I thought I would joke about this before it becomes a bitter reality!
ref: PhD Comics
Monday, September 26, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
The seven secrets of highly successful PhD students
Vitae is an organisation championing the personal, professional and career development of doctoral researchers and research staff in higher education institutions and research institutes.
Their website has a number of useful resources for graduate students. One of them is a document titled "The seven secrets of highly successful PhD students". Here's my summary:
1. Keep in touch with your supervisors.
2. Write often.
3. Be realistic about your contribution and yourself (being different than your PhD).
4. Avoid distractions.
5. Treat PhD as a job.
6. Ask for help.
7. Understand it's all about persistence.
Many thanks to Dina Said who let me know about this resource.
Their website has a number of useful resources for graduate students. One of them is a document titled "The seven secrets of highly successful PhD students". Here's my summary:
1. Keep in touch with your supervisors.
2. Write often.
3. Be realistic about your contribution and yourself (being different than your PhD).
4. Avoid distractions.
5. Treat PhD as a job.
6. Ask for help.
7. Understand it's all about persistence.
Many thanks to Dina Said who let me know about this resource.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
[metapost] Apology
I apologize for being away for a while. A number of significant events in my personal and professional life kept me busy for the past few months.
First and foremost, as of today, I'm the proud father of a sweet baby girl. She got beautiful eyes, minute fingers, loud cries, lovely smile and she has got a name: Salma. I'm planning to make friends with her, but she doesn't seem to be an easy girl. She seems to know her mother very well, though.
Another significant event that occurred to me of late is the Egyptian revolution. I didn't feel so much pride being Egyptian until that day! Although I was thousands of miles away from the Tahrir Square (center of the Egyptian revolution), I was honored to participate with my voice to form the international pressure on Mubarak's regime.
On the professional level, I have recently joined the Machine Translation team in Microsoft Research, Redmond. This team is a blend of talented researchers and engineers working together to push the boundaries in this field AND shipping that to create a competitive solution. I'm definitely proud of belonging to this team.
The last piece of news I'd like to share with you today is that I got offers from CMU, UMD, UBC and Purdue graduate schools. I'm planning to visit a couple of them before deciding where I'm gonna spend the next 5 years of my life.
I'm back!
First and foremost, as of today, I'm the proud father of a sweet baby girl. She got beautiful eyes, minute fingers, loud cries, lovely smile and she has got a name: Salma. I'm planning to make friends with her, but she doesn't seem to be an easy girl. She seems to know her mother very well, though.
Another significant event that occurred to me of late is the Egyptian revolution. I didn't feel so much pride being Egyptian until that day! Although I was thousands of miles away from the Tahrir Square (center of the Egyptian revolution), I was honored to participate with my voice to form the international pressure on Mubarak's regime.
On the professional level, I have recently joined the Machine Translation team in Microsoft Research, Redmond. This team is a blend of talented researchers and engineers working together to push the boundaries in this field AND shipping that to create a competitive solution. I'm definitely proud of belonging to this team.
The last piece of news I'd like to share with you today is that I got offers from CMU, UMD, UBC and Purdue graduate schools. I'm planning to visit a couple of them before deciding where I'm gonna spend the next 5 years of my life.
I'm back!
Friday, October 15, 2010
How to be on top of your field
Most computer science fields are fast moving. There’s a lot going on all the time at universities and research labs. Hundreds of publications appear every year through the few major conferences and journals of a field, not to mention venues with lower ranking. It is particularly important to keep a close eye on the advances going on in your field because research is –usually- incremental. You start where others left off. If you don’t know the recent findings of other scientists in the field, you will have hard time figuring out what topics are important, what approaches are popular, what the state of the art solving a particular problem is, etc.
Problem is: we spend a lot of time working on a particular project, taking care of our day-to-day job responsibilities, and trying to meet deadlines. It’s not uncommon for such activities to take up all the time we have, leaving no time for expanding our knowledge learning about recent findings in the field.
One way to solve this problem is to attend related major conferences. In addition to learning about new advances presented in the conference, you will have the opportunity to mingle with other researchers working on similar/related problems which may lead to collaboration projects. Unfortunately, this is not always a viable solution. Who got the bandwidth and resources to attend all related conferences!
Another solution that’s more affordable for research groups in universities as well as research labs was described by Prof. Azer Bestavros as follows:
Problem is: we spend a lot of time working on a particular project, taking care of our day-to-day job responsibilities, and trying to meet deadlines. It’s not uncommon for such activities to take up all the time we have, leaving no time for expanding our knowledge learning about recent findings in the field.
One way to solve this problem is to attend related major conferences. In addition to learning about new advances presented in the conference, you will have the opportunity to mingle with other researchers working on similar/related problems which may lead to collaboration projects. Unfortunately, this is not always a viable solution. Who got the bandwidth and resources to attend all related conferences!
Another solution that’s more affordable for research groups in universities as well as research labs was described by Prof. Azer Bestavros as follows:
- Each member in the group maintains a list of interesting papers s/he would like to read, covering last year’s proceedings of the major conferences and journals in the field.
