through the listings in The Annual Reg-ister of Grant Support, The Grant Register, TheChronicle of Higher Education, and FoundationGrants to Individuals. Look into NSF grants(there are several different programs). Take ad-vantage of your status as a woman or minority

if you are one (this may be the only time whenit actually is an advantage). Most universitieshave fellowship programs that may be adminis-tered through individual departments or may becampus-wide.If you haven’t yet begun actively doing re-

search, getting an RA position from a facultymember may be a good way to become involvedin a research project. Working on an existingresearch project by maintaining or developinghardware or software, writing reports, and run-ning experiments will give you a feel for whatit’s like to do research – and you may even find athesis topic. Ask around to see what’s available,and go talk to professors whose work you findinteresting.For a research grant or fellowship, you will

probably have to write a proposal, so the moreyou’ve thought about potential thesis topics, thebetter off you’ll be. You may need to tailor yourproposal to the interests and needs of the partic-ular funding agency or program you’re applyingto, but stick to something you know about andare sincerely interested in.Write for a general audience, since the peo-

ple reviewing your application may not be inthe same field. Emphasize your goals and whythe project you propose to work on is important.Talk as much as you can about how you’re goingto solve the problem, and be sure that your pro-posed solution will satisfy the goals you’ve setforth. Follow the rules for format, page layoutand length, or your application may not even bereviewed.

4 Becoming Part of the Re-search Community

One of the most important things a graduate stu-dent should do is to become established as part ofthe research community. Your advisor can helpwith this process by funding conference travel,encouraging you to publish research results early,collaborating on joint publications, introducingyou to colleagues, and promoting your work.In turn, you can make yourself more visible by

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participating in conferences and workshops, pub-lishing papers on your work, and meeting andmaintaining contact with colleagues.

4.1 Attending Conferences

Attending conferences and workshops is valuablewhether you present a paper or not. Some of thereasons to do so are:

• You’ll meet people and have a chance to dis-cuss your ideas and to hear theirs.

• You’ll get a good sense of what the cur-rent state of research is, and will learn moreabout how to write conference papers andgive talks (sometimes by counterexample).

• You’ll probably realize that your ideas aremore significant, relatively speaking, thanyou thought. A common reaction is “I couldwrite a better paper than this!”

If you’re giving a talk you’ll gain even morevisibility, and will have an opportunity to makean impression on other researchers. Some tipsfor preparing your talk to make this impressionas positive as possible:

• Give a practice talk, especially if you tendto get stage fright. Be sure to invite peoplewho will give you constructive, but useful,feedback.

• Make sure your talk fits in the time slot allo-cated. There’s nothing worse than a speakerwho rushes through the last ten slides, orskips from the middle of the talk to the con-clusion. A good rule is to allocate 2-3 min-utes per slide, on average.

• It’s better to be somewhat abstract thanto get bogged down in technical details –but be sure you give enough detail to makea convincing case. Your paper should fillin the missing details, so that people canread it to get a more in-depth understand-ing. Know your audience: you’ll have togive more background to a general audience,and more technical detail to audiences that

are very familiar with the field of researchyou’re discussing.

• Use examples and pictures to illustrate andclarify your ideas.

• Learn by observation: try to imitate quali-ties of talks that you like, and avoid thingsthat other speakers do that bother you.

• Talk about your ideas informally wheneveryou get the chance, so that the talk willcome more naturally and, hopefully, you’llhave a chance to respond to and think aboutquestions that might get asked at the talk.

• Make sure your slides are readable and assimple as possible. Never put up a slide withtiny text and say “I know you can’t readthis, but...”

• Try to relax. Don’t read from a script orword-for-word from your slides, and don’ttalk too fast. Be confident: you know moreabout your work (flaws and all) than anyoneelse.

Parberry [1988] contains some more suggestionsfor organizing and presenting a talk, directed attheoretical computer scientists.

