PhD memoir

NOTE: these are things I wrote without thinking much (or at all) while going through the cold, dark days in Finland during my PhD. Keep that in mind when reading this. Hope it's helpful.

most of these assume that you are already honestly interested and passionate about research.
Mood swings are very common and normal. You can go from "I'm the most intelligent guy on the planet" to "My life sucks, my research is pointless" in a day. I think the earlier you realize this, the better. I feel its part of the PhD experience to go through this roller coaster of emotions.
Dont expect a lot of help and dont feel obliged to get help, especially after, say, 1 year into your PhD. By this time, you're expected to learn something.
That being said, dont get stuck and remain stuck. A lot of people (especially your advisor) want to (and will) help you.
There are people who make you look stupid (either because they're really good or deliberately). Learn to ignore them or comfort yourself, because its easy to go down that road and feel pointless.
Its OK to look for competition, but dont be bothered too much by it.
research, and the porcess of doing a phd involves a lot of lot of trial and error. you try different things and they might not work. try another thing and another thing and ultimately you end up with something that works. persistence is key. being aware of the big picture. ask yourself, why are you doing this and what is the ultimate objective, is this piece that you are stuck at really important in that big picture?)
How can I compare myself (on how I am doing) with others? - 1. Dont, 2. You cant (every phd is different), 3. if you want to ... is there an objective way? - Definitely do not compare publication counts. thats the worst.
I've read in a *lot* of places (really, a lot). Dont get carried away by the work. Have a life. its really easy to go this way.. You (I) almost always felt guilty of taking time off doing personal stuff during weekends when there was tons of work to be done. but in most situations, I was lazy to get to work and finish the task on a weekend. in many cases, nothing happened, the earth did not collapse. it wont, in many cases. it is important to take personal time off.
Feel excited about what you work on. If you are not, take a step back and give it a thought if you are doing the right thing.
Think about what you want to do with your life *before* you start or at least dont leave it to the end. You should have a clear understanding why you want to get a PhD.
Of course keeping in mind that what you think of before your PhD may not (and probably will not) be what you end up doing.
A PhD is not about knowing something about everything. It is about knowing everything about something. Try to evaluate yourself during your journey if there any 'something' that you can claim to know everything.
Dont be apologetic for your ignorance. this is the time to be ignorant. ask and learn. you should be ashamed of not learning, and not about asking. (many other gems http://blogs.nature.com/naturejobs/2016/03/30/the-value-of-my-phd-looking-back-1-year-after-graduating)
"If it isn't finished, it doesn't count for anything! Always more fun to start new projects but getting things written+submitted is key" https://twitter.com/DG_Rand/status/905502132857692162
'You don't have a fixed schedule (no classes after the first year), so you will feel guilty whenever you are not working. Yet when research isn't going well, you'll get demoralized and start procrastinating, which makes you feel more guilty.' I'm so surprised that this experience is so ubiquitous. (from https://www.quora.com/I-have-a-PhD-offer-from-CMU-in-Machine-Learning-and-currently-work-as-a-Data-Scientist-in-the-Bay-Area-What-should-I-do)
Dont aim too high, dont aim too low. Believe in the idea you pursue yourself. For example, my phd thesis was on solving the filter bubble issue in news. its a really important issue, even mentioned by obama (see this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiYXvVWppFM at 5:19). Believe in what you do. dont feel guilty to promore your work.
promoting yourself is especially very important if you are not from the top notch schools (stanford, mit, etc). by default people assume mediocre work (my opinion) from someone from an unknown university. and people dont care nor have the time to know about you or your work. so it is upto you to self promote, and let people know about your work.
dont be afraid of contacting people when you visit a place to give a talk, for instance.
PhD at most times feels like shouting in the dark. you put in so much effort for weeks and come up with some thing, write up your findings and no one cares or no one seems to appreciate the effort that went into it. deal with it.
There are always people who are either more intelligent or more hard working or if nothing, more lucky than you. Your life will be orders of magnitude better if you can learn to ignore that. "Ultimately, the race is to be the best you possible." http://qz.com/728264/what-does-an-iim-graduate-say-to-his-20-year-younger-self/
Start running or writing or what ever, be good at something else other than your phd.
get out of bad projects soon, if not very early. If you dont learn to recognize the bad projects better as you progress, probably you're doing something wrong
There are definitely things that only time can tell. Be cautious on judging what might be those 'things' and just make the right judgement. e.g. should i sacrifice my career to be close to my family? hint: nothing is more important than family.
