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https://github.com/pliang279/awesome-phd-advice

Collection of advice for prospective and current PhD students
https://github.com/pliang279/awesome-phd-advice

List: awesome-phd-advice

computer-science machine-learning phd-application phd-students research

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Collection of advice for prospective and current PhD students

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# Collection of advice for prospective and current PhD students 



By [Paul Liang](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pliang/) ([email protected]), [Machine Learning Department](http://www.ml.cmu.edu/) and [Language Technologies Institute](https://www.lti.cs.cmu.edu/), [CMU](https://www.cmu.edu/), with help from many friends at CMU. If there are any links I missed, please let me know! Credit goes out to the original authors of each link.



![](/phd030110s.gif)



## Table of Contents

* [Other similar collections](#other-similar-collections)

* [Advice for prospective students](#advice-for-prospective-students)

  * [General advice](#general-advice)

  * [Statement of purpose](#statement-of-purpose)

  * [Visit days, choosing advisor and school](#visit-days-choosing-advisor-and-school)

* [Advice for current students](#advice-for-current-students)

  * [PhD survival guides](#PhD-survival-guides)

  * [Research](#research)

  * [Reading](#reading)

  * [Writing](#writing)

  * [Blogposts](#blogposts)

  * [Reviewing](#reviewing)

  * [Presenting](#presenting)

  * [Advising students](#advising-students)

  * [Teaching](#teaching)

  * [Fellowship applications](#fellowship-applications)

  * [Networking](#networking)

  * [Organizing workshops and tutorials](#organizing-workshops-and-tutorials)

  * [Attending academic conferences](#attending-academic-conferences)

  * [Job search](#job-search)

* [Memoirs](#memoirs)



## Other similar collections



[Grad School Advice by Jason Hong](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jasonh/advice.html)



[Advice for Research Students by Jason Eisner](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/advice/)



[Advice for researchers and students by Michael Ernst](https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/advice/)



[Advice Collection by Tao Xie and Yuan Xie](https://taoxie.cs.illinois.edu/advice.htm)



[Awesome CS PhD application advice by Jed Yang](https://jedyang.com/post/list-of-awesome-cs-phd-application-advice/)



[CS PhD the greatest hits by Angela Jiang](https://phdadvice.carrd.co/)



[List of PhD reflections by Stephen Tu](https://stephentu.github.io/blog/reflections/2016/02/28/list-phd-reflections.html)



[Thread of PhD application resources by Chaitanya Joshi](https://twitter.com/chaitjo/status/1444580607980281858?lang=en)



[Useful computer vision PhD resources by Yana Hasson](https://github.com/hassony2/useful-computer-vision-phd-resources)



[Checklists for Stat-ML PhD students by Aaditya Ramdas](https://www.stat.cmu.edu/~aramdas/checklists.html)



[Grad School Resources by Kalpesh Krishna](https://martiansideofthemoon.github.io/2018/05/29/grad-resources.html)



[AI Research Experiences by Pranav Rajpurkar](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uvAbEhbgS_M-uDMTzmOWRlYxqCkogKRXdbKYYT98ooc/edit#)



## Advice for prospective students



### General advice



[Applying to PhD Programs in Computer Science by Mor Harchol-Balter](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf)



[Graduate School Advice by Stanford CS](https://cs.stanford.edu/degrees/phd/PhD/GraduateSchoolAdvice.pdf)



[Undergrad to PhD, or not - advice for undergrads interested in research by John Hewitt](https://nlp.stanford.edu//~johnhew//undergrad-researchers.html)



[HOWTO: Get into grad school for science, engineering, math and computer science by Matt Might](https://matt.might.net/articles/how-to-apply-and-get-in-to-graduate-school-in-science-mathematics-engineering-or-computer-science/)



[Applying for a PhD in NLP by Zhijing Jin and ACL Year-Round Mentorship Session](https://medium.com/@zhijing-jin/applying-for-a-phd-in-nlp-9d070a02cda0)



[Student Perspectives on Applying to NLP PhD Programs by Akari Asai, John Hewitt, Sidd Karamcheti, Kalpesh Krishna, Nelson Liu, Roma Patel, and Nicholas Tomlin](https://blog.nelsonliu.me/2019/10/24/student-perspectives-on-applying-to-nlp-phd-programs/)



[Machine Learning PhD Applications — Everything You Need to Know by Tim Dettmers](https://timdettmers.com/2018/11/26/phd-applications/)