4.2 Publishing Papers

Publishing your ideas is important for severalreasons: it gives you a source of feedback frompeople who read your papers; it establishes youas a member of the research community (usefulfor getting a job down the line); and it forcesyou to clarify your ideas and to fit them in thecontext of the current state of research in yourfield.There are two key properties of a good paper:

significant content – original, important ideasthat are well developed and tested – and goodwriting style. The degree to which the paper’scontent has to be “significant” depends on whereyou’re submitting it. Preliminary ideas and workin progress are more suitable for a workshop orsymposium; well developed, extensively testedideas are more appropriate for a journal. One

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way to decide where your paper should be sub-mitted is to read papers in potentially appropri-ate publications (last year’s conference proceed-ings; current journal issues). Another method isto show a draft or outline of the paper to youradvisor or other colleagues and ask their advice.If you have a great idea, but present it poorly,

your paper probably won’t be accepted. Be sureyou know what the point of the paper is, andstate it clearly and repeatedly. The same goes forthe key technical ideas. Don’t make the readerwork to figure out what’s important – tell themexplicitly. Otherwise, they might get it wrong,if they bother to finish reading the paper at all.State the problem you’re adderssing, why it’s im-portant, how you’re solving it, what results youhave, how other researchers have addressed thesame or similar problems, and why your methodis different or better.Write for the audience that you expect to

read the paper, just as you would plan a talk.Give more background for general audiences, lessbackground and more technical detail for special-ized audiences. Use a running exmaple if possi-ble, especially if your paper is dense with equa-tions and algorithms.Don’t try to put every idea in your thesis into

one conference paper. Break it down into pieces,or write one or two longer journal articles.As you refine your ideas, you can re-publish in

new forms, but be sure you’re adding new ma-terial, not just rehashing the same ideas. Somepapers start as short workshop papers, evolveinto conference papers, and eventually – withthe addition of detailed empirical results or for-mal proofs – become journal articles. It’s usu-ally okay to publish the same or substantiallysimilar papers in multiple workshops, but papersfor conferences and journals generally have to beoriginal, unpublished work.It is critical that any paper you plan to submit

be read by someone else first, if only to check fortypos, grammatical errors, and style. A good re-viewer will give you feedback on the organizationand content of the paper as well (see Section 3.4).The more tightly refereed the publication you’resubmitting to, the more trouble you should go to

in order to have it pre-reviewed. For a workshoppaper, having your advisor read it over (assum-ing you can convince them to do so!) is proba-bly enough. For a refereed conference, have oneor two other graduate students read it as well.For a journal paper, you should probably findresearchers who are active in the field, prefer-ably at other institutions (to give breadth), readit over and give you comments. This is wherethe network of colleagues you should build (Sec-tion 4.3) comes in handy.If you go through multiple revisions of a paper,

don’t expect the same person (even—perhapsespecially—your advisor) to keep reading newdrafts. You should only give a revised draft toyour advisor or another reviewer if the paperhas changed substantially and they’ve said thatthey’re willing to re-read it.If your paper is rejected, keep trying! Take the

reviews to heart and try to rewrite the paper,addressing the reviewer’s comments. You’ll getmore substantial and useful reviews from jour-nals than conferences or workshops. Often ajournal paper will be returned for revisions; usu-ally a conference paper will just be accepted orrejected outright. After reading the review thefirst time, put it aside. Come back to it later,reading the paper closely to decide whether thecriticisms were valid and how you can addressthem.You will often find that reviewers make criti-

cisms that are off-target because they misinter-preted some aspect of your paper, or just be-cause they’re lazy. If so, don’t let it get to you –just rewrite that part of your paper more clearlyso that the same misunderstanding won’t hap-pen again. It’s frustrating to have a paper re-jected because of a misunderstanding, but atleast it’s something you can fix. On the otherhand, criticisms of the content of the paper mayrequire more substantial revisions – rethinkingyour ideas, running more tests, or redoing ananalysis. (On the third hand, sometimes a pa-per is rejected for neither of these reasons, butbecause of politics: somebody on the reviewingcommittee dislikes your topic, your advisor, yourwriting style, or even you personally for some

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reason. This is all the more reason to try resub-mitting to a different conference or journal!)

