How to Succeed in Graduate School: A Guide for Students and Advisors-1

Abstract

This paper attempts to raise some issues that are importantfor graduate students to be successful and to get as muchout of the process as possible, and for advisors who wish tohelp their students be successful. The intent is not to pro-vide prescriptive advice – no formulas for finishing a thesis ortwelve-step programs for becoming a better advisor are given– but to raise awareness on both sides of the advisor-studentrelationship as to what the expectations are and should be forthis relationship, what a graduate student should expect toaccomplish, common problems, and where to go if the advisoris not forthcoming.

1 Introduction

This article originated with a discussion I had with severalwomen professors about the problems women face in grad-uate school, and how more women could be encouraged togo to graduate school in computer science. Eventually, theconversation turned to the question of what these womencould do in their interactions with women students to sup-port and encourage them. I volunteered that over the courseof my graduate career I had collected a variety of papers ande-mail discussions about how to be a good advisor, how toget through graduate school, and issues facing women. Theywere eager to get this material, and I told them I would sortthrough it when I got a chance.

After mentioning this project to a number of people, bothgraduate students and faculty – all of whom expressed an in-terest in anything I could give them – I realized two things:first, the issues that we were talking about really were not justwomen’s issues but were of interest to all graduate students,and to all caring advisors. Second, in order to disseminatethe information I had collected (and was starting to collectfrom others) it seemed to make more sense to compile a bib-liography, and write a paper that would summarize the mostuseful advice and suggestions I had collected.

I solicited inputs from friends and colleagues via mailinglists and Internet bulletin boards, and collected almost anoverwhelming amount of information. Sorting through it andattempting to distill the collective wisdom of dozens of arti-cles and hundreds of e-mail messages has not been an easytask, but I hope that the results provide a useful resource for

graduate students and advisors alike. The advice I give hereis directed towards Ph.D. students in computer science andtheir advisors, since that is my background, but I believe thatmuch of it applies to graduate students in other areas as well.

In my experience, the two main things that make graduateschool hard are the unstructured nature of the process, andthe lack of information about what you should spend yourtime on. I hope that this article will provide informationfor both graduate students and advisors that will help makethe process less painful. I want to emphasize that graduateschool is not easy, and these suggestions will not always beeasy or even possible to follow (and they may not even be theideal goal for you, personally, to strive for). You shouldn’t letthat discourage you: start small, think big, and keep yourselffocused on your ultimate goal, which shouldn’t just be to getthrough graduate school, but to enjoy yourself, make progresstowards being able to do what you want to do with your life,and learn something in the process.

I owe a debt of gratitude to David Chapman, whose paper([Chapman, 1988]) was an invaluable reference for me notonly during the writing of this article, but during graduateschool as well.

The goals of this article are to raise awareness of the needfor a healthy and interactive graduate student-advisor rela-tionship, to provide pointers and guidance for both advisorsand graduate students in navigating the maze of a doctoraldegree, and to give references and resources for those whohope to learn more.

2 Before You Start

Many headaches can be avoided by doing some advance plan-ning. First, why go to graduate school at all? The usualreasons given are that a Ph.D. is required or preferred forsome jobs, especially research and academic positions; that itgives you a chance to learn a great deal about a specific area;and that it provides an opportunity to develop ideas and per-form original research. Wanting to delay your job hunt isprobably not a good enough reason. Over the past decade,research and academic positions have become more difficultto find, and many recent Ph.D.s end up “killing time” in aseries of postdoctoral positions, or taking non-research jobs.Having a Ph.D. is not a guarantee of finding a better job in

Published in Crossroads, the Online ACM Student Magazine,issues 1.2 (December 1994) and 1.3 (January 1995).

How to Succeed in Graduate School:A Guide for Students and Advisors

Marie desJardinsmarie@erg.sri.com

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and of itself! In addition, graduate school is a lot of workand requires strong motivation and focus. You have to reallywant to be there to make it through.

It helps to have a good idea of what area you want tospecialize in, and preferably a couple of particular researchprojects you might like to work on, although many graduatestudents change their minds about research projects and evenspecialization field after they start school. Look for booksand current journals and conference proceedings in your area,and read through them to get an idea of who’s doing whatwhere. (You’ll be doing a lot of reading once you start grad-uate school, so you might as well get used to it.) This iswhere advisors first enter the scene: faculty members oughtto be willing to talk to undergraduates and help them findout more about research areas and graduate schools. Try toget involved in research: ask professors and TAs (teachingassistants) whether they need someone to work on an ongo-ing project, or start an independent research project, withguidance from a faculty member.

