So, you are a graduate students and you don’t mind bias information meant to help you out? Read on! 数据挖掘研究院
Research is art 数据挖掘研究院
Research is art, there is no right way to do research. So far, I only believe in three general rules: 数据挖掘实验室
- don’t be isolated… be part of a network
- be open minded
- don’t copy or try to be fashionable, always try to go further and lead
You might want to compare them with the Three Dijkstra Rules for Successful Scientific Research: 数据挖掘研究院
- “Raise your quality standards as high as you can live with, avoid wasting your time on routine problems, and always try to work as closely as possible at the boundary of your abilities. Do this, because it is the only way of discovering how that boundary should be moved forward.”
- “We all like our work to be socially relevant and scientifically sound. If we can find a topic satisfying both desires, we are lucky; if the two targets are in conflict with each other, let the requirement of scientific soundness prevail.”
- “Never tackle a problem of which you can be pretty sure that (now or in the near future) it will be tackled by others who are, in relation to that problem, at least as competent and well-equipped as you.”
Success is completion
Brian Bialkowski says it best: 数据挖掘研究院
It won’t be easy and it won’t be pretty, but eventually you will finish. Sure, some of your work may be unreadable, but other parts will surprise you at their quality, and will be more concise and polished than anything you ever expected. It won’t be perfect, it might not even be good, but it won’t matter. In the end, you’ll have words on paper and your degree in hand.
To be clear, at some point, in any research project, you have to sit down and write. Whether what you write is great or just ok, matters less than you think. You need to get a passing grade, but most of your work will not be insanely great. You need to know what the rules are so that your work is acceptable, but that’s it. 数据挖掘研究院
Publish early and often 数据挖掘研究院
Whenever you have a good idea, don’t spend too long before publishing it. Don’t sit on ideas until you can perfect them. For one thing, bean counters can’t count ideas you have in your drawers. Second of all, if you had the idea, someone else can also have it and publish it first. Not all publications need to be peer reviewed. You can publish technical reports which can be as simple as merely posting a PDF file on a web site. There are clearly cases where it is best to delay publication, but for most short and simple ideas, publishing early is the best strategy. 数据挖掘研究院
Research is a business
It doesn’t work like other businesses, but research is a business of sort. It is not free of politics, it doesn’t happen in an ivory tower, it is full of nasty people and extremely competitive. It is not about getting passing grades. It is not about doing what you are told. It is really like starting a small business in a crazy but not always nice universe. 数据挖掘实验室
Peter Feibelman in “a Ph.D. is Not Enough” warns you that there are bean-counters who think the number of paper matters. This means you are compelled to demonstrate some level of scientific activity. Notice that scientific activity is not the same as greatness. In other words, a great scientist who hasn’t published in a while, will loose out to a mediocre scientist who publishes routinely. It is not so bleak as it seems: you should feel free to offer your own measures to the bean-counters, so that if you gave 20 invited talks in the last 2 years but published only one paper, you can stress that the total number of communications was 21. But you have to be able to count something, anything, and show that there is a constant flow of something (publications, talks, citations, etc.).
Choosing a research topic is a puzzle 数据挖掘研究院
Scott describes the act of choosing a research topic as a puzzle. I believe he is right! Don’t despair!
References are your friend
People cite each others in papers often not because they have to, but as way to cast their paper in a context. This establishes a web of trust: pay attention to often-cited papers and authors. 数据挖掘研究院
Search, search and search again
Keyword searching is a potent tool. Try the ACM library, Google, Google Scholar, and a collection of search tools by Todd Veldhuizen. Not everything is on the web and not everything can be found through keywords, but if it can be found and you didn’t find it, shame on you.
Don’t underestimate tools like wikipedia. 数据挖掘实验室
In a given field, seek existing bibliographies like the OLAP bibliography or the collaborative filtering bibliography. 数据挖掘研究院
When you find something interesting, organize it. Owen Kaser has online slides covering the search and organization of references and he points to Todd Veldhuizen’s slides on a similar topic.
Become a member! 数据挖掘研究院
While not all societies are useful, join the important societies related to your field. In Computer Science, I strongly suggest you become a member of ACM.
Setup a web site! Be visible on the web!
People may come accross your name and they may google you: make sure that they find the information you want them to find. Make sure that all your publications are available on the web as freely as is possible. 数据挖掘研究院
Work on your presentation!
Presenting well is an important skill. There is a lot of advice out there on the web. There are several great pages of advice. Stephen Downes suggests the old “Winging it” book, maybe you can find it in a library. I like Bob Geroch’s suggestions for giving talks. 数据挖掘研究院
Remember that there are lightweight solutions for preparing slides these days: PowerPoint is not your only option. For example, you can use plain HTML together with some scripts and it even supports TeX.
Get all the advice you can get!
Whether you like it or not, working toward a graduate degree means that you have to worry about life in academia and in particular, you must listen to what others have to say about what makes good research; make sure you read what the experts have to say about it:
- Networking on the Network: A Guide to Professional Skills for PhD Students
- Principles of Effective Research by Michael A. Nielsen (a must!)
