% This is the revised version, dated 6 October 1994, submitted to
% Crossroads, the electronic student magazine of the ACM.
\documentstyle[named,11pt,twocolumn,fullpage]{article}

\newlength{\titlewidth}
\settowidth{\titlewidth}{\Large Graduate Student}
\title{How to Succeed in Graduate School: \\
    A Guide for Students and Advisors \\
    \small \em Submitted to Crossroads, October 1994}
\author{Marie desJardins \\ marie@erg.sri.com}
\date{}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\begin{abstract}
This paper attempts to raise some issues that are important for 
graduate students to be successful and to get as much out of the
process as possible, and for advisors who wish to help their
students be successful.  The intent is not to provide prescriptive
advice -- no formulas for finishing a thesis or twelve-step programs
for becoming a better advisor are given -- but to raise awareness
on both sides of the advisor-student relationship as to what the
expectations are and should be for this relationship, what a
graduate student should expect to accomplish, common problems,
and where to go if the advisor is not forthcoming.
\end{abstract}


\section{Introduction}
\label{intro}

This article originated with a discussion I had with several
women professors about the problems women face in graduate school,
and how more women could be encouraged to go to graduate school
in computer science.  Eventually, the conversation turned to
the question of what these women could do in their interactions
with women students to support and encourage them.  I volunteered
that over the course of my graduate career I had collected a variety
of papers and e-mail discussions about how to be a good advisor,
how to get through graduate school, and issues facing women.
They were eager to get this material, and I told them I would
sort through it 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 anything
I could give them -- I realized two things:  first, the issues that
we were talking about really were not just women's issues but were
of interest to all graduate students, and to all caring advisors.
Second, in order to disseminate the information I had collected (and
was starting to collect from others) it seemed to make more sense
to compile a bibliography, and write a paper that would summarize
the most useful advice and suggestions I had collected.

I solicited inputs from friends and colleagues via 
mailing lists and Internet bulletin boards, and collected
almost an overwhelming amount of information.  Sorting through
it and attempting to distill the collective wisdom of dozens
of articles and hundreds of e-mail messages has not been an easy
task, but I hope that the results provide a useful resource for
graduate students and advisors alike.  The advice I give here is
directed towards Ph.D. students in computer science and their
advisors, since that is my background, but I believe that much of
it applies to graduate students in other areas as well.

In my experience, the two main things that make graduate school
hard are the unstructured nature of the process, and the lack
of information about what you should spend your time on.  I hope
that this article will provide information for both graduate
students and advisors that will help make the process less painful.
I want to emphasize that graduate school is not easy, and these
suggestions will not always be easy or even possible to follow (and
they may not even be the ideal goal for you, personally, to strive
for).  You shouldn't let that discourage you: start small, think big,
and keep yourself focused on your ultimate goal, which shouldn't just
be to get through graduate school, but to enjoy yourself, make
progress towards 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 (\cite{chapman})
was an invaluable reference for me not only during the writing of
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 graduate student-advisor relationship,
to provide pointers and guidance for both advisors and graduate
students in navigating the maze of a doctoral degree, and to
give references and resources for those who hope to learn more.


\section{Before You Start}
\label{applying}

Many headaches can be avoided by doing some advance planning.  First,
why go to graduate school at all?  The usual reasons given are that a Ph.D.
is required or preferred for some jobs, especially research and
academic positions; that it gives you a chance to learn a great deal about
a specific area; and that it provides an opportunity to develop ideas
and perform original research.  Wanting to delay your job hunt is probably
not a good enough reason.  Over the past decade, research and academic
positions have become more difficult to find, and many recent Ph.D.s
end up ``killing time'' in a series of postdoctoral positions, or
taking non-research jobs.  Having a Ph.D. is not a guarantee of
finding a better job in and of itself!
In addition, graduate school is a lot of work and requires
strong motivation and focus.  You have to really want to be there to
make it through.

It helps to have a good idea of what area you want to specialize in,
and preferably a couple of particular research projects you might like
to work on, although many graduate students change their minds about
research projects and even specialization field after they start school.
Look for books and current journals and conference proceedings
in your area, and read through them to get an idea of who's doing what
where.  (You'll be doing a {\em lot} of reading once you start
graduate school, so you might as well get used to it.)  This is where
advisors first enter the scene:  faculty members ought to be willing
to talk to undergraduates and help them find out more about research
areas and graduate schools.  Try to get involved in research:
ask professors and TAs (teaching assistants)
whether they need someone to work on an
ongoing project, or start an independent research project, with
guidance from a faculty member.

Contact faculty members and graduate students at the schools you're
interested in.  Tell them about your background and interests and
ask them what research projects they're working on.  A good way to
do this is via electronic mail if possible -- e-mail is much easier and
quicker to respond to than a paper letter.  A good advisor will be willing
to answer these kinds of inquiries (although if they're busy they may
give you only a brief answer or point you towards a graduate student -- you'll
have to use your intuition to decide whether they're brushing you off
or just busy).  If you can't get any answer at all, consider that
that individual might not end up being a very accessible advisor.
Asking these questions will help you narrow down your choices and
may increase your chances of admission if the professors you contact
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 interested in working with.  That way, if one doesn't
work out, or is too busy to take on a new student, you have a fallback
position.  Breadth of the graduate program (i.e., high-quality faculty
in a broad range of subareas) is also a good thing to look for in a
school, especially if you're not entirely certain what you want to
specialize in.

It's also important to most people to feel comfortable
with the community of graduate students.  It pays to talk to some of
the graduate students (both junior and senior) to find out how they
like it, which advisors are good, and what kinds of support (financial
and psychological) are available.  Because there are so many students
applying to each school, even highly qualified applicants are
often rejected.  You should apply to a range of programs -- and don't
take it personally if you do get rejected by some of them.

You can increase your chances of getting into graduate school by
developing good relationships with your professors and work managers
(this is very important for getting good recommendations), working on
a research project, having a clear sense of what you want to work on
(although it's always all right to change your mind later), having a
broad background in your field and in related fields (for example,
psychology classes are useful for AI students), getting good grades
(especially in upper division classes in your area of interest), and
getting a high score on the GRE if required.  Also, it's a good idea
to start thinking early about sources of funding: apply for an NSF
fellowship, for example (see Section~\ref{money} for more ideas on
finding funding).


\section{Doing Research} 
\label{research}

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

Graduate school is a very unstructured environment in most cases.
Graduate students typically take nine hours or less of coursework
per semester,
especially after the second year.  For many, the third year -- after
coursework is largely finished and preliminary exams have been
completed -- is a very difficult and stressful period.  This is when
you're supposed to find a thesis topic, if you're not one of the lucky
few who has already found one.  Once you do find a topic, you can
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 feedback, working on the thesis, and
financial support for research.


