Being a PhD Student:Experiences and Challenges

Faegheh Hasibi March 16, 2016

PhD machine

PhD machine

You are the engine

Take the responsibility and carry on

Research process

Read Experiment

Publish Networking

Time (#semester)

Rea

ding

, con

fusi

on

Start early …

Do not waste time in early years

Find your research topic

M. Shokouhi. “Recipes for PhD”, http://www.slideshare.net/shokouhi1/recipes-for-phd

Research topic

• Find a common ground between you and your supervisor’s interest

• Not too mature area

• Not too immature area

• Trendy area

M. Shokouhi. “Recipes for PhD”, http://www.slideshare.net/shokouhi1/recipes-for-phd

Reading

Read high quality papers

• Read papers from top venues in your field

• Read papers of top researchers in your field

• Follow the citations and read the related papers

Write a summary for each paper

M. Shokouhi. “Recipes for PhD”, http://www.slideshare.net/shokouhi1/recipes-for-phd

Use a reference manager

Only for writing inLatex/Word

Reading, annotating, sharing, organizing

Experimenting

Experiments

• Start with easy and incremental ones

• Be accurate and avoid making careless mistakes

• Create reliable and reproducible results

Document Document

Document Document

Document

• Keep a log of all results you get

• Write neat and documented code

Ben Hamner

When you write code, keep in mind that

you're collaborating with your future self.

Back up• Use a version control tool

• Bitbucket/ Github are your friends

Publishing

Publishing• Start publishing early

• Target a conference • Now you have a deadline!

• Plan ahead • Last minute papers are more likely to be rejected

Writing style

Take papers from the past years …, and “copy”

• It is not about plagiarism

• Quality papers are similar in their writing style, structure, terminology, methodology, …

✗

S. Lia-Jonassen. “Ten things I wish I knew before starting on a PhD”, http://s-j.github.io/ten-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-starting-on-a-phd/

Be persistent and keep pushing!

Paper acceptance factors

Low acceptance rates ~20%33%

33%

33%

Novelty Presentation Luck

S. Lia-Jonassen. “Ten things I wish I knew before starting on a PhD”, http://s-j.github.io/ten-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-starting-on-a-phd/

Networking

At your group• Join the coffee breaks

• Talk about your research with your colleages

At the conferences

• Mingle with other PhD students (future colleagues)

• Do not be shy • Help others to network and get helped!

• Talk to professors

Research visit

• Choose the right time to go abroad

• Early: Spending time on learning

• Late: Focus on publishing

Find a research group

• Ask your supervisor

• Meet at a conference

• Apply for an internship • e.g., Microsoft, Google, …

To make it productive…

• Go with a clear plan

• Keep in touch beforehand

• Discuss about the plan/paper ideas

Research process

Read Experiment

Publish Networking

General advices

Meetings

• Have an agenda for the meeting • What you did since the last meeting

• Questions you would like to discuss

• Take note of all the next action items

• Keep minutes of all the meetings

Research-related activities

• Become a reviewer

• Mentor master students

• If possible, do some teaching

Keep an eye out!

• Attend NTNU courses • https://innsida.ntnu.no/kurs

• Attend summer schools • Learning, networking, fun

• Find the news channel • Twitter, Mailing list, …

Life “outside” PhDBeing in the same group is more than

being in the same mailing list!

Photos by Jan R. Benetka