[Demystifying ML PhD Admissions to US Universities by Hima Lakkaraju](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6TkkdlRWcU&ab_channel=HimabinduLakkaraju)



[Demystifying PhD Admissions in Computer Science in the US: a Guide for Vietnamese and International Students by ThanhVu Nguyen](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nguyenthanhvuh/phd-cs-us/main/demystify.pdf)



[A long, rambling, mostly personal corpus of advice on applying to Computer Science grad school (for UWCSE students) by Justine Sherry](https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~justine/advice.pdf)



[Ph.D. Applications: FAQ by Noah Smith](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lT-bsIP0GKfh8l5sQnM2hCzzR9prt-QLx16rimUOdIM/edit)



[Quora answer on the admission committee process by Scott Fahlman](https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-admissions-committee-process-for-graduate-school-look-like-Do-you-sit-in-a-room-and-all-discuss-the-same-candidate-at-the-same-time-or-is-it-more-of-an-individual-process-with-opinions-aggregated-at-the-end)



[Reflecting on CS Graduate Admissions by David Anderson](https://da-data.blogspot.com/2015/03/reflecting-on-cs-graduate-admissions.html)



[A PhD is Not Enough: A Guide to Survival in Science by Peter Feibelman](https://biomath.usu.edu/files/Peter_J._Feibelman_A_PhD_Is_Not_Enough.pdf)



[The PhD in CS: Getting There and Being Successful by Michael Hilton, Janet Davis, and Ian Ludden](https://conquer.cra.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ThePhDinComputing_CRAEWebinar.pdf)



### Statement of purpose



[Database of Example PhD SOPs by the CS-SOP initiative](https://cs-sop.org)



[Some Suggestions on writing your statement of purpose by Jennifer Mankoff](https://www.cc.gatech.edu/fce/people/jmankoff/gradschool/sops.html)



[Graduate School Personal Statements by Christopher Fletcher](http://cwfletcher.net/Pages/SoP.php)



[Inside PhD admissions: What readers look for in a Statement of Purpose by Nathan Schneider](https://nschneid.medium.com/inside-ph-d-admissions-what-readers-look-for-in-a-statement-of-purpose-3db4e6081f80)



[How to Write a Bad Statement by Andy Pavlo](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pavlo/blog/2015/10/how-to-write-a-bad-statement-for-a-computer-science-phd-admissions-application.html)



[Tips and Tricks, How-To Guide for Grad School SoPs by Erica Weng](https://t.co/J71ZD2dKJ1)



[Graduate School Statement of Purpose by MIT EECS](https://mitcommlab.mit.edu/eecs/commkit/graduate-school-personal-statement/)



[How to write personal statement for graduate school application by Stanley Chan](https://engineering.purdue.edu/ChanGroup/write_statement.html)



[Writing a Google AI Residency Cover Letter by Katherine Lee and Ben Eysenbach](https://colinraffel.com/blog/writing-a-google-ai-residency-cover-letter.html)



Public examples: [[Cody Coleman]](https://www.codycoleman.com/public/misc/Stanford-purpose.pdf), [[Sai Rallabandi]](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~srallaba/pdfs/statement_PhD.pdf), [[Jeremy Lacomis]](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jlacomis/assets/statement/personal-statement-cmu.pdf), [[Sean Kross]](https://seankross.com/notes/grad-school-essays/ShortPersonalStatement.pdf), [[Zahid Hossain]](https://graphics.stanford.edu/~zhossain/grad/sop_mit.pdf), [[Jean Yang]](https://github.com/jeanqasaur/academic-application-materials/blob/master/phd-application-2007/personal_statement.pdf)



### Visit days, choosing advisor and school 



[Questions to Ask a Prospective Ph.D. Advisor on Visit Day, With Thorough and Forthright Explanations by Andrew Kuznetsov](https://blog.ml.cmu.edu/2020/03/02/questions-to-ask-a-prospective-ph-d-advisor-on-visit-day-with-thorough-and-forthright-explanations/)



[How to Choose Your Grad School by Tim Dettmers](https://timdettmers.com/2022/03/13/how-to-choose-your-grad-school/)



[How to Pick a Graduate Advisor by Ben Barres](https://hst.mit.edu/sites/default/files/media/files/Barres%20BA.Neuron.80.275.2013.pdf)