\subsection{The Daily Grind}

Being a good researcher involves more than ``merely'' coming up
with brilliant ideas and implementing them.  Most researchers spend
the majority of their time reading papers, discussing ideas with colleagues,
writing and revising papers, staring blankly into space -- and, of course,
having brilliant ideas and implementing them.

Section~\ref{community} discusses the process and importance of
becoming part of a larger research community, which is a critical aspect
of being a successful researcher.  This section contains ideas
on keeping track of where you're going, and where you've been, with
your research, staying motivated, and how to spend your time wisely.

Keeping a journal of your research activities and ideas is very useful.
Write down speculations, interesting problems, possible solutions,
random ideas, references to look up, notes on papers you've read, outlines of
papers to write, and interesting quotes.  Read back through it periodically.
You'll notice that the bits of random thoughts start to come together
and form a pattern, often turning into a research project or even a
thesis topic.  I was surprised, looking back through my journal as I
was finishing up my thesis, how early and often similar ideas had
cropped up in my thinking, and how they gradually evolved into a
dissertation.

You'll have to read a lot of technical papers to become familiar with
any field, and to stay current once you've caught up.  You may find
yourself spending over half of your time reading, especially at
the beginning.  This is normal.  It's also normal to be overwhelmed
by the amount of reading you think you ``should'' do.  Try to
remember that it's impossible to read everything that might be
relevant:  instead, read selectively.  When you first start reading
up on a new field, ask your advisor or a fellow student what the most
useful journals and conference proceedings are 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~\shortcite{agre} summary of basic
AI references.  Similar documents may exist for other research
areas -- ask around, and cruise the information superhighway.
Start with these papers and the last few years
of journals and proceedings.

Before bothering to read {\em any}
paper, make sure it's worth it.  Scan the title, then the abstract,
then -- if you haven't completely lost interest already -- glance at the
introduction and conclusions.  (Of course, if your advisor tells you that
this is an important paper, skip this preliminary step and jump
right in!)  Before you try to get all of the nitty-gritty details
of the paper, skim the whole thing, and try to get a feel for the
most important points.  If it still seems worthwhile and relevant,
go back and read the whole thing.  Many people find it useful to take
notes while they read.  Even if you don't go back later and reread
them, it helps to focus your attention and forces you to summarize
as you read.  And if you do need to refresh your memory later,
rereading your notes is much easier and faster than reading the whole paper.

A few other points to keep in mind as you read and evaluate papers:
\begin{itemize}
    \item Make sure the ideas described really worked (as opposed to
    	just being theoretically valid, or tested on a few toy examples).
    \item Try to get past buzzwords:  they may sound good, but not mean much.
    	Is there substance and an interesting idea underneath the jargon?
    \item To really understand a paper, you have to understand the
    	motivations for the problem posed, the choices made in finding
    	a solution, the assumptions behind the solution, whether the
    	assumptions are realistic and whether they can be removed without
    	invalidating the approach, future directions for
    	research, what was actually accomplished or implemented,
    	the validity (or lack thereof) of the theoretical justifications or
    	empirical demonstrations, and the potential for extending and
    	scaling the algorithm up.
    	
\end{itemize}

Keep the papers you read filed away so you can find them again later,
and set up an online bibliography
(BibTeX is a popular format, but anything consistent will do).  I find
it useful to add extra fields for keywords, the location of the paper
(if you borrowed the reference from the library or a friend), and a
short summary of particularly interesting papers.  This bibliography
will be useful for later reference, for writing your dissertation,
and for sharing with other graduate students (and eventually, perhaps,
advisees).

\subsection{Staying Motivated}

At times, particularly in the ``middle years,'' it can be very hard
to maintain a positive attitude and stay motivated.  Many graduate
students suffer from insecurity, anxiety, and even boredom.  First
of all, realize that these are normal feelings.  Try to find a sympathetic
ear -- another graduate student, your advisor, or a friend outside
of school.  Next, try to identify why you're having trouble and identify
concrete steps that you can take to improve the situation.  To stay focused
and motivated, it often helps to have organized activities to force you
to manage your time and to do something every day.  Setting up regular
meetings with your advisor, attending seminars, or even extracurricular
activities such as sports or music can help you to maintain a regular
schedule.

Chapman \shortcite{chapman}
enumerates a number of ``immobilizing shoulds'' that can make
you feel so guilty and unworthy that you stop making progress.
Telling yourself that you {\em should} have a great topic, that you
{\em should} finish in $n$ years, that you {\em should} work 4, or 8,
or 12 hours a day isn't helpful for most people.  Be realistic about
what you can accomplish, and try to concentrate on giving yourself
positive feedback for tasks you do complete, instead of negative
feedback for those you 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 student
meet at regular intervals to review your progress.  Try to find people
to work with:  doing research is much easier if you have someone
to bounce ideas off of and to give you feedback.

Breaking down any project into smaller pieces is always a good tactic
when things seem unmanageable.  At the highest level, doing a master's
project before diving into a Ph.D. dissertation is generally a good
idea (and is mandatory at some schools).  A master's gives you a chance
to learn more about an area, do a smaller research project, and
establish working relationships with your advisor and fellow students.

The divide-and-conquer strategy works on a day-to-day level as well.
Instead of writing an entire thesis, focus on the goal of writing a
chapter, section, or outline.  Instead of implementing a large system,
break off pieces and implement one module at a time.  Identify tasks
that you can do in an hour or less; then you can come up with a realistic
daily schedule.  If you have doubts, don't let them stop you from
accomplishing something -- take it one day at a time.  Remember, every
task you complete gets you closer to finishing.  Even if you don't
make any obvious progress, you'll have learned something, although it
may be ``don't waste your time on this task again!''


\subsection{Getting to the Thesis}

The hardest part of getting a Ph.D. is, of course, writing the dissertation.
The process of finding a thesis topic, doing the research, and writing
the thesis is different from anything most students have done before.  If you
have a good advisor and support network, you'll be able to get advice and
help in setting directions and goals.  If not, you may need to be more
independent.  If this is the case, don't just isolate yourself from the
world:  try to go out and find the resources and support you need from
professors, other graduate students, mailing lists, friends, family,
and publications like this one.


\subsubsection{Finding an Advisor}

Finding the right advisor can help you immeasurably in successfully
completing a thesis.  You should ideally have selected the schools you
applied to by identifying faculty members you'd like to work with.  If not,
start looking around as early as possible.  Of course, the ideal
advisor will be in the area you're interested in working in, will
actively be doing high-quality reseach and be involved in and respected
by the research community, and (not least) will be someone you can 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 courses given by professors you might be interested in
working with.
Talk to other graduate students and recent graduates.  Ask them how
their relationships with their advisors are/were, how quickly the
advisor's students graduate, and how successful (well recognized,
high-quality) their research is.  What kinds of relationships do
they have -- frequent interactions, collaborative work, encouraging
independence?  handing out topics or helping students to create
individual research areas, or a more hands-off style?