4.3 Networking

One of the most important skills you should belearning in graduate school is how to “network.”Breaking into the research community requiresattending conferences, meeting established re-searchers, and making yourself known. Network-ing is a learned skill, so you shouldn’t expect tobe an expert at it immediately; but it is also askill that you can, and should, learn in order tobe a successful member of the research commu-nity.Just going to conferences and standing in the

corner isn’t enough. Especially if you’re not nor-mally an outgoing person, you have to makea conscious effort to meet and build relation-ships with other researchers. Presenting papersis a good way to do this, since people will of-ten approach you to discuss your presentation.Introducing yourself to people whose presenta-tions you found interesting, and asking a relevantquestion or describing related research you’re do-ing, is also a good way to meet people. Some-times it’s easier to meet other graduate studentsthan senior researchers—this is fine, since thosegraduate students will provide contacts to thesenior people they know, and somebody they’llbe senior people themselves (as will you)!You should talk about your research interests

every chance you get. (But be sure to spendsome time listening, too: you’ll learn more thisway, and people will feel that your conversationsare a two-way street.) Have summaries of yourwork of various lengths and levels of detail men-tally prepared, so that you can answer the in-evitable “So what are you working on?” intelli-gently and clearly. If someone expresses an in-terest in your work, follow up! Send them e-mailtalking about new ideas or asking questions; sendthem drafts of papers; ask them for drafts of theirpapers and send them comments. (If you do this,they’ll be sure to remember you!) Bring businesscards with your e-mail address to conferences tohelp new acquaintances jog their memory.

Maintain the relationships you form via e-mail, and by re-establishing contact at eachworkshop or conference you attend. If you workat it, and use your initial acquaintances to meetnew people, you’ll find that your “network”grows rapidly. (Agre [1994] has some excellentsuggestions for networking on the Internet.)Sometimes these contacts will grow into op-

portunities to do collaborative research. Seizethese opportunities: you will meet more people,often become exposed to new methods of doingresearch or new subfields within your researcharea, and the responsibility you feel towards yourcollaborator may give you more of an incentiveto stay motivated and keep accomplishing some-thing.Other professional activities can bring you into

the research network as well: volunteer for pro-gram committees, send your resume to a bookreview editor, offer to give seminars at other uni-versities, write conference and workshop papersand send them to people you’ve met or would liketo meet, or organize a workshop on your subfieldat a larger conference. Summer internships atresearch laboratories or even other universitiesis a good way to get an idea of what the “realworld” of research is like, to meet more new col-leagues, and to get a different perspective on re-search problems in your field.Mentoring junior graduate students and un-

dergraduates is a good investment in the longrun (besides providing them a valuable serviceand making you feel useful and knowledgeable).Finding specific mentors can be very useful.

Especially if you feel that you are isolated atyour institution, having a colleague at anotherinstitution who can give you advice, feedback ondrafts of papers, and suggestions for research di-rections can be extremely valuable.

5 Advice for Advisors

In order to be a good advisor, you have to re-late to your graduate students as individuals, notjust as anonymous research assistants or ticketsto tenure and co-authored publications. Workwith all of your graduate students, not just those

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whom you feel most comfortable with, or who areinterested in the problems you’re most excitedabout. Try to get to know your students person-ally and professionally. Help them to identifytheir strengths and weaknesses, to build on theformer, and to work on overcoming the latter.Give them honest evaluations of their work andperformance: don’t just assume that they knowhow they’re doing and what you think of them.Read this paper and others like it with an eye

towards discovering which aspects of the gradu-ate experience your students may be having trou-ble with, or may not realize the importance of.Try to see the experience from their perspective,which will be different for each student, becauseeach student has a different background and dif-ferent talents and goals.The roles of an advisor include:

• Guiding students’ research: helping them toselect a topic, write a research proposal, per-form the research, evaluate it critically, andwrite the dissertation.

• Getting them involved in the wider re-search community: introducing them to col-leagues, collaborating on research projectswith them, funding conference travel, en-couraging them to publish papers, nominat-ing them for awards and prizes.

• Finding financial support: providing re-search assistantships or helping them to findfellowships, and finding summer positions.

• Finding a position after graduation: help-ing them to find and apply for postdoctoralpositions, faculty positions, and/or jobs inindustry; supporting their applications withstrong recommendations; and helping themto make contacts.

Although guiding your students’ research is nor-mally viewed as the central task of an advisor,the other roles are also critical to their long-termsuccess. Section 4.3 contains advice for studentson networking. You can help them in this processby funding and encouraging travel to conferencesand paper publication, and by introducing them

and talking about their research to colleagues.Nigel Ward’s useful tips on what not to do areincluded as an appendix to this paper. A bookthat was suggested to me is [Phillips et al., 1994],but I haven’t actually seen it so I can’t recom-mend it personally.