Contact faculty members and graduate students at theschools you’re interested in. Tell them about your backgroundand interests and ask them what research projects they’reworking on. A good way to do this is via electronic mail ifpossible – e-mail is much easier and quicker to respond to thana paper letter. A good advisor will be willing to answer thesekinds of inquiries (although if they’re busy they may give youonly a brief answer or point you towards a graduate student– you’ll have to use your intuition to decide whether they’rebrushing you off or just busy). If you can’t get any answerat all, consider that that individual might not end up being avery accessible advisor. Asking these questions will help younarrow down your choices and may increase your chances ofadmission if the professors you contact become interested inworking with you.

Your best bet is to find a school where there are at least twofaculty members you’d be interested in working with. Thatway, if one doesn’t work out, or is too busy to take on a newstudent, you have a fallback position. Breadth of the graduateprogram (i.e., high-quality faculty in a broad range of subar-eas) is also a good thing to look for in a school, especially ifyou’re not entirely certain what you want to specialize in.

It’s also important to most people to feel comfortable withthe community of graduate students. It pays to talk to someof the graduate students (both junior and senior) to find outhow they like it, which advisors are good, and what kindsof support (financial and psychological) are available. Be-cause there are so many students applying to each school,even highly qualified applicants are often rejected. You shouldapply to a range of programs – and don’t take it personallyif you do get rejected by some of them.

You can increase your chances of getting into graduateschool by developing good relationships with your professorsand work managers (this is very important for getting goodrecommendations), working on a research project, having aclear sense of what you want to work on (although it’s al-

ways all right to change your mind later), having a broadbackground in your field and in related fields (for example,psychology classes are useful for AI students), getting goodgrades (especially in upper division classes in your area of in-terest), and getting a high score on the GRE if required. Also,it’s a good idea to start thinking early about sources of fund-ing: apply for an NSF fellowship, for example (see Section 3.5for more ideas on finding funding).

3 Doing Research

For many new graduate students, graduate school is unlikeanything else they’ve done. Sometimes it’s hard to know ex-actly what it is you’re supposed to be learning. Yes, youhave to complete a dissertation, but how do you start? Whatshould you spend your time doing?

Graduate school is a very unstructured environment inmost cases. Graduate students typically take nine hours orless of coursework per semester, especially after the secondyear. For many, the third year – after coursework is largelyfinished and preliminary exams have been completed – is avery difficult and stressful period. This is when you’re sup-posed to find a thesis topic, if you’re not one of the lucky fewwho has already found one. Once you do find a topic, youcan expect two or more years until completion, with very fewlandmarks or milestones in sight.

The following sections talk about the day-to-day process ofdoing research, criticism and feedback, working on the thesis,and financial support for research.

3.1 The Daily Grind

Being a good researcher involves more than “merely” com-ing up with brilliant ideas and implementing them. Mostresearchers spend the majority of their time reading papers,discussing ideas with colleagues, writing and revising papers,staring blankly into space – and, of course, having brilliantideas and implementing them.

Section 4 discusses the process and importance of becomingpart of a larger research community, which is a critical aspectof being a successful researcher. This section contains ideas onkeeping track of where you’re going, and where you’ve been,with your research, staying motivated, and how to spend yourtime wisely.

Keeping a journal of your research activities and ideas isvery useful. Write down speculations, interesting problems,possible solutions, random ideas, references to look up, noteson papers you’ve read, outlines of papers to write, and inter-esting quotes. Read back through it periodically. You’ll no-tice that the bits of random thoughts start to come togetherand form a pattern, often turning into a research project oreven a thesis topic. I was surprised, looking back through myjournal as I was finishing up my thesis, how early and often

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similar ideas had cropped up in my thinking, and how theygradually evolved into a dissertation.

You’ll have to read a lot of technical papers to become fa-miliar with any field, and to stay current once you’ve caughtup. You may find yourself spending over half of your timereading, especially at the beginning. This is normal. It’salso normal to be overwhelmed by the amount of reading youthink you “should” do. Try to remember that it’s impossi-ble to read everything that might be relevant: instead, readselectively. When you first start reading up on a new field,ask your advisor or a fellow student what the most usefuljournals and conference proceedings are in your field, and askfor a list of seminal or “classic” papers that you should defi-nitely read. For AI researchers, a useful (if slightly outdated)starting point is Agre’s [1982] summary of basic AI references.Similar documents may exist for other research areas – askaround, and cruise the information superhighway. Start withthese papers and the last few years of journals and proceed-ings.