Other things to find out about potential advisors:
\begin{itemize}
\item What is the average time their Ph.D. students take to finish
their degrees?  What is the dropout rate for their students?
\item How long have they been on the faculty?  There are advantages
and disadvantages to being one of the first members of a new
research group.  On the positive side, you often have more freedom
to choose your research topic and to influence the direction of the
group's research.  On the negative side, you may be more isolated
(since there won't be older graduate students in the group), your
advisor won't have as much experience, and if they don't get tenure
you may be scrambling for a new advisor several years into your thesis.
\end{itemize}

A good advisor will serve as a mentor as well as a source of technical
assistance.  A mentor should provide, or help you to find, the resources
you need (financial, equipment, and psychological support); introduce
you and promote your work to important people in your field;
encourage your own interests, rather than promoting their own; be
available to give you advice on the direction of your thesis and
your career; and help you to find a job when you finish.  They
should help you to set and achieve long-term and short-term goals.

Once you identify one or more potential advisors, get to know them.
Introduce yourself and describe the area you're interested in.  Attend
their research group meetings if they hold them regularly.  Give them
a copy of a research proposal if you have a good idea of what you want to
work on, and ask for comments.  Ask whether they have any TA or RA
(research assistant) positions
available, or if there are any ongoing 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
comments.  Offer to read drafts of papers -- and do more than just
proofread (see Section~\ref{feedback}).

The type of relationship that each student needs with an advisor
will be different.  Some students prefer to be given more direction,
to have frequent contact, and to be ``checked up on.''  Others are
more independent.  Some may need contact but be self-conscious about
asking for it.  Other things that vary include what kinds of feedback
is preferred (lots of ``random'' ideas vs. very directed feedback
(pointers)), working individually vs. in groups, working on an
established research project vs. a new, independent effort; working
in the same area as your advisor or doing an ``outside'' thesis.

You may find that your thesis advisor
doesn't always give you all of the mentoring that you need.  Multiple
mentors are common and useful; they may include other faculty members
in your department or elsewhere, senior graduate students, or other
colleagues (see Section~\ref{networking}).
You may want to seriously consider
changing thesis advisors if your advisor is inaccessible or disinterested,
gives you only negative feedback, doesn't have the technical background
to advise you on your thesis, or harasses you (see Section~\ref{women}).

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


\subsubsection{Finding a Thesis Topic}

Doing a master's project is often a good idea (and is required by
some schools).  Although choosing an appropriately scaled-down topic
may be difficult, having the ideal topic is also less important,
since you will have the chance to move on after only a year or so.
If you have a good idea of what you want to do your Ph.D. dissertation
on, choosing a master's project that will lead into the dissertation
is wise:  you will get a head start on the Ph.D., or may decide that
you're not interested in pursuing the topic after all (saving yourself
a lot of work and grief farther down the road).

A good source of ideas for master's projects (and sometimes for
dissertation topics) is the future work section of papers you're
interested in.  Try developing and implementing an extension to
an existing system or technique.

Generally speaking, a good Ph.D. thesis topic is interesting to you, to your
advisor, and to the research community.  As with many aspects of
graduate school, the balance you find will depend at least in part
on the relationship you have with your advisor.  Some professors have
well defined long-term research programs and expect their students
to contribute directly to this program.  Others have much looser,
but still related ongoing projects.  Still others will take on anyone
with an interesting idea, and may have a broad range of interesting
ideas to offer their students.  Be wary of the advisor who seems willing to
let you pursue any research direction at all.  You probably won't get the
technical support you need, and they may lose interest in you when the
next graduate student with a neat idea comes along.

If you pick a topic that you're not truly interested in simply because
it's your advisor's pet area, it will be difficult to stay focused
and motivated -- and you may be left hanging if your advisor moves on
to a different research area before you finish.  The same is true for
choosing a topic because of its marketability:  if you're not personally
excited about the topic, you'll have a harder time finishing and
a harder time convincing other people that your research is interesting.
Besides, markets change more quickly than most people finish dissertations.

In order to do original research, you must be aware of ongoing research
in your field.  Most students spend up to a year reading and studying
current research to identify important open problems.  However,
you'll never be able to read everything that might be relevant -- and new
work is always being published.

Try to become aware and stay aware
of directly related research -- but if you see new work that seems
to be doing exactly what you're working on, don't panic.  It's common
for graduate students to see a related piece of work and think that their
topic is ruined.  If this happens to you, reread the paper several times
to get a good understanding of what they've really been accomplished.
Show the paper to your advisor or someone else who's familiar with your
topic and whose opinions you respect.  Introduce yourself to the author
at a conference or by e-mail, and tell them about your work.  By starting
a dialogue, you will usually find that their work isn't quite the same,
and that there are still directions open to you.  You may even end up
collaborating with them. Good researchers welcome the opportunity to
interact and collaborate with someone who's interested in the same
problems they are.

To finish quickly, it's usually best to pick a narrow, well defined
topic.  The downside of this approach is that it may not be as exciting
to you or to the research community.  If you're more of a risk-taker,
choose a topic that branches out in a new direction.  The danger here
is that it can be difficult to carefully define the problem, and to evaluate
the solution you 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 and
who can help you maintain a reasonably rigorous approach to the problem.

In the extreme case, if your topic is so out of the ordinary that it's
unrelated to anything else, you may have difficulty convincing people
it's worthwhile.  Truly innovative research is, of course, exciting
and often pays back in recognition from the research community -- or
you could just be out in left field.
If you have a far-out topic, be sure that people are actually {\em
interested} in it, or you'll never be able to ``sell'' it later,
and will probably have trouble getting your work published and
finding a job.  In addition, it will be hard to find colleagues who
are interested in the same problems and who can give you advice and
feedback.

In any case, a good topic will address important issues.  You should
be trying to solve a real problem, not a toy problem (or worse yet,
no problem at all); you should have solid theoretical work, good
empirical results or, preferably, both; and the topic will be connected
to -- but not be a simple variation on or extension of -- existing
research.  It will also be significant yet manageable.  Finding the right
size problem can be difficult.  One good way of identifying the
right size is to read other dissertations.  It's also useful to
have what Chapman~\shortcite{chapman} calls a ``telescoping organization'' -- a central
problem that's solvable and acceptable, with extensions and additions
that are ``successively riskier and that will make the thesis more
exciting.''  If the gee-whiz additions don'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 the {\em problem} you want to address,
and do the same for your proposed {\em solution}; then write an
outline of what a thesis that solved this problem would look like
(i.e., what chapters would be included, or if you're ambitious, what
sections in the chapter).