5.1 Interacting With Students

Especially for a new advisor, setting the righttone for student interactions is a difficult task.Different students respond best to different ap-proaches – and, of course, different advisors havedifferent personal styles. Some of the tradeoffsthat have to be made in each advisor-student re-lationship are:

• Amount of direction: self-directed/hands-off vs. “spoon-feeding” topics and researchprojects.

• Personal interactions and psychological sup-port: do they want advice on career, fam-ily, and the like? Are you willing and ableto give it, or to find someone else to advisethem?

• Amount and type of criticism: general di-rections vs. specific suggestions for improve-ment.

• Frequency of interaction: daily vs. once asemester.

It helps to establish regular meeting times and todiscuss expectations (both yours and your stu-dents’) about what can and should be accom-plished during these meetings. Encourage themto develop relationships with other faculty mem-bers, students, and colleagues, to get a differentperspective and to get feedback you may not beable to give.To improve the atmosphere of your interac-

tions:

• Meet over lunch or coffee to make interac-tions more relaxed and less stressful.

• Strive to maintain an open, honest relation-ship. Respect your students as colleagues.

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• Tell them if you think they’re asking for toomuch or too little time or guidance.

Advisors should be aware of both long-termand short-term needs. What should the stu-dent’s goals over the next few years be? Helpyour student identify ways that the two of you– as a team – can meet these goals. Advise thestudent on the criteria for a successful qualifyingexam, thesis proposal, and dissertation. Helpprepare the student for a future research career.In the short term, a good advisor will work

with students to set priorities and to find a bal-ance between doing research, reading, writing,satisfying TA and RA duties, publishing, andcoursework. Although advisors may not be ableto give advice on all administrative aspects ofgraduate school, they should at least know theappropriate people to refer students to for assis-tance with degree requirements, funding, and soon.When you meet with your students, pay at-

tention to them. Try to help them to identifytheir interests, concerns, and goals, not just howthey can meet what you see as good interests,concerns, and goals. Know what they’re work-ing on, and what you discussed last time. Takenotes during meetings and review them if youhave to.Give them productive feedback, not just a

noncommittal “ok, sure” or a destructive “whyon earth do you want to do that?” Rememberthat your students are still learning. If you tellthem that a problem they’re interested in has al-ready been explored by Professor X, make sureyou follow up with a reference that they haveaccess to, and a discussion as to whether theproblem remains a worthwhile area to work on,or whether there are new open issues raised byProfessor X’s work, at the next meeting.When reviewing a student’s paper or pro-

posal, write comments on the paper itself: verbalcomments aren’t as useful. Give the feedbackpromptly, or it won’t be much help. See thesection on feedback (Section 3.4) for suggestionsabout giving useful comments. Don’t just waituntil they hand you something to read: insiston written drafts of proposals, papers, etc. Help

them develop their rough ideas into publishablepapers. Give them specific, concrete suggestionsfor what to do next, especially if they seem to befloundering or making little progress.Advisor-student relationships can break down

if the advisor is setting goals that are too high ortoo low, or if the advisor is exploiting the studentto meet the advisor’s needs (getting a promotion,increasing the advisor’s publication record, doingthe advisor’s research), not the student’s. For-tunately, the student’s needs and the advisor’sneeds in most of these cases are not conflicting.Encourage your students to choose a topic that

you’re both interested in and that you’re knowl-edgeable about (or very interested in learningmore about). Make sure that they have the ap-propriate background to understand the prob-lem, and that the methodology and solution theyidentify are appropriate and realistic. Give thempointers to useful references and help them findthem (this can be a mysterious, difficult processfor graduate students). Make sure they’re awareof other researchers and labs who are doing sim-ilar work, and if possible, arrange for them tovisit these labs or meet the researchers at semi-nars or conferences.Women faculty often feel obligated to mentor

every woman student in the department, attendevery committee meeting, and get involved in ev-ery debate, whether they want to or not. Whileyou can’t solve all of the problems in the world,you can at least make a difference by giving otherwomen (and men, for that matter) the sense thatyou do care, and that you think women’s issuesare important, even if you don’t have time (orthe inclination) to get involved with every prob-lem.