Before bothering to read any paper, make sure it’s worthit. Scan the title, then the abstract, then – if you haven’tcompletely lost interest already – glance at the introductionand conclusions. (Of course, if your advisor tells you that thisis an important paper, skip this preliminary step and jumpright in!) Before you try to get all of the nitty-gritty detailsof the paper, skim the whole thing, and try to get a feel forthe most important points. If it still seems worthwhile andrelevant, go back and read the whole thing. Many people findit useful to take notes while they read. Even if you don’t goback later and reread them, it helps to focus your attentionand forces you to summarize as you read. And if you do needto refresh your memory later, rereading your notes is mucheasier and faster than reading the whole paper.

A few other points to keep in mind as you read and evaluatepapers:

• Make sure the ideas described really worked (as opposedto just being theoretically valid, or tested on a few toyexamples).

• Try to get past buzzwords: they may sound good, butnot mean much. Is there substance and an interestingidea underneath the jargon?

• To really understand a paper, you have to understandthe motivations for the problem posed, the choices madein finding a solution, the assumptions behind the solu-tion, whether the assumptions are realistic and whetherthey can be removed without invalidating the approach,future directions for research, what was actually accom-plished or implemented, the validity (or lack thereof) ofthe theoretical justifications or empirical demonstrations,and the potential for extending and scaling the algorithmup.

  Keep the papers you read filed away so you can find themagain later, and set up an online bibliography (BibTeX is a

popular format, but anything consistent will do). I find ituseful to add extra fields for keywords, the location of thepaper (if you borrowed the reference from the library or afriend), and a short summary of particularly interesting pa-pers. This bibliography will be useful for later reference, forwriting your dissertation, and for sharing with other graduatestudents (and eventually, perhaps, advisees).

3.2 Staying Motivated

At times, particularly in the “middle years,” it can be veryhard to maintain a positive attitude and stay motivated.Many graduate students suffer from insecurity, anxiety, andeven boredom. First of all, realize that these are normal feel-ings. Try to find a sympathetic ear – another graduate stu-dent, your advisor, or a friend outside of school. Next, try toidentify why you’re having trouble and identify concrete stepsthat you can take to improve the situation. To stay focusedand motivated, it often helps to have organized activities toforce you to manage your time and to do something everyday. Setting up regular meetings with your advisor, attend-ing seminars, or even extracurricular activities such as sportsor music can help you to maintain a regular schedule.

Chapman [1988] enumerates a number of “immobilizingshoulds” that can make you feel so guilty and unworthy thatyou stop making progress. Telling yourself that you shouldhave a great topic, that you should finish in n years, that youshould work 4, or 8, or 12 hours a day isn’t helpful for mostpeople. Be realistic about what you can accomplish, and tryto concentrate on giving yourself positive feedback for tasksyou do complete, instead of negative feedback for those youdon’t.

Setting daily, weekly, and monthly goals is a good idea,and works even better if you use a “buddy system” whereyou and another student meet at regular intervals to reviewyour progress. Try to find people to work with: doing researchis much easier if you have someone to bounce ideas off of andto give you feedback.

Breaking down any project into smaller pieces is always agood tactic when things seem unmanageable. At the highestlevel, doing a master’s project before diving into a Ph.D. dis-sertation is generally a good idea (and is mandatory at someschools). A master’s gives you a chance to learn more aboutan area, do a smaller research project, and establish workingrelationships with your advisor and fellow students.

The divide-and-conquer strategy works on a day-to-daylevel as well. Instead of writing an entire thesis, focus on thegoal of writing a chapter, section, or outline. Instead of imple-menting a large system, break off pieces and implement onemodule at a time. Identify tasks that you can do in an houror less; then you can come up with a realistic daily schedule.If you have doubts, don’t let them stop you from accomplish-ing something – take it one day at a time. Remember, everytask you complete gets you closer to finishing. Even if youdon’t make any obvious progress, you’ll have learned some-

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thing, although it may be “don’t waste your time on this taskagain!”