Sometimes finding a small problem to work on and building on it in a
``bottom up'' fashion can work equally well, as long as you don't
fall into the trap of solving lots of small unrelated problems 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 -- your research career will continue for another 30 or
40.  Don't be afraid to leave part of the problem for future work, and
don't compare yourself to senior researchers who have years of work
and publications to show for it.  (On the other hand, if you identify
too much future work, your thesis won't look very exciting by
comparison.)  Graduate students often pick
overly ambitious topics (in theory, your advisor will help you to
identify a realistic size problem).  Don't overestimate what other
people have done.  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 forces you
to define the problem, outline possible solutions, and identify
evaluation criteria; and it will help you to get useful feedback from
your advisor and other colleagues.  Writing a good thesis proposal
will take up to several months, depending on how much background work and
thinking you've already done in the process of choosing the topic.

The proposal should provide a foundation for the dissertation.  First,
you must circumscribe the problem and argue convincingly that it needs
to be solved, and that you have a methodology for solving it.  You
must identify and discuss related work:  has this problem been addressed
before?  What are the shortcomings of existing work in the area, and
how will your approach differ from and be an improvement over these
methods?

Present your ideas for solving the problem in as much detail as possible,
and give a detailed plan of the remaining research to be done.  The
proposal should include, or be structured as, a rough outline of the
thesis itself.  In fact, unless your final topic differs significantly
from your proposed topic (which many do), you may be able 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 questions about your proposal.  Be sure that your committee
members are as familiar as possible with your work beforehand.  Give
them copies of the proposal, and talk to them about it.  During the exam,
don't panic if you don't know the answer to a question.  Simply say, ``I'm
not sure'' and then do your best to analyze the question and present
possible answers.  Your examining committee wants to see your
analytical skills, not just hear canned answers to questions you were
expecting.  Give a practice talk to other students and faculty members.
Remember:  you know more about your thesis topic than your committee;
you're teaching {\em them} something for a change.


\subsubsection{Writing the Thesis}

Graduate students often think that the thesis happens in two distinct
phases:  doing the research, and writing the dissertation.  This may be
the case for some students, but more often, these phases overlap and
interact with one another.  Sometimes it's difficult to formalize an idea
well enough to test and prove it until you've written it up; the results of
your tests often require you to make changes that mean that you have to
go back and rewrite parts of the thesis; and the process of developing and
testing your ideas is almost never complete (there's always more that you
{\em could} do) so that many graduate students end up ``doing research''
right up until the 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 problem that many graduate students face is that their
only goal seems to be ``finish the thesis.''  It is essential that you break
this down into manageable stages, both in terms of doing the research
and when writing 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 duration and difficulty.
That way, on days when you feel energetic and enthusiastic, you can
sink your teeth into a solid problem, but on days when you're run-down
and unmotivated, you can at least accomplish a few small tasks and
get them off your queue.

It also helps to start writing at a coarse granularity and successively
refine your thesis.  Don't sit down and try to start writing the entire
thesis from beginning to end.  First jot down notes on what you want
to cover; then organize these into an outline (which will probably change
as you progress in your research and writing).  Start drafting sections,
beginning with those you're most confident about.  Don't feel obligated
to write it perfectly the first time:  if you can't get a paragraph or
phrase right, just write {\em something} (a rough cut, a note to
yourself, a list of bulleted points) and move on.  You can always come
back to the hard parts later; the important thing is to make steady
progress.

When writing a thesis, or any technical paper, realize that your
audience is almost guaranteed to be less familiar with your 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,
and by using examples to convey 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 important thing
is that they be willing to give you feedback on rough drafts, meet
regularly to chart your progress and give you psychological support,
and preferably that they be familiar enough with your field to understand
and review your writing.

You may find Sloman's extensive notes on writing a
thesis~\cite{sloman} helpful; although they are intended for AI
software-development theses, many of his points apply to thesis
writing in general.


\subsection{Getting Feedback}
\label{feedback}

To be successful at research, it is essential that you learn to cope with
criticism, and even that you actively seek it out.  Learn to listen to valid,
constructive criticism and to ignore destructive, pointless criticism
(after finding any pearls of 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 ready to write a full
conference or journal paper, and show it to people.  Even for
pre-publishable papers, write carefully and clearly, 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, at conferences,
and at other universities and research labs when you get the chance.
Your advisor should help you find appropriate forums to present your
work and ideas.  Many fields have informal workshops that are ideal
for presenting work in progress.

Attend conferences and talk about your research.  When you meet someone
new and they ask you what you're working on, seize the opportunity.
Don't just say ``I'm doing my thesis on foobar applications of whatsis
algorithms'' -- tell them as much as they're willing to listen to.  You
should have 30-second, 2-minute, 5-minute and 10-minute summaries of
your thesis 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 aspects of your
research are truly different and innovative, how your work fits into the
current 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 think more about justifying).

Giving feedback to other students and colleagues is useful for many
reasons.  First, it helps you to polish your critical skills, which
are helpful both in understanding other people's work and in evaluating
your own.  Second, it helps you to build a network of people who will
be your colleagues for years to come.  Finally, if you give useful feedback,
those people will be more likely 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 comments on a paper in descending order of abstraction:
high-level content-oriented comments, mid-level stylistic and presentation
comments, and low-level nitpicky comments on syntax and grammar.  Try
to keep your comments constructive (``this would read better if you
defined X before 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 time to mark down comments.  High-level comments describing
your overall impression of the paper, making suggestions for organization,
presentation and alternative approaches to try, potential extensions,
and relevant references are generally the most useful and the hardest
to give.  Low-level comments are more appropriate for a paper that is
being submitted for publication than for an unpublished paper such as
a proposal or description of preliminary research.

See~\cite{parberry-review} for more suggestions on reviewing papers.


\subsection{Getting Financial Support}
\label{money}

Most graduate students (at least in the natural sciences) have a source
of financial support that pays their tuition and a small living stipend.
Although nobody ever got rich being a graduate student, you probably
won't starve either.  Sources of funding include fellowships (from NSF,
universisites, foundations, government agencies, and industry), employer
support, research assistantships (i.e., money from a faculty member's
research grant) and teaching assistantships.  Kantrowitz~
\shortcite{kantrowitz} provides an extensive 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 TA position in the first year, but after that, you're on your
own.  Deadlines for applications vary, and if you miss one, you'll probably
have to wait another year.  After you apply, it can take six months or so
to review the applications and several more months to actually start
receiving money.

Ask faculty members (especially your advisor, who should be helping you
to find support or providing support out of his or her grant money),
department administrators, and fellow graduate students about available
funding.  Go to your university's fellowship office or its equivalent,
and look through the listings in {\em The Annual Register of Grant
Support}, {\em The Grant Register}, {\em The Chronicle of Higher Education},
and {\em Foundation Grants to Individuals}.  Look into NSF grants (there
are several different programs).  Take advantage of your status as a woman
or minority if you are one (this may be the only time when it actually
is an advantage).  Most universities have fellowship programs that may
be administered through individual departments or may be campus-wide.