You are most likely not going to be working on something related to your phd, almost certainly if you go to the industry. In that case, it might be good to question your motives on spending a large portion of your productive years. Do you value learning more over other worldly things such as salary or position? a very difficult question to answer, but it will definitely help in not feeling regretted if you realize this after 4-5 years of your time.
Try to maximize the number of people you work with and the areas you explore. This is very very easy said than done, but at least being aware of the fact and trying is better, because it will be definitely very easy to stick to your comfort zone and just work only with one person (advisor) and graduate. this especially makes a difference in future academic pursuits
dont be in a position to be ashamed about explaining your work. if you dont like the work you're doing, you're probably doing an extreme dis-service to your time.
Dont be frustrated that you dont have new ideas to tackle (and how it can feel as if everything in science has been solved). The only way to get over it is to read read read and explore the area you are interested in. ideas will flow automatically.
Getting used to working with people who you disagree with is a great learning, and must be an essential part of your phd learning experience. especially in open ended research, people will have different view points and all of the might be right (or wrong). learn to make your case well or agree to disagree. but do not pick fights, out of disagreement. they take you no where. also remember that if the disagreement is with your professor, they are almost probably right, given their vast experience.
Have your own thing. Especially after your first couple of years into your PhD. I mean, even though you should look for collaborations and work on other stuff, have your own topic that you own and feel completely responsible for. Dont expect others to help you with it. This is really important. I really learnt this late in my phd and there were lots of situations where i felt that my collaborators just didnt contribute enough (or at all), but thats the way it should be. Your phd topic is your own, learn to work on it by your own. You should be the expert on it. take help/adivce from others, but dont expect others to do the work for you.
spend time collecting quality data. that investment is never in vain. (might be specific for some types of phd). at least for me, it really helped
if you are from a lesser known university, .... things do matter. Try to create a good first impression, since you will have the burden of (or at least dont have the luxury of the brand).
internships are the best things that can happen in your phd. if you have a chance (i.e. if your Phd funding allows u to), you must must must must do it. Might be a bit challenging to get positions in the US., though there are now great positions in europe too.
Subscribe to mailinglists relevant to your area. I get emails from dbworld, sigir, mlnews and socnet. They keep you updated on cfps, internships, jobs, etc
If you are email averse, more important than the above (and IMO must-do) is to subscribe to relevant subtopics on arxiv. they send out one email per day on weekdays with abstracts of recently uploaded papers. Really really really useful to go through that every day for 10 mins.
Most things dont work out the way you expect. For instance, we collected data for 6 months and in the end it resulted in one plot in a paper. other example, we collected data for 3 months for trending topics and realised that the data was useless because trending topics are not controversial. it is part of the learning process. research is hard. output matters, but the rigour of the process shows in your work. if you think you couldnt justify your x months of work (e.g. bad results or not included in a paper), dont let it go waste. document it. write a blog post and let people know. negative results are almost as important as good results, though currently they might not be as appreciated.
Talk to people, about your phd. really. just talk to any one possible about research. it really really helps in bringing clarity to yourself and also helps in getting new ideas.
If things are working, you feel guilty if you dont work all the time. if things are not working you dont have the inspiration to work and so you feel guilty and depressed.
how much ever you think you achieved, you can never be satisfied because there is someone else who is better than you and makes you feel like shit. Be your best. I think it is part of the academic life to be challenged by others. Attending conferences not only makes you realise what others are working on but also give you inspiration to do better.
you should promote yourself and your work. most other people in academia are busy and do not have the time/energy to keep track of a poor phd student and her work (unless your advisor is a super super star). so dont live in the bubble and expect people to know your work. you need to be a decent salesman.
most people dont know your advisor, outside your core area. (unless he/she is a super duper star turing award winner). so their brand only takes you certain way, especially since (if) you end up doing different stuff from the core expertise of the professor.
guilt - be prepared to face so many types of guilt -- get a thick skin and realise the importance of perseverance and hard work. as long as you are trying, its not bad. "Filial guilt, fraternal guilt, spousal guilt, maternal guilt, peer guilt, work guilt, middle-class guilt, ignoring parents guilt, privilege guilt, historical guilt, xxx guilt"
Prepare a daily rough schedule during the first 5 mins in the office. Be reasonable in what you want to achieve by the end of the day. You'll fail in achieving most of the things most of the time, but its good to keep track and have solid goals on what to do during each day.