3.3 Getting to the Thesis

The hardest part of getting a Ph.D. is, of course, writingthe dissertation. The process of finding a thesis topic, doingthe research, and writing the thesis is different from anythingmost students have done before. If you have a good advisorand support network, you’ll be able to get advice and help insetting directions and goals. If not, you may need to be moreindependent. If this is the case, don’t just isolate yourselffrom the world: try to go out and find the resources andsupport you need from professors, other graduate students,mailing lists, friends, family, and publications like this one.

3.3.1 Finding an Advisor

Finding the right advisor can help you immeasurably in suc-cessfully completing a thesis. You should ideally have se-lected the schools you applied to by identifying faculty mem-bers you’d like to work with. If not, start looking around asearly as possible. Of course, the ideal advisor will be in thearea you’re interested in working in, will actively be doinghigh-quality reseach and be involved in and respected by theresearch community, and (not least) will be someone you canget along with.

Read research summaries by faculty members (which areusually published by the department), go to talks they give,and attend or audit courses given by professors you might beinterested in working with. Talk to other graduate studentsand recent graduates. Ask them how their relationships withtheir advisors are/were, how quickly the advisor’s studentsgraduate, and how successful (well recognized, high-quality)their research is. What kinds of relationships do they have– frequent interactions, collaborative work, encouraging inde-pendence? handing out topics or helping students to createindividual research areas, or a more hands-off style?

Other things to find out about potential advisors:

• What is the average time their Ph.D. students take tofinish their degrees? What is the dropout rate for theirstudents?

• How long have they been on the faculty? There are ad-vantages and disadvantages to being one of the first mem-bers of a new research group. On the positive side, youoften have more freedom to choose your research topicand to influence the direction of the group’s research.On the negative side, you may be more isolated (sincethere won’t be older graduate students in the group),your advisor won’t have as much experience, and if theydon’t get tenure you may be scrambling for a new advisorseveral years into your thesis.

A good advisor will serve as a mentor as well as a source oftechnical assistance. A mentor should provide, or help you to

find, the resources you need (financial, equipment, and psy-chological support); introduce you and promote your work toimportant people in your field; encourage your own interests,rather than promoting their own; be available to give you ad-vice on the direction of your thesis and your career; and helpyou to find a job when you finish. They should help you toset and achieve long-term and short-term goals.

Once you identify one or more potential advisors, get toknow them. Introduce yourself and describe the area you’reinterested in. Attend their research group meetings if theyhold them regularly. Give them a copy of a research proposalif you have a good idea of what you want to work on, andask for comments. Ask whether they have any TA or RA(research assistant) positions available, or if there are anyongoing research projects that you could get involved with.Read their published papers, and the work of their students.Drop by during office hours and ask questions or make com-ments. Offer to read drafts of papers – and do more than justproofread (see Section 3.4).

The type of relationship that each student needs with anadvisor will be different. Some students prefer to be givenmore direction, to have frequent contact, and to be “checkedup on.” Others are more independent. Some may need con-tact but be self-conscious about asking for it. Other thingsthat vary include what kinds of feedback is preferred (lots of“random” ideas vs. very directed feedback (pointers)); work-ing individually vs. in groups; working on an established re-search project vs. a new, independent effort; working in thesame area as your advisor vs. doing an “outside” thesis.

You may find that your thesis advisor doesn’t always giveyou all of the mentoring that you need. Multiple mentors arecommon and useful; they may include other faculty membersin your department or elsewhere, senior graduate students, orother colleagues (see Section 4.3). You may want to seriouslyconsider changing thesis advisors if your advisor is inaccessi-ble or disinterested, gives you only negative feedback, doesn’thave the technical background to advise you on your thesis,or harasses you (see Section 7).

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

3.3.2 Finding a Thesis Topic

Doing a master’s project is often a good idea (and is requiredby some schools). Although choosing an appropriately scaled-down topic may be difficult, having the ideal topic is also lessimportant, since you will have the chance to move on afteronly a year or so. If you have a good idea of what you wantto do your Ph.D. dissertation on, choosing a master’s projectthat will lead into the dissertation is wise: you will get a headstart on the Ph.D., or may decide that you’re not interestedin pursuing the topic after all (saving yourself a lot of workand grief farther down the road).

A good source of ideas for master’s projects (and sometimesfor dissertation topics) is the future work section of papers

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you’re interested in. Try developing and implementing anextension to an existing system or technique.