[The Definitive ‘what do I ask/look for’ in a PhD Advisor Guide by Columbia CS](https://www.cs.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Get-Advisor.pdf)



## Advice for current students



### PhD survival guides



[So long, and thanks for the PhD by Ronald T. Azuma](https://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/hitch4.html)



[Graduate School: Keys To Success by Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqPSnjewkuA&ab_channel=RemziArpaci-Dusseau)



[The illustrated guide to a PhD by Matt Might](https://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/)



[How to Be a Successful PhD Student by Mark Dredze, Hanna Wallach](https://people.cs.umass.edu/~wallach/how_to_be_a_successful_phd_student.pdf)



[Time Management by Randy Pausch](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/dahlin/bookshelf/timetalk.htm)



[Advice to a Beginning Graduate Student by Manuel Blum](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mblum/research/pdf/grad.html)



[Finances for CS PhD students by David Anderson](https://da-data.blogspot.com/2016/09/finances-for-cs-phd-students.html)



[A Survival Guide to a PhD by Andrej Karpathy](https://karpathy.github.io/2016/09/07/phd/)



[15 pieces of advice I wish my PhD advisor had given me by Jim Kurose](http://www-net.cs.umass.edu/kurose/talks/student_keynote_final.pdf)



[The Tao of PhD: Thriving in the Allen School’s Graduate Program by University of Washington](https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse590x/22wi/)



[10 tips for PhD students by Daniela Witten](https://imstat.org/2022/04/01/written-by-witten-so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-tips/)



[Expectation Setting by Eugene Vinitsky](http://eugenevinitsky.github.io/posts/expectation_setting.html)



### Research



[How to Do Great Research by Nick Feamster and Alex Gray](https://greatresearch.org/)



[How to Have a Bad Career How to Have a Bad Career in Research/Academia by David Patterson](https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~pattrsn/talks/BadCareer.pdf)



[Useful Thoughts about Research by H.T. Kung](https://www.eecs.harvard.edu/htk/phdadvice/)



[You and Your Research by Richard Hamming](https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html)



[Advice on Research and Writing by Mark Leone](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mleone/web/how-to.html)



### Reading



[How to Read a Paper by Srinivasan Keshav](http://blizzard.cs.uwaterloo.ca/keshav/home/Papers/data/07/paper-reading.pdf)



[How to Read a Technical Paper by Jason Eisner](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/advice/how-to-read-a-paper.html)



### Writing



[How to write a good CVPR submission by Bill Freeman](https://billf.mit.edu/sites/default/files/documents/cvprPapers.pdf)



[Ten Simple Rules for Mathematical Writing by Dimitri Bertsekas](http://www.mit.edu/~dimitrib/Ten_Rules.html)



[Notes on writing by Fredo Durand](http://people.csail.mit.edu/fredo/PUBLI/writing.pdf)



[How to write a (hopefully good) paper by Martin Vetterli ](http://mri.beckman.illinois.edu/resources/good_paper.pdf)



### Blogposts



[PhDLife Blog](https://phdlife.warwick.ac.uk/) - A collection of blog posts from [Warwick University](https://warwick.ac.uk)



### Reviewing



[Reviewer Tutorial by CVPR 2022](https://cvpr2022.thecvf.com/sites/default/files/2021-11/How%20to%20be%20a%20good%20reviewer-tutorials%20for%20cvpr2022%20reviewers.pptx.pdf)



[How to write a good review by CVPR 2020](https://sites.google.com/view/making-reviews-great-again/)



[How to write a reviewer report by Stanley Chan](https://engineering.purdue.edu/ChanGroup/write_review.html)



### Presenting



[Giving an Academic Talk by Jonathan Shewchuk](https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jrs/speaking.html)



[How to give a technical presentation by Michael Ernst](https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/advice/giving-talk.html)



### Advising students



(coming soon, send PR!)