- Schedule a recurrent 15-minutes meeting (frequency depends on the group size) in which one of the group members gives an overview on a paper in his list.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Personal statement
This post is the fifth featuring Prof. Mor Harchol-Balter's talk advising people applying to PhD programs in computer science or related areas.
[1st episode - 2nd episode - 3rd episode - 4th episode - full article]
It’s misleading that the personal statement is called a “personal” statement, since what admission committees are really looking for is a research statement. What admission committees want is a statement about what research you have done, what research you hope to do, and why you like research.
Here’s a template if you need one:
i. First paragraph – Describe the general areas of research that interest you and why. (This is helpful for a committee to determine which professors should read your application.)
ii. Second paragraph and Third paragraph – Descibe some research projects that you worked on. Tell us what you found, what you learned, what approaches you tried. It’s fine to say that you were unable to prove what you wanted or to solve your problem.
iii. Fourth paragraph – Tell us why you feel you need a Ph.D.. Look back to section 2 and explain what in there appealed to you.
iv. Fifth paragraph – Tell us why you want to come to CMU.Whom might you like to work with? What papers have you looked at from CMU that you enjoyed reading? What will CMU teach you?
It’s important to realize that the research statement is not a commitment to do research in that area. A third of all applicants end up working in an area different from that which they described on their research statement.
Here are the common mistakes that half of our applicants make:
• The grade regurgitator – “In my high school, I was ranked Number 1. Then I got a perfect score on my college entrance exams. Then I competed in a statewide math competition and I was the best. Then I competed in a national programming competition and I was 5th. In college, my GPA was 3.95 out of 4.0. For these reasons, I believe I will do well in your graduate department.”
What’s wrong with this? This portion of the essay is a waste of space. Awards are certainly relevant, however any award you won should be listed on a separate piece of paper which is titled “Awards and Honors” and which you can include with your application. There is no reason to tell us all this in your essay. It will only piss-off the people reviewing your application because they already read all this information earlier in your application and they now want to hear about research only.
• The boy genius – “When I was born, my mother gave me a glass ball to play with. I would lay and look at the prisms of light shining through my ball. At age 3, my father brought home our first computer and I disassembled it and then put it back together. It was then that I knew I wanted to become a computer scientist. By age 5, I had taken apart every appliance in our house. At age 6, I became a chess whiz ....”
What’s wrong with this? We simply don’t care what you did as a child, and we don’t believe you either. You’d be surprised how many applications from Einstein-wanna-be’s we get. If you really think this is relevant, put the important facts on a separate sheet of paper, and include it in your application. It’s best if your essay can stick with stuff you did in college and later.
[1st episode - 2nd episode - 3rd episode - 4th episode - full article]
It’s misleading that the personal statement is called a “personal” statement, since what admission committees are really looking for is a research statement. What admission committees want is a statement about what research you have done, what research you hope to do, and why you like research.
Here’s a template if you need one:
i. First paragraph – Describe the general areas of research that interest you and why. (This is helpful for a committee to determine which professors should read your application.)
ii. Second paragraph and Third paragraph – Descibe some research projects that you worked on. Tell us what you found, what you learned, what approaches you tried. It’s fine to say that you were unable to prove what you wanted or to solve your problem.
iii. Fourth paragraph – Tell us why you feel you need a Ph.D.. Look back to section 2 and explain what in there appealed to you.
iv. Fifth paragraph – Tell us why you want to come to CMU.Whom might you like to work with? What papers have you looked at from CMU that you enjoyed reading? What will CMU teach you?
It’s important to realize that the research statement is not a commitment to do research in that area. A third of all applicants end up working in an area different from that which they described on their research statement.
Here are the common mistakes that half of our applicants make:
• The grade regurgitator – “In my high school, I was ranked Number 1. Then I got a perfect score on my college entrance exams. Then I competed in a statewide math competition and I was the best. Then I competed in a national programming competition and I was 5th. In college, my GPA was 3.95 out of 4.0. For these reasons, I believe I will do well in your graduate department.”
What’s wrong with this? This portion of the essay is a waste of space. Awards are certainly relevant, however any award you won should be listed on a separate piece of paper which is titled “Awards and Honors” and which you can include with your application. There is no reason to tell us all this in your essay. It will only piss-off the people reviewing your application because they already read all this information earlier in your application and they now want to hear about research only.
• The boy genius – “When I was born, my mother gave me a glass ball to play with. I would lay and look at the prisms of light shining through my ball. At age 3, my father brought home our first computer and I disassembled it and then put it back together. It was then that I knew I wanted to become a computer scientist. By age 5, I had taken apart every appliance in our house. At age 6, I became a chess whiz ....”
What’s wrong with this? We simply don’t care what you did as a child, and we don’t believe you either. You’d be surprised how many applications from Einstein-wanna-be’s we get. If you really think this is relevant, put the important facts on a separate sheet of paper, and include it in your application. It’s best if your essay can stick with stuff you did in college and later.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Failure is an orphan
An eye opener! That's the least to say about this inspiring article for Prof. Stan Szpakowicz in Computational Linguistics journal.