If you haven't yet begun actively doing research, getting an RA position
from a faculty member may be a good way to become involved in a research
project.  Working on an existing research project by maintaining or
developing hardware or software, writing reports, and running experiments
will give you a feel for what it's like to do research -- and you may even
find a thesis topic.  Ask around to see what's available, and go talk
to professors whose work you find interesting.

For a research grant or fellowship, you will probably have to write a
proposal, so the more you've thought about potential thesis topics, the
better off you'll be.  You may need to tailor your proposal to the
interests and needs of the particular funding agency or program you're
applying to, but stick to something you know about and are sincerely
interested in.

Write for a general audience, since the people reviewing your application
may not be in the same field.  Emphasize your goals and why the project you
propose to work on is important.  Talk as much as you can about how you're
going to solve the problem, and be sure that your proposed solution will
satisfy the goals you've set forth.  Follow the rules for format, page
layout and length, or your application may not even be reviewed.


\section{Becoming Part of the Research Community}
\label{community}

One of the most important things a graduate student should do is
to become established as part of the research community.  Your advisor
can help with this process by funding conference travel, encouraging you
to publish research results early, collaborating on joint publications,
introducing you to colleagues, and promoting your work.

In turn, you can make yourself more visible by participating in conferences
and workshops, publishing papers on your work, and meeting and maintaining
contact with colleagues.


\subsection{Attending Conferences}
\label{conferences}

Attending conferences and workshops is valuable whether you present
a paper or not.  Some of the reasons to do so are:
\begin{itemize}
    \item You'll meet people and have a chance to discuss your ideas
    	and to hear theirs.
    \item You'll get a good sense of what the current state of research is,
    	and will learn more about how to write conference papers and give
    	talks (sometimes by counterexample).
    \item You'll probably realize that your ideas are more significant,
    	relatively speaking, than you thought.  A common reaction is
    	``I could write a better paper than this!''
\end{itemize}

If you're giving a talk you'll gain even more visibility, and will have
an opportunity to make an impression on other researchers.  
Some tips
for preparing your talk to make this impression as positive as possible:
\begin{itemize}
    \item Give a practice talk, especially if you tend to get stage fright.
    	Be sure to invite people who will give you constructive, but
    	useful, feedback.
    \item Make sure your talk fits in the time slot allocated.  There's
    	nothing worse than a speaker who rushes through the last ten slides,
    	or skips from the middle of the talk to the conclusion.  A good
    	rule is to allocate 2-3 minutes per slide, on average.
    \item It's better to be somewhat abstract than to get bogged down in
    	technical details -- but be sure you give enough detail to make a
    	convincing case.  Your paper should fill in the missing details,
    	so that people can read it to get a more in-depth understanding.
    	Know your audience:  you'll have to give more background to
    	a general audience, and more technical detail to audiences that are
    	very familiar with the field of research you're discussing.
    \item Use examples and pictures to illustrate and clarify your ideas.
    \item Learn by observation:  try to imitate qualities of talks that you
    	like, and avoid things that other speakers do that bother you.
    \item Talk about your ideas informally whenever you get the chance,
    	so that the talk will come more naturally and, hopefully, you'll
    	have a chance to respond to and think about questions that might
    	get asked at the talk.
    \item Make sure your slides are readable and as simple as possible.
    	Never put up a slide with tiny text and say ``I know you can't
    	read this, but...''
    \item Try to relax.  Don't read from a script or word-for-word from
    	your slides, and don't talk too fast.  Be confident:  you know
    	more about your work (flaws and all) than anyone else.
\end{itemize}
Parberry~ \shortcite{parberry-talks} contains some more suggestions
for organizing and presenting a talk, directed at theoretical computer
scientists.


\subsection{Publishing Papers}
\label{publishing}

Publishing your ideas is important for several reasons:  it gives you a
source of feedback from people who read your papers; it establishes you as
a member of the research community (useful for getting a job down the
line); and it forces you to clarify your ideas and to fit them in the context
of the current state of research in your field.

There are two key properties of a good paper:  significant content -- original,
important ideas that are well developed and tested -- and good writing style.
The degree to which the paper's content has to be ``significant'' depends on
where you're submitting it.  Preliminary ideas and work in progress are more
suitable for a workshop or symposium; well developed, extensively tested
ideas are more appropriate for a journal.  One way to decide where your
paper should be submitted is to read papers in potentially appropriate
publications (last year's conference proceedings; current journal issues).
Another method is to show a draft or outline of the paper to your advisor 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 sure you know what the point of the paper is, and state it
clearly and repeatedly.  The same goes for the key technical ideas.
Don't make the reader work to figure out what's important -- tell them
explicitly.  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
important, how you're solving it, what results you have, how other
researchers have addressed the same or similar problems, and why your method
is 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, less
background and more technical detail for specialized audiences.  Use
a running exmaple if possible, especially if your paper is dense with
equations 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 material, not just rehashing the same ideas.  Some papers
start as short workshop papers, evolve into conference papers, and
eventually -- with the addition of detailed empirical results or formal
proofs -- become journal articles.  It's usually okay to publish the same
or substantially similar papers in multiple workshops, but papers for
conferences and journals generally have to be original, unpublished work.

It is critical that any paper you plan to submit be read by someone
else first, if only to check for typos, grammatical errors, and style.
A good reviewer will give you feedback on the organization and content
of the paper as well (see Section~\ref{feedback}).  The more tightly
refereed the publication you're submitting to, the more trouble you
should go to in order
to have it pre-reviewed.  For a workshop paper, having your
advisor read it over (assuming you can convince them to do so!)
is probably enough. For a refereed conference, have one
or two other graduate students read it as well.  For a journal paper,
you should probably find researchers who are active in the field,
preferably at other institutions (to give breadth), read it over and
give you comments.  This is where the network of colleagues you should
build (Section~\ref{networking}) comes in handy.

If you go through multiple revisions of a paper, don't expect the same
person (even---perhaps especially---your advisor) to keep reading new
drafts.  You should only give a revised draft to your advisor or
another reviewer if the paper has changed substantially and they've
said that they'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
get more substantial and useful reviews from journals than conferences
or workshops.  Often a journal paper will be returned for revisions;
usually a conference paper will just be accepted or rejected outright.
After reading the review the first time, put it aside.  Come back to it
later, reading the paper closely to decide whether the criticisms were
valid and how you can address them.

You will often find that reviewers
make criticisms that are off-target because they misinterpreted some
aspect of your paper, or just because they're lazy.
If so, don't let it get to you -- just rewrite
that part of your paper more clearly so that the same misunderstanding
won't happen again.  It's frustrating to have a paper rejected because
of a misunderstanding, but at least it's something you can fix.  On
the other hand, criticisms of the content of the paper may require more
substantial revisions -- rethinking your ideas, running more tests, or
redoing an analysis.  (On the third hand, sometimes a paper is
rejected for neither of these reasons, but because of politics:
somebody on the reviewing committee dislikes your topic, your advisor,
your writing style, or even you personally for some reason.  This is
all the more reason to try resubmitting to a different conference or
journal!) 