5.2 Social Aspects of Advising

The relationships you develop with your studentswill vary. With some, the relationship will bepurely professional; with others, you may be-come closer friends. As an advisor, it is yourresponsibility to ensure that your position of au-thority over the student is never abused. Asmentioned previously, graduate students should

15

not be used as a means to a promotion or a bet-ter publication record. These will be side effectsof good work in conjunction with your students,but should not be the goal of your relationship.Becasue you are in a position of authority over

your students, you must make sure that youboth know where the boundaries are. For ex-ample, getting a student to help you move somefurniture is usually quite easy if you’re doing agood job as an advisor, since they feel indebtedto you for your advice and support. This isn’ta problem in and of itself. However, using ex-plicit or implicit threats to force the student tohelp you out is a severe violation of professionalethics. Your students are also your colleagues,and should be treated as such. A good questionto ask yourself before asking a student for a favoris whether you would feel confortable asking thehead of your department for the same favor. Ifthe answer to this question is “no,” then you maybe exploiting your position and abusing your re-lationship, and you should seriously reconsideryour motivations and behavior.In my opinion, it is never appropriate to de-

velop an intimate relationship with one of yourown students. If this should happen, you shouldnot continue to advise them (whether the rela-tionship continues or not). Not only would thisbe a clear case of sexual harassment, but yourjudgment about the student’s professional lifecannot be objectively separated from personalfeelings in a close relationship.Dating students (or even asking them out

where the implication of a romantic relationshipmay exist) is a bad idea, even if the student isnot one of your advisees. They are bound tofeel intimidated and uncomfortable, and at manyuniversities this violates the sexual harassmentpolicy.Read your university’s policy on harassment,

and err on the side of conservatism when indoubt, for your sake and the student’s.

6 All Work and No Play...

Finding a balance between work, play, and otheractivities isn’t easy. Different people will give

you very different advice. Some people say youshould be spending eighty or ninety percent ofyour waking hours working on your thesis. Oth-ers (myself included) think that this is unrealisticand unhealthy, and that it’s important for yourmental and physical health to have other activeinterests.If you have a family, you will have to balance

your priorities even more carefully. Graduateschool isn’t worth risking your personal relation-ships over; be sure that you save time and energyto focus on the people who matter to you.One of the keys to balancing your life is to de-

velop a schedule that’s more or less consistent.You may decide that you will only work duringthe days, and that evenings are for your hobbies.Or you might decide that afternoons are for so-cializing and exercising, and work late at night.I decided very early on in graduate school thatweekends were for me, not for my thesis, and Ithink it helped me to stay sane.Many graduate students hit the doldrums

around the end of the second or beginning ofthe third year, when they’re finishing up theircoursework and trying to focus in on a thesistopic. Sometimes this process can take quitea while. Try to find useful, enjoyable activitiesthat can take your mind off of the thesis. Singin a choir, learn a foreign language, study thehistory of ancient Greece, garden, or knit. Ifyou schedule regular activities (rehearsals, ten-nis lessons), you will probably find it easier toavoid drifting aimlessly from day to day.In the final push to finish your thesis, though,

you will almost certainly have less time for socialactivities than you used to. Your friends maystart to make you feel guilty, whether they intendto or not. Warn them in advance that you expectto turn down lots of invitations, and it’s nothingpersonal – but you need to focus on your thesisfor a while. Then you’ll be all done and free as abird! (Until the next phase of your life starts...)

7 Issues for Women

Although this paper started out from a discus-sion about the problems women face in graduate

16

school, it has evolved into something that I thinkis relevant for everyone, not just women. Thisis not to say, however, that there aren’t specialproblems faced by women.In many cases, women and men face the same

obstacles in graduate school, but react differentlyto them. For women, the additional factors thatare sometimes (but not always) present includeisolation, low self-esteem, harassment and dis-crimination, unusual time pressures arising fromfamily responsibilities, lack of a support network,and lack of relevant experience. Having an un-supportive advisor can thus become much moreof a problem for women than for men. I hopethat to some extent, this paper will help bothwomen and advisors of women to provide thesupportive, positive environment that all gradu-ate students deserve.Part of the reason that I changed the focus

of the paper is that there have been many ar-ticles written recently on the subject of womenscientists and women graduate students. Theseinclude [Spertus, 1992, Toth, 1988, Hall and San-dler, b, Hall and Sandler, c, Hall and Sandler, a,Sandler and Hall, 1986, NSF, 1989, Leveson,1989, Strok, 1992]. McKay [1988] talks aboutissues relevant for minority faculty members,many of which pertain to minority graduate stu-dents. The systers mailing list is an electronicresource for women in computer science; send e-mail to systers-request@pa.dec.com for moreinformation.