Generally speaking, a good Ph.D. thesis topic is interestingto you, to your advisor, and to the research community. Aswith many aspects of graduate school, the balance you findwill depend at least in part on the relationship you have withyour advisor. Some professors have well defined long-termresearch programs and expect their students to contributedirectly to this program. Others have much looser, but stillrelated, ongoing projects. Still others will take on anyone withan interesting idea, and may have a broad range of interestingideas to offer their students. Be wary of the advisor who seemswilling to let you pursue any research direction at all. Youprobably won’t get the technical support you need, and theymay lose interest in you when the next graduate student witha neat idea comes along.

If you pick a topic that you’re not truly interested in sim-ply because it’s your advisor’s pet area, it will be difficult tostay focused and motivated – and you may be left hangingif your advisor moves on to a different research area beforeyou finish. The same is true for choosing a topic because ofits marketability: if you’re not personally excited about thetopic, you’ll have a harder time finishing and a harder timeconvincing other people that your research is interesting. Be-sides, markets change more quickly than most people finishdissertations.

In order to do original research, you must be aware of on-going research in your field. Most students spend up to a yearreading and studying current research to identify importantopen problems. However, you’ll never be able to read every-thing that might be relevant – and new work is always beingpublished.

Try to become aware and stay aware of directly relatedresearch – but if you see new work that seems to be doingexactly what you’re working on, don’t panic. It’s commonfor graduate students to see a related piece of work and thinkthat their topic is ruined. If this happens to you, rereadthe paper several times to get a good understanding of whatthey’ve really been accomplished. Show the paper to youradvisor or someone else who’s familiar with your topic andwhose opinions you respect. Introduce yourself to the authorat a conference or by e-mail, and tell them about your work.By starting a dialogue, you will usually find that their workisn’t quite the same, and that there are still directions opento you. You may even end up collaborating with them. Goodresearchers welcome the opportunity to interact and collabo-rate with someone who’s interested in the same problems theyare.

To finish quickly, it’s usually best to pick a narrow, welldefined topic. The downside of this approach is that it maynot be as exciting to you or to the research community. Ifyou’re more of a risk-taker, choose a topic that branches outin a new direction. The danger here is that it can be difficultto carefully define the problem, and to evaluate the solutionyou develop. If you have a topic like this, it helps a lot to have

an advisor or mentor who is good at helping you to focus andwho can help you maintain a reasonably rigorous approach tothe problem.

In the extreme case, if your topic is so out of the ordinarythat it’s unrelated to anything else, you may have difficultyconvincing people it’s worthwhile. Truly innovative researchis, of course, exciting and often pays back in recognition fromthe research community – or you could just be out in left field.If you have a far-out topic, be sure that people are actuallyinterested in it, or you’ll never be able to “sell” it later, andwill probably have trouble getting your work published andfinding a job. In addition, it will be hard to find colleagueswho are interested in the same problems and who can giveyou advice and feedback.

In any case, a good topic will address important issues. Youshould be trying to solve a real problem, not a toy problem (orworse yet, no problem at all); you should have solid theoreticalwork, good empirical results or, preferably, both; and thetopic will be connected to – but not be a simple variation on orextension of – existing research. It will also be significant yetmanageable. Finding the right size problem can be difficult.One good way of identifying the right size is to read otherdissertations. It’s also useful to have what Chapman [1988]calls a “telescoping organization” – a central problem that’ssolvable and acceptable, with extensions and additions thatare “successively riskier and that will make the thesis moreexciting.” If the gee-whiz additions don’t pan out, you’ll stillhave a solid result.

A good way to focus on a topic is to write one-sentenceand one-paragraph descriptions of the problem you want toaddress, and do the same for your proposed solution; thenwrite an outline of what a thesis that solved this problemwould look like (i.e., what chapters would be included, or, ifyou’re ambitious, what sections in each chapter).

Sometimes finding a small problem to work on and buildingon it in a “bottom up” fashion can work equally well, as longas you don’t fall into the trap of solving lots of small unrelatedproblems that don’t lead to a coherent, solid, substantial pieceof research (i.e., a thesis).

Remember that a thesis is only a few years of your work,and that – if all goes well – your research career will con-tinue for another 30 or 40. Don’t be afraid to leave part ofthe problem for future work, and don’t compare yourself tosenior researchers who have years of work and publicationsto show for it. (On the other hand, if you identify too muchfuture work, your thesis won’t look very exciting by compar-ison.) Graduate students often pick overly ambitious topics(in theory, your advisor will help you to identify a realisticsize problem). Don’t overestimate what other people havedone. Learn to read between the lines of grandiose claims(something else a good advisor will help you to do).