\subsection{Networking}
\label{networking}

One of the most important skills you should be learning in graduate
school is how to ``network.''  Breaking into the research community
requires attending conferences, meeting established researchers, and
making yourself known.  Networking {\em is} a learned skill, so you
shouldn't expect to be an expert at it immediately; but it is also a
skill that you can, and should, learn in order to be a successful
member of the research community.

Just going to conferences and standing in the corner isn't enough.
Especially if you're not normally an outgoing person, you have to
make a conscious effort to meet and build relationships with other
researchers.  Presenting papers is a good way to do this, since people
will often approach you to discuss your presentation.  Introducing
yourself to people whose presentations you found interesting, and asking
a relevant question or describing related research you're doing, is
also a good way to meet people.  Sometimes it's easier to meet other
graduate students than senior researchers---this is fine, since those
graduate students will provide contacts to the senior people they
know, and somebody they'll be senior people themselves (as will you)!

You should talk about your research interests every chance you get.
(But be sure to spend some time listening, too:  you'll learn more
this way, and people will feel that your conversations are a two-way
street.)  Have summaries of your work of various lengths and levels
of detail mentally prepared, so that you can answer the inevitable
``So what are you working on?'' intelligently and clearly.  If someone
expresses an interest in your work, follow up!  Send them e-mail talking
about new ideas or asking questions; send them drafts of papers; ask
them for drafts of their papers and send them comments.  (If you do this,
they'll be sure to remember you!)  Bring business cards with your e-mail
address to conferences to help new acquaintances jog their memory.

Maintain the relationships you form via e-mail, and by re-establishing
contact at each workshop or conference you attend.  If you work at it,
and use your initial acquaintances to meet new people, you'll find that
your ``network'' grows rapidly.  (Agre~\shortcite{agre-networking} has some
excellent suggestions for networking on the Internet.)

Sometimes these contacts will grow into opportunities to do collaborative
research.  Seize these opportunities:  you will meet more people, often
become exposed to new methods of doing research or new subfields within
your research area, and the responsibility you feel towards your
collaborator may give you more of an incentive to stay motivated and
keep accomplishing something.

Other professional activities can bring you into the research network
as well:  volunteer for program committees, send your resume to a book
review editor, offer to give seminars at other universities, write
conference and workshop papers and send them to people you've met
or would like to meet, or organize a workshop on your subfield at a
larger conference.  Summer internships at research laboratories or
even other universities is a good way to get an idea of what the
``real world'' of research is like, to meet more new colleagues, and
to get a different perspective on research problems in your field.

Mentoring junior graduate students and undergraduates
is a good investment in the long run (besides providing them a valuable
service and making you feel useful and knowledgeable). 

Finding specific mentors can be very useful.  Especially if you feel
that you are isolated at your institution, having
a colleague at another institution who can give you advice, feedback
on drafts of papers, and suggestions for research directions can be
extremely valuable.



\section{Advice for Advisors}
\label{for-advisors}

In order to be a good advisor, you have to relate to your graduate
students as individuals, not just as anonymous research assistants
or tickets to tenure and co-authored publications.  Work with all of
your graduate students, not just those whom you feel most comfortable
with, or who are interested in the problems you're most excited about.
Try to get to know your students personally and professionally.  Help
them to identify their strengths and weaknesses, to build on the former,
and to work on overcoming the latter.  Give them honest evaluations of their
work and performance:  don't just assume that they know how 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 graduate experience your students may be having trouble
with, or may not realize the importance of.  Try to see the experience
from their perspective, which will be different for each student, because
each student has a different background and different talents and goals.

The roles of an advisor include:
\begin{itemize}
    \item Guiding students' research:  helping them to select a topic,
    	write a research proposal, perform the research, evaluate it
    	critically, and write the dissertation.
    \item Getting them involved in the wider research community: introducing
    	them to colleagues, collaborating on research projects with
    	them, funding conference travel, encouraging them to publish
    	papers, nominating them for awards and prizes.
    \item Finding financial support: providing research assistantships
    	or helping them to find fellowships, and finding summer positions.
    \item Finding a position after graduation:  helping them to find and
    	apply for postdoctoral positions, faculty positions, and/or jobs
    	in industry; supporting their applications with strong recommendations;
    	and helping them to make contacts.
\end{itemize}
Although guiding your students' research is normally viewed as the central
task of an advisor, the other roles are also critical to their long-term
success.  Section~\ref{networking} contains advice for students on
networking.  You can help them in this process by funding and encouraging
travel to conferences and paper publication, and by introducing them
and talking about their research to colleagues.  Nigel Ward's
useful tips on what {\em not} to do are included as an
appendix to this paper.  A book that was suggested to me is
\cite{phillips}, but I haven't actually seen it so I can't recommend
it personally.


\subsection{Interacting With Students}

Especially for a new advisor, setting the right tone for student interactions
is a difficult task.  Different students respond best to different
approaches -- and, of course, different advisors have different personal
styles.  Some of the tradeoffs that have to be made in each advisor-student
relationship are:
\begin{itemize}
    \item Amount of direction: self-directed/hands-off vs. ``spoon-feeding''
    	topics and research projects.
    \item Personal interactions and psychological support: do they want
    	advice on career, family, and the like?  Are you willing and able
    	to give it, or to find someone else to advise them?
    \item Amount and type of criticism:  general directions vs. specific
    	suggestions for improvement.
    \item Frequency of interaction: daily vs. once a semester.
\end{itemize}
It helps to establish regular meeting times and to discuss expectations
(both yours and your students') about what can and should be accomplished
during these meetings.  Encourage them to develop relationships
with other faculty members, students, and colleagues, to get a
different perspective and to get feedback you may not be able to give.

To improve the atmosphere of your interactions:
\begin{itemize}
    \item Meet over lunch or coffee to make interactions more relaxed
    	and less stressful.
    \item Strive to maintain an open, honest relationship.  Respect
    	your students as colleagues.
    \item Tell them if you think they're asking for too much or too
    	little time or guidance.
\end{itemize}

Advisors should be aware of both long-term and short-term needs.
What should the student's goals over the next few years be?  Help your
student identify ways that the two of you -- as a team -- can meet these
goals.  Advise the student on the criteria for a successful qualifying
exam, thesis proposal, and dissertation.  Help prepare 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 balance between doing research, reading, writing, satisfying
TA and RA duties, publishing, and coursework.  Although advisors may not
be able to give advice on all administrative aspects of graduate school,
they should at least know the appropriate people to refer students to
for assistance with degree requirements, funding, and so on.