8 On Finishing

Despite how difficult graduate school can be attimes, the benefits are significant. Of course,you’ll learn useful professional skill like doing re-search, formulating problems and critically eval-uating alternative solutions, giving written andoral presentations of your work, and interactingwith other researchers. But graduate school—and in particular the process of formulating, re-searching, and writing a dissertation—gives youconfidence in your ability to tackle hard prob-lems and to become an expert in a new field. Afellow Ph.D. put it much better than I can:

...it isn’t just that I can write techni-cal things and I can talk to other re-searchers with confidence—I can talk toalmost any authority figure with con-fidence. Partly this is because I nowknow what it is to be an expert in some-thing, and although I respect other peo-ples’ expertise in their areas of special-ization, I also know that I’m just asrespectable and they (usually) aren’tany more so than I. I also think I canwrite about other things/in other ar-eas, provided I’ve done my homeworkand learned the area. I feel EMPOW-ERED!!! And I would never have got-ten this from a CS programming job oreven a masters degree.

Of course, there are also the incalculable ben-efits of finishing the dissertation. Even thoughit can leave you at loose ends (what will you dowith your weekends, now that you no longer haveto work on your thesis?) there’s often a feelingof euphoria, heightened by exhaustion, when youfinally hand in your thesis. As the person quotedabove put it:

I think an oft-noted bad thing aboutfinishing is adjusting to no longer hav-ing a long term, ever-elusive goal. Butnow that five months have gone by,I find I’m much more efficient in mywork because I no longer have that aw-ful weight hanging by a thread over myhead, and much happier, more relaxed,more light-hearted.

9 Conclusions

In addition to the papers I have cited directly inthe article, I found a variety of other resourcesto be useful, and have included them in the Ref-erences section.The UC Berkeley Graduate is a newsletter

published by the UC Berkeley Graduate Divisionwith articles of general interest to graduate stu-dents. I found this publication very informativeboth during graduate school and while writing

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this article. A number of particularly interestingarticles are included in the References section.

Several articles ([Bundy et al., 1986, Bental,1992, Chapman, 1988]) give general advice ongraduate school and doing research. Guidelinesand suggestions for reviewing papers are given in[Smith, 1990] and [Shriver, 1990].

A number of articles on writing proposalsand successfully applying for research grantsare available ([Somerville, 1982, White, 1983,White, 1975, Lefferts, 1978]). The topic ofhow to find a job, and how to prepare for thejob search during graduate school, is the topicof [Feibelman, 1993].

Graduate school is not an easy process, andtoo many students are thwarted and intimidatedby unsupportive or unskilled advisors, lack ofknowledge about what graduate school is allabout, inflexible bureaucracies, and a myriad ofother obstacles. I have tried to give advice thatgraduate students and caring advisors can use tolessen some of these obstacles.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Susan Epstein, Diana Gor-don, and Devika Subramanian for the originaldiscussion that led to writing this paper. Manypeople provided useful feedback on an earlierdraft that was circulated on the Internet, es-pecially Mark Kantrowitz, John W. Buchanan(who suggested the idea and wrote the originaldraft for Section 5.2), and Marti Hearst. I grace-fully acknowledge defeat with respect to the orig-inal title (it was supposed to be “How to be aGood { Graduate Student / Advisor },” but wastoo often misinterpreted as “How to be a Good(Graduate Student) Advisor”); thanks to PeterSoderquist for the first half of the new title. Anydeficiencies remaining in the paper are entirelymy fault!

A How to be a Terrible ThesisAdvisor

by Nigel Ward (a young faculty memberand advisor who hopes others can learnfrom his mistakes)

• Assign students thesis topics based on thesection headings in your grant proposal, oron the boxes of the flowchart for your masterplan.

• When someone brings up a research paper,tell anecdotes about the author, his or heradvisor, and his or her colleagues. This willimpress students that who you know is moreimportant than what you do.