Some schools may require that you write a thesis proposal.Even if they don’t, this is a good first step to take. It forcesyou to define the problem, outline possible solutions, andidentify evaluation criteria; and it will help you to get use-

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ful feedback from your advisor and other colleagues. Writinga good thesis proposal will take up to several months, de-pending on how much background work and thinking you’vealready done in the process of choosing the topic.

The proposal should provide a foundation for the disser-tation. First, you must circumscribe the problem and argueconvincingly that it needs to be solved, and that you havea methodology for solving it. You must identify and discussrelated work: has this problem been addressed before? Whatare the shortcomings of existing work in the area, and howwill your approach differ from and be an improvement overthese methods?

Present your ideas for solving the problem in as much detailas possible, and give a detailed plan of the remaining researchto be done. The proposal should include, or be structuredas, a rough outline of the thesis itself. In fact, unless your fi-nal topic differs significantly from your proposed topic (whichmany do), you may be able to reuse parts of the proposal inthe thesis.

You will probably have to take an oral exam in which youpresent and/or answer questions about your proposal. Besure that your committee members are as familiar as possiblewith your work beforehand. Give them copies of the proposal,and talk to them about it. During the exam, don’t panic ifyou don’t know the answer to a question. Simply say, “I’mnot sure” and then do your best to analyze the question andpresent possible answers. Your examining committee wantsto see your analytical skills, not just hear canned answers toquestions you were expecting. Give a practice talk to otherstudents and faculty members. Remember: you know moreabout your thesis topic than your committee; you’re teachingthem something for a change.

3.3.3 Writing the Thesis

Graduate students often think that the thesis happens in twodistinct phases: doing the research, and writing the disserta-tion. This may be the case for some students, but more often,these phases overlap and interact with one another. Some-times it’s difficult to formalize an idea well enough to test andprove it until you’ve written it up; the results of your testsoften require you to make changes that mean that you haveto go back and rewrite parts of the thesis; and the processof developing and testing your ideas is almost never complete(there’s always more that you could do) so that many gradu-ate students end up “doing research” right up until the dayor two before the thesis is turned in.

The divide-and-conquer approach works as well for writ-ing as it does for research. A problem that many graduatestudents face is that their only goal seems to be “finish thethesis.” It is essential that you break this down into man-ageable stages, both in terms of doing the research and whenwriting the thesis. Tasks that you can finish in a week, a day,or even as little as half an hour are much more realistic goals.Try to come up with a range of tasks, both in terms of dura-

tion and difficulty. That way, on days when you feel energeticand enthusiastic, you can sink your teeth into a solid problem,but on days when you’re run-down and unmotivated, you canat least accomplish a few small tasks and get them off yourqueue.

It also helps to start writing at a coarse granularity andsuccessively refine your thesis. Don’t sit down and try tostart writing the entire thesis from beginning to end. Firstjot down notes on what you want to cover; then organize theseinto an outline (which will probably change as you progress inyour research and writing). Start drafting sections, beginningwith those you’re most confident about. Don’t feel obligatedto write it perfectly the first time: if you can’t get a paragraphor phrase right, just write something (a rough cut, a noteto yourself, a list of bulleted points) and move on. You canalways come back to the hard parts later; the important thingis to make steady progress.

When writing a thesis, or any technical paper, realize thatyour audience is almost guaranteed to be less familiar withyour subject than you are. Explain your motivations, goals,and methodology clearly. Be repetitive without being boring,by presenting your ideas at several levels of abstraction, andby using examples to convey the ideas in a different way.

Having a “writing buddy” is a good idea. If they’re workingon their thesis at the same time, so much the better, but themost important thing is that they be willing to give you feed-back on rough drafts, meet regularly to chart your progressand give you psychological support, and preferably that theybe familiar enough with your field to understand and reviewyour writing.

You may find Sloman’s extensive notes on writing a the-sis [Sloman, ] helpful; although they are intended for AIsoftware-development theses, many of his points apply to the-sis writing in general.

3.4 Getting Feedback

To be successful at research, it is essential that you learnto cope with criticism, and even that you actively seek itout. Learn to listen to valid, constructive criticism and toignore destructive, pointless criticism (after finding any pearlsof wisdom 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 readyto write a full conference or journal paper, and show it topeople. Even for pre-publishable papers, write carefully andclearly, to maximize your chances of getting useful comments(and of having people read what you wrote at all).