### Teaching



[How to Be a Teaching Assistant by Jason Eisner](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/advice/how-to-ta.html)



### Fellowship applications



[Tips for the NSF GRFP Application by Danielle Perry](https://web.uri.edu/graduate-writing-center/tips-for-the-nsf-grfp-application/)



[NSF GRFP Advice by Christine Liu](http://www.christineliuart.com/writing/2018/8/31/advice-for-applying-to-the-nsf-grfp)



[NSF Fellowship by Alex Lang](https://www.alexhunterlang.com/nsf-fellowship)



[Tips by Tara Safavi](https://tsafavi.github.io/nsf-grfp.html)



Public examples: [[Extensive NSF collection by Alex Lang]](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xoezGhbtcpg3BvNdag2F5dTQM-Xl2EELUgAfG1eUg0s/edit#gid=0), [[Victoria Dean (NSF personal)]](https://vdean.github.io/resources/NSF_Personal_Statement_Victoria_Dean.pdf), [[Victoria Dean (NSF research)]](https://vdean.github.io/resources/NSF_Research_Statement_Victoria_Dean.pdf), [[Tara Safavi (NSF)]](https://tsafavi.github.io/assets/pdf/nsf-personal.pdf), [[Paul Liang (Facebook)]](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pliang/research_statement_paul_liang_2020.pdf), [[Devendra Chaplot (Facebook)]](https://devendrachaplot.github.io/misc/DevendraChaplot_Statement2019.pdf), [[Sai Rallabandi (Facebook)]](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~srallaba/pdfs/fellowships_mothersheet.pdf)



### Networking



[Networking on the Network: A Guide to Professional Skills for PhD Students by Phil Agre](https://vlsicad.ucsd.edu/Research/Advice/network.html)



### Organizing workshops and tutorials



[Hitchhiker’s guide to organizing an academic workshop by Ben Eysenbach and Surya Bhupatiraju](https://medium.com/@erl.leads/hitchhikers-guide-to-organizing-an-academic-workshop-cc9a5b1c32c9)



### Attending academic conferences



[Nine things I wish I had known the first time I came to NeurIPS by Jennifer Vaughan](https://medium.com/@jennwv/nine-things-i-wish-i-had-known-the-first-time-i-came-to-nips-b939330661ed)



[NeurIPS 2018 through the eyes of first-timers by Fangyu Cai](https://medium.com/syncedreview/neurips-2018-through-the-eyes-of-first-timers-5156384900bd)



[How To Make A Plan To Attend International Academic Conferences](https://internationalconferencealerts.com/blog/how-to-make-a-plan-to-attend-international-academic-conferences/)



### Job search



[Tips for Computer Science Faculty Applications](https://yisongyue.medium.com/checklist-of-tips-for-computer-science-faculty-applications-9fd2480649cc)



[How to Ask for a Letter of Recommendation](https://kamathematics.wordpress.com/2021/08/18/how-to-ask-for-a-letter-of-recommendation/)



[Interview Questions for Computer Science Faculty Jobs](https://csfaculty.github.io/)



[The Ph.D. Job Hunt - Helping Students Find the Right Positions by Ed Lazowska](http://lazowska.cs.washington.edu/jobs.pdf)



[The N Things I wish I Knew Before the Job Search, by Maria Ebling, Guerney Hunt, Lily Mummert, Bill Tetzlaff, and John Davis](https://people.engr.tamu.edu/rabi/N%20Things.PDF)



[The academic job search for computer scientists in 10 questions by Nicolas Papernot and Elissa Redmiles](https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vSeOnC_QdaJVc3OuuMfDHVlk3QotUxvghytRFaDsrdA0uovD5axQjp8kJCM4Evu1cCf9Hg_u_Stabu1/pub)



[Checklist for faculty job-hunting in Stat/ML by Aaditya Ramdas](https://www.stat.cmu.edu/~aramdas/checklists/aadi-jobhunt-checklist.pdf)



[Tips on the interview process by Jeannette Wing](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~emigration/interview.pdf)



[Getting an academic job by Michael Ernst](https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/advice/academic-job.html)



[Computer science graduate job and interview guide by Wes Weimer, Claire Le Goues, Zak Fry, Kevin Leach, Yu Huang, and Kevin Angstadt](https://csguides.github.io/grad-job-guide/)



[Academic job search advice by Matt Might](http://matt.might.net/articles/advice-for-academic-job-hunt/)



## Memoirs



[I loved graduate school by Peter Bailis](http://www.bailis.org/blog/i-loved-graduate-school/)



[What my PhD was like by Jean Yang](https://jxyzabc.blogspot.com/2016/02/my-phd-abridged.html)



[How to get a Ph.D. in computer science if you're me by Chris Martens](http://lambdamaphone.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-to-get-phd-in-computer-science-if.html)



[The N=1 guide to grad school by Adam Marcus](http://marcua.net/writing/gradschool-guide/)