• When laying out your laboratory, give firstpriority to minimizing the cost of cable,last priority to good workplaces for stu-dents, and no priority to fostering interac-tion among students.

• Read your students’ papers at most once.

• When honest differences of opinion arise,paper them over with words. For exam-ple, say ”well, we could talk about this for-ever, but I think we’re all working towardsthe same basic idea, let’s call it a ‘neologis-tic/noetic knowledge representation’. Nowlet’s move on.”

• Regarding other schools of thought, makesure students know just enough to be ableto point out the ”fatal flaws” in each, andso can be good foot soldiers in the crusadefor your own approach. A useful phrase is”why do you want to waste your time read-ing that?”

• Never visit the laboratory; learn about stu-dents’ work only from what they tell you.

• Define your research aims with catchphrases (”dynamic X,” ”emergent Y,” ”theZ problem,” etc.).

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• Have students handle computer system ad-ministration, and let them think it countsas research.

• Mumble.• Assign older students to guide the youngerones.

• Involve students in decision-making forunimportant things. For example, you caneasily while away an hour of seminar decid-ing who should be discussion leader for whatchapter of the reading.

• Share your most trivial thoughts with yourstudents. Better yet, bring them up as sem-inar discussion topics (”in the shower thismorning, it struck me that whitespace is re-ally important. Let’s think about whites-pace from an AI perspective”).

• Avoid conflicts with your students; in par-ticular, don’t be too demanding.

• If a student reveals that he is confused aboutwhat counts as meaningful research, ridiculehim.

• Take no interest in what courses your stu-dents are taking.

• Pick up ideas from going to conferences,then bring them up in seminar without ex-plaining from whom you got them or ex-plaining the context in which they arose.

• Plan for research seminars to last at leasttwo hours.

• Avoid meeting with students individually.Do all advising out in public, at seminars.

• Never go near the laboratory in the eveningsor on weekends.

• Always come unprepared for seminars;you’re smart enough to fake it.

• Never do any programming yourself. Afterall, you went through that once, and nowyou’re an ideas man (or woman).

• Let your students see you rushing to meetdeadlines.

• Avoid critical discussions of research strat-egy. A useful phrase is ”We’ll do it this way.Why? Because I’m the professor and you’rea student.”

• Expect nothing much from your students,and subtly let them know this.

• Give all your students the same researchtopic, but with slightly different names. Ifthis is the same topic as your own disserta-tion topic, all the better.

• Let your students see your grant proposalsand learn the art of doublethink.

• Enforce disciplinary boundaries. For exam-ple, say, ”that sounds like the sort of thingthat people in software engineering wouldwork on, so let’s leave that topic alone,”or ”why do you want to worry about that?that’s a software engineering issue.”

• Never suggest your students contact otherprofessors or other researchers.

• Let your students submit articles to third-rate journals.

• If a student’s work is not giving the resultsexpected, belittle her.

• Encourage your students to work on fash-ionable problems.

• State your opinions loudly and frequently,so your students know what to write in theirtheses.

References

[Agre, 1982] Philip E. Agre. What to read: Abiased guide to AI literacy for the beginner.Technical Report Working Paper 239, MIT AILab, November 1982.

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[Agre, 1994] Phil Agre. Networking on thenetwork, 1994. Available via mosaicas http://www.cs.indiana.edu/HTMLit/net-working.on.net.html; or send a message to rre-request@weber.ucsd.edu with the subject line’archive send network’.

[Bental, 1992] Diana Bental. Thesis prevention:Advice to PhD supervisors. AISB QuarterlyNo. 80 (Newsletter of the Society for the Studyof Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Be-haviour), pages 58–60, Summer 1992. (Pub-lished under the alias ‘The Siblings of Perpet-ual Prototyping’).

[Bundy et al., 1986] Alan Bundy, Bendu Boulay, Jim Howe, and Gordon Plotkin.The researchers’ bible. Technical ReportDAI Teaching Paper No. 4, Dept. of Arti-ficial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh,September 1986.

[Chapman, 1988] David Chapman. How to doresearch at the MIT AI lab. Technical ReportAI Working Paper 316, MIT, October 1988.

[Division, 1986a] UC Berkeley Graduate Divi-sion. Finding money for dissertation re-search/writing. The Graduate, II(3), Fall1986.