Give presentations at seminar series at your university, atconferences, and at other universities and research labs whenyou get the chance. Your advisor should help you find ap-propriate forums to present your work and ideas. Many fieldshave informal workshops that are ideal for presenting work inprogress.

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Attend conferences and talk about your research. Whenyou meet someone new and they ask you what you’re workingon, seize the opportunity. Don’t just say “I’m doing my thesison foobar applications of whatsis algorithms” – tell them asmuch as they’re willing to listen to. You should have 30-second, 2-minute, 5-minute and 10-minute summaries of yourthesis ready at a moment’s notice (but not memorized word-for-word; nobody wants to listen to a canned speech).

Talking to other people will help you to realize which as-pects of your research are truly different and innovative, howyour work fits into the current state of your field and whereit’s going, and which aspects of your work are harder to sell(and, therefore, which aspects you need to think more aboutjustifying).

Giving feedback to other students and colleagues is usefulfor many reasons. First, it helps you to polish your criticalskills, which are helpful both in understanding other people’swork and in evaluating your own. Second, it helps you to builda network of people who will be your colleagues for years tocome. Finally, if you give useful feedback, those people willbe more likely to make an effort to do the same for you.

It will be helpful (to you and to the person whose pa-per you’re reviewing) to organize comments on a paper indescending order of abstraction: high-level content-orientedcomments, mid-level stylistic and presentation comments, andlow-level nitpicky comments on syntax and grammar. Try tokeep your comments constructive (“this would read better ifyou defined X before introducing Y”) rather than destructive(“this is nonsense”).

You’ll want to read a paper at least twice – once to getthe basic ideas, then a second time to mark down comments.High-level comments describing your overall impression of thepaper, making suggestions for organization, presentation andalternative approaches to try, potential extensions, and rele-vant references are generally the most useful and the hardestto give. Low-level comments are more appropriate for a paperthat is being submitted for publication than for an unpub-lished paper such as a proposal or description of preliminaryresearch.

See [Parberry, 1989] for more suggestions on reviewing pa-pers.

3.5 Getting Financial Support

Most graduate students (at least in the natural sciences) havea source of financial support that pays their tuition and asmall living stipend. Although nobody ever got rich being agraduate student, you probably won’t starve either. Sourcesof funding include fellowships (from NSF, universisites, foun-dations, government agencies, and industry), employer sup-port, research assistantships (i.e., money from a faculty mem-ber’s research grant) and teaching assistantships. Kantrowitzand DiGennaro [1994] provide an extensive list of fundingsources for math, science, and engineering graduate students.

Start looking for money early. Many schools arrange sup-port in the form of an RA or TA position in the first year,but after that, you’re on your own. Deadlines for applica-tions vary, and if you miss one, you’ll probably have to waitanother year. After you apply, it can take six months or so toreview the applications and several more months to actuallystart receiving money.

Ask faculty members (especially your advisor, who shouldbe helping you to find support or providing support out of hisor her grant money), department administrators, and fellowgraduate students about available funding. Go to your univer-sity’s fellowship office or its equivalent, and look through thelistings in The Annual Register of Grant Support, The GrantRegister, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and FoundationGrants to Individuals. Look into NSF grants (there are sev-eral different programs). Take advantage of your status asa woman or minority if you are one (this may be the onlytime when it actually is an advantage). Most universitieshave fellowship programs that may be administered throughindividual departments or may be campus-wide.

If you haven’t yet begun actively doing research, getting anRA position from a faculty member may be a good way tobecome involved in a research project. Working on an existingresearch project by maintaining or developing hardware orsoftware, writing reports, and running experiments will giveyou a feel for what it’s like to do research – and you may evenfind a thesis topic. Ask around to see what’s available, andgo talk to professors whose work you find interesting.

For a research grant or fellowship, you will probably have towrite a proposal, so the more you’ve thought about potentialthesis topics, the better off you’ll be. You may need to tailoryour proposal to the interests and needs of the particularfunding agency or program you’re applying to, but stick tosomething you know about and are sincerely interested in.

Write for a general audience, since the people reviewingyour application may not be in the same field. Emphasizeyour goals and why the project you propose to work on isimportant. Talk as much as you can about how you’re goingto solve the problem, and be sure that your proposed solutionwill satisfy the goals you’ve set forth. Follow the rules forformat, page layout and length, or your application may noteven be reviewed.