When you meet with your students, pay attention to them.  Try to help
them to identify their interests, concerns, and goals, not just how
they can meet what {\em you}
see as good interests, concerns, and goals.  Know what they're working
on, and what you discussed last time.  Take notes during meetings and
review them if you have to.

Give them productive feedback, not just
a noncommittal ``ok, sure'' or a destructive ``why on earth do you want
to do that?''  Remember that your students are still learning.
If you tell them that a problem they're interested in has already been
explored by Professor X, make sure you follow up with a reference that
they have access to, and a discussion as to whether the problem remains
a worthwhile area to work on, or whether there are new open issues
raised by Professor X's work, at the next meeting.

When reviewing a student's paper or proposal, write comments on the paper
itself:  verbal comments aren't as useful.  Give the feedback promptly,
or it won't be much help.  See the section on
feedback (Section~\ref{feedback}) for suggestions about giving
useful comments.  Don't just wait until they hand you something to
read:  insist on written drafts of proposals, papers, etc.  Help them
develop their rough ideas into publishable papers.  Give them specific,
concrete suggestions for what to do next, especially if they seem to
be floundering or making little progress.

Advisor-student relationships can break down if the advisor is setting
goals that are too high or too low, or if the advisor is exploiting the
student to meet the advisor's needs (getting a promotion, increasing
the advisor's publication record, doing the advisor's research), not
the student's.  Fortunately, the student's needs and the advisor's
needs in most of these cases are not conflicting.

Encourage your students to choose a topic that you're {\em both}
interested in and that you're knowledgeable about (or very interested
in learning more about).  Make sure that they have the appropriate
background to understand the problem, and that the methodology and
solution they identify are appropriate and realistic.  Give them
pointers to useful references and help them find them (this can be
a mysterious, difficult process for graduate students).  Make sure
they're aware of other researchers and labs who are doing similar
work, and if possible, arrange for them to visit these labs or
meet the researchers at seminars or conferences.

Women faculty often feel obligated to mentor every woman student in
the department, attend every committee meeting, and get involved in
every debate, whether they want to or not.  While you can't solve all
of the problems in the world, you can at least make a difference by
giving other women (and men, for that matter) the sense that you
do care, and that you think women's issues are important, even if you
don't have time (or the inclination) to get involved with every problem.


\subsection{Social Aspects of Advising}
\label{advisor-social}

The relationships you develop with your students will vary.  With some, the
relationship will be purely professional; with others, you may become
closer friends.  As an advisor, it is your responsibility to ensure
that your position of authority over the student is never abused.
As mentioned previously, graduate students should not be used as a means to
a promotion or a better publication record.  These will be side effects of
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 you both know where the
boundaries are.  For example, getting
a student to help you move some furniture is
usually quite easy if you're doing a good job as an advisor, since
they feel indebted to you for your advice and support.  This isn't a
problem in and of itself.  However, using explicit or implicit threats
to force the student to help you out is a severe violation of 
professional ethics.  Your students are also your colleagues, and
should be treated as such.  A good question to ask yourself before
asking a student for a favor is whether you
would feel confortable asking the head of your department for the same
favor.  If the answer to this question is ``no,'' then you may be
exploiting your position and abusing your relationship, and you should
seriously reconsider your motivations and behavior.

In my opinion, it is
never appropriate to develop an intimate relationship with one of your
own students.  If this should happen, you should not continue
to advise them (whether the relationship continues or not).
Not only would this be a clear case of sexual harassment, but your
judgment about the student's professional life cannot be objectively
separated from personal feelings in a close relationship.

Dating students (or even asking them out where the implication of a
romantic relationship may exist) is a bad idea, even if the student is
not one of your advisees.  They are bound to feel intimidated and
uncomfortable, and at many universities this violates the sexual
harassment policy.

Read your university's policy on harassment, and err on the side of
conservatism when in doubt, for your sake and the student's.


\section{All Work and No Play...}
\label{life}

Finding a balance between work, play, and other activities isn't
easy.  Different people will give you very different advice.  Some
people say you should be spending eighty or ninety percent of your
waking hours working on your thesis.  Others (myself included) think
that this is unrealistic and unhealthy, and that it's important for
your mental and physical health to have other active interests.

If you have a family, you will have to balance your priorities even
more carefully.  Graduate school isn't worth risking your personal
relationships over; be sure that you save time and energy to focus
on the people who matter to you.

One of the keys to balancing your life is to develop a schedule that's
more or less consistent.  You may decide that you will only work during
the days, and that evenings are for your hobbies.  Or you might decide
that afternoons are for socializing and exercising, and work late at
night.  I decided very early on in graduate school that weekends were
for me, not for my thesis, and I think it helped me to stay sane.

Many graduate students hit the doldrums around the end of the second
or beginning of the third year, when they're finishing up their coursework
and trying to focus in on a thesis topic.  Sometimes this process can
take quite a while.  Try to find useful, enjoyable activities that can
take your mind off of the thesis.  Sing in a choir, learn a foreign
language, study the history of ancient Greece, garden, or knit.
If you schedule regular activities (rehearsals, tennis lessons), you
will probably find it easier to avoid drifting aimlessly from day to day.

In the final push to finish your thesis, though, you will almost
certainly have less time for social activities than you used to.  Your
friends may start to make you feel guilty, whether they intend to or
not.  Warn them in advance that you expect to turn down lots of
invitations, and it's nothing personal -- but you need to focus on
your thesis for a while.  Then you'll be all done and free as a bird!
(Until the next phase of your life starts...)


\section{Issues for Women}
\label{women}

Although this paper started out from a discussion about the problems
women face in graduate school, it has evolved into something that I
think is relevant for everyone, not just women.  This is not to say,
however, that there aren't special problems faced by women.

In many cases, women and men face the same obstacles in graduate
school, but react differently to them.  For women, the additional
factors that are sometimes (but not always) present include isolation,
low self-esteem, harassment and discrimination, unusual time pressures
arising from family responsibilities, lack of a support network, and
lack of relevant experience.  Having an unsupportive advisor can thus
become much more of a problem for women than for men.  I hope that to
some extent, this paper will help both women and advisors of women to
provide the supportive, positive environment that all graduate students
deserve.

Part of
the reason that I changed the focus of the paper is that there have
been many articles written recently on the subject of women 
scientists and women graduate students.  These include
\cite{spertus,toth,hall1,hall2,hall3,sandler,nsf,leveson,strok}.
McKay~\shortcite{mckay}
talks about issues relevant for minority faculty members, many of
which pertain to minority graduate students.  The {\em systers} mailing
list is an electronic resource for women in computer science; send e-mail
to {\tt systers-request@pa.dec.com} for more information.