[Division, 1986b] UC Berkeley Graduate Divi-sion. Studying for the qualifying exam. TheGraduate, II(3), Fall 1986.

[Division, 1986c] UC Berkeley Graduate Divi-sion. Writing your thesis. The Graduate, II(1),Spring 1986.

[Division, 1987a] UC Berkeley Graduate Divi-sion. Interviewing for a faculty position. TheGraduate, III(2), Fall 1987.

[Division, 1987b] UC Berkeley Graduate Divi-sion. The making of a successful proposal. TheGraduate, III(1), Spring 1987.

[Division, 1988] UC Berkeley Graduate Divi-sion. Choosing your thesis or dissertationtopic. The Graduate, IV(2), Fall 1988.

[Division, 1989] UC Berkeley Graduate Divi-sion. Beating the isolation blues. The Gradu-ate, V(1), Spring 1989.

[Feibelman, 1993] Peter J. Feibelman. A Ph.D.Is Not Enough. Addison Wesley, 1993.

[Hall and Sandler, a] Roberta M. Hall and Ber-nice R. Sandler. Academic mentoring forwomen students and faculty: A new look atan old way to get ahead.

[Hall and Sandler, b] Roberta M. Hall and Ber-nice R. Sandler. The classroom climate: Achilly one for women?

[Hall and Sandler, c] Roberta M. Hall and Ber-nice R. Sandler. Out of the classroom: A chillycampus climate for women?

[Kantrowitz and DiGennaro, 1994] MarkKantrowitz and Joann P. DiGennaro.The Prentice Hall Guide to Scholarships andFellowships for Math and Science Students.Simon & Schuster, 1994.

[Lefferts, 1978] Robert Lefferts. Getting aGrant: How to Write Successful Grant Pro-posals. 1978.

[Leveson, 1989] Nancy Leveson. Women in com-puter science: A report for the NSF CISECross-Disciplinary Activities Advisory Com-mittee, December 1989.

[McKay, 1988] Nellie Y. McKay. Minority fac-ulty in [mainstream white] academia, 1988.Chapter 5.

[NSF, 1989] NSF. An NSF study and reportabout women in computing research. Com-puting Research News, Summer 1989.

[Parberry, 1988] Ian Parberry. How to presenta paper in theoretical computer science: Aspeaker’s guide for students. SIGACT News,19(2):42–47, 1988. Available by anonymousftp from ftp.unt.edu.

[Parberry, 1989] Ian Parberry. A guide fornew referees in theoretical computer science.

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SIGACT News, 20(4):92–109, 1989. Availableby anonymous ftp from ftp.unt.edu.

[Phillips et al., 1994] Gerald M. Phillips, DennisGouran, Scott Kuehn, and Jula Wood. Sur-vival in the Academy: A Guide for Young Aca-demics. Hampton Press, 1994.

[Sandler and Hall, 1986] Bernice R. Sandler andRoberta M. Hall. The campus climate revis-ited: Chilly for women faculty, administrators,and graduate students, October 1986.

[Shriver, 1990] Bruce D. Shriver. The benefitsof quality refereeing. COMPUTER, pages 10–16, April 1990. Also includes COMPUTER’sguidelines for referees.

[Sloman, ] Aaron Sloman. Notes on pre-senting theses. Available by anonymousftp from ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk, in directorypub/dist/poplog/teach.

[Smith, 1990] Alan Jay Smith. The task of thereferee. COMPUTER, pages 65–71, April1990.

[Somerville, 1982] Bill Somerville. Where pro-posals fail: A foundation executive’s basic listof what to do and not do when requstingfunding. The Grantsmanship Center News,Jan/Feb 1982.

[Spertus, 1992] Ellen Spertus. Why are there sofew female computer scientists?, 1992. Ex-pected to become an MIT AI Lab TechnicalReport.

[Strok, 1992] Dale Strok. Women in AI. IEEEExpert, 7(4):7–21, August 1992.

[Toth, 1988] Emily Toth. Women in academia.In The Academics’ Handbook. Duke UniversityPress, 1988. Chapter 4.

[White, 1975] Virginia White. Grants: How toFind Out About Them and What to Do Next.Plenum Press, 1975.

[White, 1983] Virginia White. Grant ProposalsThat Succeeded. Plenum Press, 1983.

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