- You and your research (by Richard Hamming)
- Advice compiled by Michael Ernst
- The Ph.D. experience
- Yuhong’s tips
- Non-Technical Talks by David Patterson including How to Have a Bad Career in Research/Academia
- Advice on research and writing
- A Ph.D. is not enough (book)
- The changing art of Computer Research
- Advice for students starting into research work
- Resources for Grad Students by Owen Kaser
When in doubt, ask for advice! You can’t get advice? Change supervisor! 数据挖掘研究院
Be a good student
You know you are a bad student if
- you cannot keep track of tasks assigned to you and be responsible for such tasks;
- you lie about what has been done and what hasn’t been done;
- you repeatedly ignore phone calls or emails.
Become a hacker 数据挖掘研究院
If your research has anything to do with IT, become a hacker which means to: 数据挖掘实验室
- learn Linux: Windows is not a good hacker platform;
- learn LaTeX, then learn to use aspell and style-check: it is a major pain at first but tools like LyX and Kile can help ease the learning curve, don’t try to avoid learning LaTeX;
- learn XML, RDF, RSS and all the nifty XML stuff: you can learn 80% of the important XML stuff in a week and it is will make you more credible;
- learn to use CVS or other version controls, use them extensively, keep all your stuff in backed up repositories: it is a bit of a pain at first, but it will help you a lot later;
- learn Java, C++, Python, Ruby, PHP, SQL, Regular Expressions… as many high level languages as you can: you can learn Python in an evening so there is no excuse not to learn it.
Being a hacker will mean that you’ll be able to quickly build prototypes or, at least, determine how hard it is to build prototypes. It will also help you bring your inventions, if you have any, to industry and maybe, make some real money.
Don’t expect too much from the job market
The job market may or may not smile on you. The truth is that, in many instances, there are just too many people with graduate degrees. You can earn as much money without a graduate degree. You may even end up working for someone who has lesser degrees: this is quite likely. 数据挖掘研究院
If you go for a Ph.D., in most countries and disciplines, you are unlikely to get a professorship on the day you graduate in the city of your choosing. This may never happen. You may have to take jobs you didn’t know existed in cities you would never have otherwise visited. Your supervisor tells you otherwise? Be worried. 数据挖掘研究院
Most definitively, currently, a law or medecine career is a much safer bet on the job market. 数据挖掘实验室
For more comments, see my post on the death of the invisible adjunct. 数据挖掘研究院
Myself? I chose to live dangerously! (Actually, I had no idea what I was doing.)
Advice for getting research/academic jobs 数据挖掘研究院
Inside Higher Education has great advice for managing your early career.
Here are my own advice: 数据挖掘实验室
- Publish early and often. Always publish something each and every year after you receive your Ph.D. even if it is only a so-so paper. The length of the publication list is not the determining factor, but if you stop publishing for a long time, even if you are working on a brilliant paper or have other excuses, it will look bad.
- Publish at good places on a regular basis. Not all papers need to be great, but if all your papers are published at second or third tier journals or conferences, it will show.
- Never stop completly your research, even if you need to do research part time, on week-ends, keep at it. It is very hard to get back to research when you’ve stopped for a year or two.
- Teaching every year, even if it is only 50 minutes, gives you a small edge in the academic job market.
In my experience, people will judge you on the following factors (disclaimer: this is my opinion):
- Your current position: if you are tenured professor at MIT, you are very likely to make it on the short list. I have theory that the current position one holds can be the single most important factor into getting to the short list. Basically, people don’t like to feel like they are promoting you or giving you a chance. They prefer to feel lucky you would leave a great job to come to them. Unfortunately, if you are currently unemployed, you might be in trouble. This is probably why people accept unacceptable working conditions just to hold decent enough jobs.
- Location of your current position: if you have a position in a foreign country or far away, most hiring committees will only short list you if you are extremly good. This means that your best bet is to have an impressive sounding position near several good academic or research institutions.
- Quality of the publication list: do you have some recent papers published at good places? Poor or average researchers can have long publication lists, but poor or average researchers don’t regularly publish in the best venues unless they work with great people. Make sure your publication list proves to them that you are either a good researcher or that you, at least, work with good ones.
- Research topic: do they care for the type of work you do? Working in a narrow field nobody cares about is not good.
- Clarity: surprisingly, some c.v.s are very confusing. Make sure people understand what you did, what are you doing and so on. Omit the marketing talk.
- Letter of interest: include a nice letter with your c.v. explaining clearly why you want the position.
- Interest: how badly you want to job? Calling up some of the professors to ask about the position can help you out. Any effort you can make to show you care for this particular position will play in your favor.
- References: did some famous person known to the committee recommend you? I find that if a respected researcher says a given candidate must be on the short list, it can make a huge difference. The reference doesn’t have to written on paper: you can ask someone to call up a friend on the hiring committee.
- Networking: are you connected? Do you know the right people?
- Funding: prove that you can earn research grants. If you can’t apply for research grants, try applying with someone else who can.
Don’t do like I do, travel smartly 数据挖掘研究院
You’ll have to travel, eventually, if only to present a paper in a conference. Presenting your work outside your school is important: try to do it once. Michael Nielsen has a nice page of tips on how to organize your trips.
I also wrote a page on this subject.