\section{On Finishing}
\label{finishing}

Despite how difficult graduate school can be at times, the benefits
are significant.  Of course, you'll learn useful professional skill
like doing research, formulating problems and critically evaluating
alternative solutions, giving written and oral presentations of your
work, and interacting with other researchers.  But graduate
school---and in particular the process of formulating, researching,
and writing a dissertation---gives you confidence in your ability to
tackle hard problems and to become an expert in a new field.  A fellow
Ph.D. put it much better than I can:
\begin{quote}
...it isn't just that I can
write technical things and I can talk to other researchers with
confidence---I can talk to almost {\em any} authority figure with
confidence.  Partly this is because I now know what it is to be an
expert in something, and although I respect other peoples' expertise
in their areas of specialization, I also know that I'm just as
respectable and they (usually) aren't any more so than I.  I also
think I can write about other things/in other areas, provided I've
done my homework and learned the area.  I feel {\bf EMPOWERED!!!}  And I
would never have gotten this from a CS programming job or even a
masters degree.
\end{quote}

Of course, there are also the incalculable benefits of finishing the
dissertation.  Even though it can leave you at loose ends (what will
you do with your weekends, now that you no longer have to work on your
thesis?) there's often a feeling of euphoria, heightened by
exhaustion, when you finally hand in your thesis.  As the person
quoted above put it:
\begin{quote}
I think an oft-noted bad thing about finishing is
adjusting to no longer having a long term, ever-elusive goal.  But now
that five months have gone by, I find I'm much more efficient in my
work because I no longer have that awful weight hanging by a thread
over my head, and much happier, more relaxed, more light-hearted.
\end{quote}



\section{Conclusions}
\label{conclusions}

In addition to the papers I have cited directly in the article,
I found a variety of other resources to be useful, and have included
them in the References section.

The UC Berkeley {\em Graduate} is a newsletter published by the
UC Berkeley Graduate Division with articles of general interest to
graduate students.  I found this publication very informative both
during graduate school and while writing this article.  A number
of particularly interesting articles are included in the References section.
\nocite{grad-isolation,grad-thesis-writing,grad-thesis-choosing,grad-money,grad-proposal,grad-interviewing,grad-quals}

Several articles (\cite{bundy,bental,chapman}) give general
advice on graduate school and doing research.  Guidelines and
suggestions for reviewing papers are given in \cite{smith} and
\cite{shriver}.

A number of articles on writing proposals and successfully applying
for research grants are available
(\cite{somerville,white-proposals,white-grants,lefferts}).
The topic of how to find a job, and how to prepare for the job search
during graduate school, is the topic of~\cite{feibelman}.

Graduate school is not an easy process, and too many students are
thwarted and intimidated by unsupportive or unskilled advisors, lack
of knowledge about what graduate school is all about, inflexible
bureaucracies, and a myriad of other obstacles.  I have tried to
give advice that graduate students and caring advisors can use to
lessen some of these obstacles.

\section*{Acknowledgements}

I would like to thank Susan Epstein, Diana Gordon, and Devika
Subramanian for the original discussion that led to writing this
paper.  Many people provided useful feedback on an earlier draft that
was circulated on the Internet, especially Mark Kantrowitz, John W.
Buchanan (who suggested the idea and wrote the original draft for
Section~\ref{advisor-social}), and Marti Hearst.
I gracefully acknowledge defeat with respect to the original title (it
was supposed to be ``How to be a Good \{ Graduate Student / Advisor
\},'' but was too often misinterpreted as ``How to be a Good (Graduate
Student) Advisor''); thanks to Peter Soderquist for the first half
of the new title.
Any deficiencies remaining in the paper are entirely my fault!


\appendix

\section{How to be a Terrible Thesis Advisor}
{\bf by Nigel Ward (a young faculty member and advisor who hopes
others can learn from his mistakes)}

\begin{itemize}
\item Assign students thesis topics based on the section headings in your
grant proposal, or on the boxes of the flowchart for your master plan.

\item When someone brings up a research paper, tell anecdotes about the
author, his or her advisor, and his or her
colleagues.  This will impress students
that who you know is more important than what you do.

\item When laying out your laboratory, give first priority to minimizing the
cost of cable, last priority to good workplaces for students, and no
priority to fostering interaction among students.

\item Read your students' papers at most once.

\item When honest differences of opinion arise, paper them over with words.
For example, say "well, we could talk about this forever, but I think
we're all working towards the same basic idea, let's call it a
`neologistic/noetic knowledge representation'.  Now let's move on."

\item Regarding other schools of thought, make sure students know just
enough to be able to point out the "fatal flaws" in each, and so can
be good foot soldiers in the crusade for your own approach.  A useful
phrase is "why do you want to waste your time reading that?"

\item Never visit the laboratory; learn about students' work only from what
they tell you.

\item Define your research aims with catch phrases ("dynamic X," "emergent
Y," "the Z problem," etc.).

\item Have students handle computer system administration, and let them
think it counts as research.

\item Mumble.

\item Assign older students to guide the younger ones.

\item Involve students in decision-making for unimportant things.  For
example, you can easily while away an hour of seminar deciding who
should be discussion leader for what chapter of the reading.

\item Share your most trivial thoughts with your students.  Better yet,
bring them up as seminar discussion topics ("in the shower this
morning, it struck me that whitespace is really important.  Let's think
about whitespace from an AI perspective").

\item Avoid conflicts with your students; in particular, don't be too
demanding.

\item If a student reveals that he is confused about what counts as
meaningful research, ridicule him.

\item Take no interest in what courses your students are taking.

\item Pick up ideas from going to conferences, then bring them up in seminar
without explaining from whom you got them or explaining the context
in which they arose.

\item Plan for research seminars to last at least two hours.

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

\item Never go near the laboratory in the evenings or on weekends.

\item Always come unprepared for seminars; you're smart enough to fake it.

\item Never do any programming yourself.  After all, you went through that once, and
now you're an ideas man (or woman).

\item Let your students see you rushing to meet deadlines.

\item Avoid critical discussions of research strategy.  A useful phrase is
"We'll do it this way.  Why?  Because I'm the professor and you're a
student."

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

\item Give all your students the same research topic, but with slightly
different names.  If this is the same topic as your own dissertation
topic, all the better.

\item Let your students see your grant proposals and learn the art of
doublethink.

\item Enforce disciplinary boundaries.  For example, say, "that sounds like
the sort of thing that people in software engineering would work on,
so let's leave that topic alone," or "why do you want to worry about
that? that's a software engineering issue."

\item Never suggest your students contact other professors or other
researchers.

\item Let your students submit articles to third-rate journals.

\item If a student's work is not giving the results expected, belittle her.

\item Encourage your students to work on fashionable problems.

\item State your opinions loudly and frequently, so your students know what
to write in their theses.
\end{itemize}

\bibliographystyle{named}	
%\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{advice}

\end{document}