There will be periods of desperation, when nothing seems to work out. One of the learnings from a Phd is to realise personally when you are in this down time and console your self to not take brash decisions.
Take notes. Note writing is a skill and you should get a hold of it. try to summarize weekly meetings in an email. if nothing, this will aloow you to keep track of the todos for next week.
At least in the beginning of the PhD, spend a day per week just reading related and interesting papers, say, from Arxiv and then quickly glancing through the papers you like and the related work. This really really helps in broadening your thinking and get a feel of what has been done. If I was asked, this is the most important exercise that every phd student must do.
endless hours of conversations with myself. thank you myself for being with me and not giving up hope. every student who has gone through has to do this. there were some really challenging moments. i really had my back.
Disclaimer: All these are personal experiences that I would just give to a younger myself. None of these are meant to be facts nor do i claim that this is the recipe to success. I have to ay that I've been extremely lucky in getting an advisor who gave me all the freedom in the world to do what ever I could, awesome guidance from postdocs in the lab and a problem to solve where i was not stuck. that, i think is a rare privilege and I acknowledge that.
something about *when* to do a phd. should you go right after bachelors?
something about choosing a well known school!!!
something about choosing finland -- amazing resources, excellent infrastructure, great staff and most importantly -- an understanding and committed support for the mental health of students. I've personally had excrutiating times in my phd and these resources definitely helped. i dont think how i could have done with out those. it is always really easy to look back after you've come out of the seemingly 'never ending downward spiral' .. but this only xxx the importance of having mental health help for phd students. thank you finland. Thank you aalto
Try to work with people who appreciate your hard work. If you are leader (leading say a group or just a student), this is a basic quality you should posess, to encourage your group.
try to help others. as much as you can. it always always comes back at you. this could just be doing your stuff the right way, for instance, publishing code/slides/drafts, etc. to mentoring other students/giving advice. just works
think well before you get into a phd on what you want to do. of course it is not as easy, but here's one way. If you ABSOLUTELY hate teaching/despise working in a university, do not do a phd. It is really something that you should think well about. Getting a PhD is one of those types where you just keep narrowing your possibilities. you are over qualified for most jobs and a really select few (the few that matter) think you are not the right fit for the job that you think you need. the more you publish and the more you get better at your research, the more isolated you become (not always true, but could most probably only true in the academic world).
About postdoc interviews/job search after phd - look for breadth. explore options. dont be complacent. dont aim low.
about rejection: rejection is certain. it is hard. very hard. learn to deal with it. how to deal with it? most existing guides do not talk about rejection, most probably because they might not have been rejected (being from elite schools)
What do you do to prepare? important: job talk, but also talk to other people. important: future plan. try to have as much clarity as you can (its really hard). fucking hard. you can only do so much. dont try to impress everyone, you never can.
dont take the interviews (either outcomes or the discussions) personally. i've had at least 2 interviews where the interviewer was trying to corner me to agree that what i do is not 'real' social science. its my first time being in such a situation. i was not sure how to react. be prepared. do not take these the wrong way. do not take the interviews/interviewers for granted.
Being in academia is a never ending struggle. there's almost never an end to `being competitive' and being relaxed (at least for 15 years in your career). Be aware and prepared on that.
Every connection is important and might be useful (you never know). I got offered an internship through a connection who I had worked with 3 years ago and just sent him an email about a paper that i had seen. dont hesitate to make and keep connections.most times people dont mind getting an email. if they dont respond, dont take it seriously. everyone is drowning in email.
Celebrate your victories. even the small ones. they are your victories, a result of your hard work. Dont underestimate your victories. There are many people who would love to have such achievements.
(A lot of these thoughts are from my own experiences, but reinforced by awesome works like http://www.pgbovine.net/PhD-interview-eugene-wu-keith-winstein.htm and many many others)
http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~mdredze/publications/HowtoBeaSuccessfulPhDStudent.pdf