According to the article, one project out of a hundred produces results that justify the investment. However, we tend to count ourselves among the 1%. That's because we need to show we outperformed others in order to publish more in order to have a thriving career in research. That's a compelling reason for us NOT to invest more time on something that produced negative results.
But WAIT. "Suppose you have set up an experiment carefully and in good faith, but still it comes up short. That’s not a positive outcome. Maybe your intuition has let you down. Maybe this cannot work. Wait, maybe you can prove that it cannot work?" THAT would be a useful outcome. But you need to get it published.
The problem boils down to peer reviews which aggressively reject failures. "A forthright admission of the inferiority of one’s results—despite the integrity or novelty
of the work—is a kiss of death: no publication. There must be improvement ... conformance to reviewers’ expectations is an asset. Indeed, we write so they are likely to accept". But we're talking about ourselves. WE are the reviewers. If we -the authors- insist on striving for success and run away from every negative result, then we -the reviewers- will check papers for signs of success.
An experiment carefully thought out, a systematic procedure, an honest evaluation—these are the ingredients of good science. It is not mandatory for the results to be positive, though it certainly lifts one up if they are. In areas where empirical methods dominate (e.g. computational linguistics) people try things which fail at the experimental stage. This may be due to lack of rigor, but often there are deeper, unexpected, and intriguing reasons. We can learn a lot if we analyze scientifically why an intuitive and plausible experiment did not work. Then again, to know what leads to dead ends in research surely can warn others off paths which take us nowhere. Simply put, a negative result can be a useful lesson.
Q: Philosophy aside, I want to publish a serious, worthwhile negative result I've obtained. Where to go today?
A: Here's a non-comprehensive list in different disciplines
According to the article, one project out of a hundred produces results that justify the investment. However, we tend to count ourselves among the 1%. That's because we need to show we outperformed others in order to publish more in order to have a thriving career in research. That's a compelling reason for us NOT to invest more time on something that produced negative results.
But WAIT. "Suppose you have set up an experiment carefully and in good faith, but still it comes up short. That’s not a positive outcome. Maybe your intuition has let you down. Maybe this cannot work. Wait, maybe you can prove that it cannot work?" THAT would be a useful outcome. But you need to get it published.
The problem boils down to peer reviews which aggressively reject failures. "A forthright admission of the inferiority of one’s results—despite the integrity or novelty
of the work—is a kiss of death: no publication. There must be improvement ... conformance to reviewers’ expectations is an asset. Indeed, we write so they are likely to accept". But we're talking about ourselves. WE are the reviewers. If we -the authors- insist on striving for success and run away from every negative result, then we -the reviewers- will check papers for signs of success.
An experiment carefully thought out, a systematic procedure, an honest evaluation—these are the ingredients of good science. It is not mandatory for the results to be positive, though it certainly lifts one up if they are. In areas where empirical methods dominate (e.g. computational linguistics) people try things which fail at the experimental stage. This may be due to lack of rigor, but often there are deeper, unexpected, and intriguing reasons. We can learn a lot if we analyze scientifically why an intuitive and plausible experiment did not work. Then again, to know what leads to dead ends in research surely can warn others off paths which take us nowhere. Simply put, a negative result can be a useful lesson.
Q: Philosophy aside, I want to publish a serious, worthwhile negative result I've obtained. Where to go today?
A: Here's a non-comprehensive list in different disciplines
- Journal of Interesting Negative Results in NLP and ML (http://www.jinr.org/)
- Journal of Negative Results in BioMedicine (http://www.jnrbm.com/)
- Journal of Negative Results – Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (http://www.jnr-eeb.org/)
- Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis (http://www.jasnh.com/)
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
The illustrated guide to a PhD
Here's how Prof. Matt Might (University of Utah) explains to fresh PhD students what a PhD is:
Imagine a circle that contains all of human knowledge:
By the time you finish elementary school, you know a little:
By the time you finish high school, you know a bit more:
With a bachelor's degree, you gain a specialty:
A master's degree deepens that specialty:
Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge:
Once you're at the boundary, you focus:
You push at the boundary for a few years:
Until one day, the boundary gives way:
And, that dent you've made is called a Ph.D.:
Of course, the world looks different to you now:
So, don't forget the bigger picture:
Keep pushing.
Taken from http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ - licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
Imagine a circle that contains all of human knowledge:
By the time you finish elementary school, you know a little:
By the time you finish high school, you know a bit more:
With a bachelor's degree, you gain a specialty:
A master's degree deepens that specialty:
Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge:
Once you're at the boundary, you focus:
You push at the boundary for a few years:
Until one day, the boundary gives way:
And, that dent you've made is called a Ph.D.:
Of course, the world looks different to you now:
So, don't forget the bigger picture:
Keep pushing.
Taken from http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ - licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
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