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🎓 Advice and resources for thriving and surviving graduate school
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🎓 Advice and resources for thriving and surviving graduate school

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# Awesome Grad School Awesome Badge [![LinkCheck Action Status](https://github.com/poloclub/awesome-grad-school/workflows/LinkChecker/badge.svg)](https://github.com/poloclub/awesome-grad-school/actions)



Advice and guidebook for thriving and surviving Ph.D. and graduate school. But first, [what is grad. school?](https://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/)



## Table of contents



- [Applying for PhD](#applying-for-phd)

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

  - [Letters of Recommendation](#letters-of-recommendation)

  - [Choosing PhD Advisor](#choosing-phd-advisor)

- [General Advice](#general-advice)

- [Job Search (Academia)](#job-search-academia)

- [Job Search (Industry)](#job-search-industry)

- [Giving Job Talks](#giving-job-talks)

- [Post PhD Advice](#post-phd-advice)

- [Doing Research as an Undergraduate Student](#doing-research-as-an-undergraduate-student)

- [Internships (as a PhD student)](#internships-as-a-phd-student)

- [Meetings](#meetings)

- [Paper Writing](#paper-writing)

- [Paper Accepted, Then What?](#paper-accepted-then-what)

- [Writing Rebuttals](#writing-rebuttals)

- [Handling Paper Rejections](#handling-paper-rejections)

- [Research Novelty](#research-novelty)

- [Broadneing the Impact and Visibilty of Your Research](#broadneing-the-impact-and-visibilty-of-your-research)

- [Conferences](#conferences)

- [Presenting Posters](#presenting-posters)

- [Department Seminars and Events](#department-seminars-and-events)

- [Fellowship](#fellowship)

- [Ph.D. Syllabi](#phd-syllabi)

- [Getting Help](#getting-help)

- [Academics Blogging about Academia](#academics-blogging-about-academia)

- [Other Grad School Advice Pages and Sites Like Ours](#other-grad-school-advice-pages-and-sites-like-ours)



## Applying for PhD



* [Dr. Scott Freitas: Optimizing Your Machine Learning PhD Applications for Success](https://www.scottfreitas.com/blog/2022-phd-application-process)

  * Is an ML PhD Right for Me?

  * Finding the Ideal Advisor

  * Understanding the Application Process

  * Aligning your Post Graduation Objectives



### Statement of Purpose



* [Boaz Barak: How to write “statements of purpose”](https://let-all.com/assets/slides/How-to-COLT-Boaz.pdf)

* [Yisong Yue: How to Write Statements of Purpose for PhD & Fellowship Applications](https://let-all.com/assets/slides/How-to-COLT-Yisong.pdf)

* [Roman Feiman on how to write statement of purpose (SoP)](https://twitter.com/romanfeiman/status/1585700225280528385?s=46&t=lcI8TkBXEfI53wJjofjw6w)



### Letters of Recommendation



* [Polo Chau: How to help your recommendation letter writers submit on time?](https://medium.com/polo-club-of-data-science/how-to-help-your-recommendation-letter-writers-submit-on-time-2a1623b26a01)

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

* [Cornell University: Requesting Letters of Recommendation](https://gradschool.cornell.edu/diversity-inclusion/recruitment-2/prospective-students/requesting-letters-of-recommendation)

* [Chriselle Sy @ The Grad Cafe](https://blog.thegradcafe.com/how-to-ask-a-professor-for-a-letter-of-recommendation-for-grad-school/)

* [Jia-Bin Huang: How do you get a strong letter? 🤔](https://twitter.com/jbhuang0604/status/1522072974068703233?s=61&t=JSKBPkLnzxG6YdQdoiCpoA)



### Choosing PhD Advisor



* [Polo Chau: How to Choose PhD Advisor?](https://medium.com/@polochau/how-to-choose-phd-advisor-1a6682caf28e)

  * Focus on the people you will interact with every day during your PhD study (e.g., advisor, lab mates). Research is important but without the right people, research won't happen!

* [Casey Fiesler: Choosing a PhD Advisor | Questions to Ask to Find a Good PhD Supervisor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3It3oRYGMU)



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



## General Advice



* [Jimeng Sun: "Speed is Everything for AI research"](https://realsunlab.medium.com/speed-is-everything-for-ai-research-bbbc8512ac3c)

* [Casey Fiesler: "Should You Get a PhD?"](https://youtu.be/p4QiJNPSdWs)

  * Bad Reasons: You're good at school; You don't know what else to do; You want to make money; You want prestige.

  * Good Reasons: You want to be a professor; You love academic writing; You want to add new knowledge to the world; You want a research career.

* [James Arvanitakis: "How to survive a PhD"](https://www.jamesarvanitakis.net/how-to-survive-a-phd-22-tips-from-the-dean-of-graduate-studies/)

* [Nick Feamster: "Managing your advisor"](https://medium.com/great-research/managing-your-advisor-bb9060f4f8ce)

* [Austin Z. Henley: "Lessons from my PhD"](https://austinhenley.com/blog/lessonsfrommyphd.html)

  * Lead or be led; Topic sentences; Get excited; Unmotivated details; Slides versus speaker; Managers as input/output machines; Daily progress tracking

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

* [Maithra Raghu: "Reflections on my (Machine Learning) PhD Journey"](https://maithraraghu.com/blog/2020/Reflections_on_my_Machine_Learning_PhD_Journey/)

* [Aijaz A. Shaikh: "5 secrets to surviving (and thriving in) a PhD program"](https://www.elsevier.com/connect/5-secrets-to-surviving-and-progressing-in-a-phd-program)

* [Jennifer Snodgrass: "7 Hard Truths and a Few Lies"](https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2021/11/18/truths-about-academic-career-people-often-dont-share-opinion)

* [Stephen Sterns: "Modest Advice"](https://stearnslab.yale.edu/modest-advice)

* [Terence Tao: "Career Advice"](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/)

* [Lucy A. Taylor: "Twenty things I wish I’d known when I started my PhD"](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07332-x)

* David A. Patterson: "Your Students Are Your Legacy" [Public slide version](https://sites.cs.ucsb.edu/~mturk/Patterson-BadCareer.pdf). [ACM version, may be paywalled](https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1467247.1467259)

  * (1) Show initiative, for fortune favors the bold. (2) Sink or swim. (3) Educate your professor

- [Remzi: "Graduate School: Keys To Success"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqPSnjewkuA)

- [Sophia Sun: "How to graduate your PhD when you have no hope"](https://huiwenn.github.io/feynman)

- [Fei-Fei Li: "De-Mystifying Good Research and Good Papers"](https://bigaidream.gitbooks.io/tech-blog/content/2014/de-mystifying-good-research.html)



## Job Search (Academia)



* [Ben Lengerich: Thoughts from my Faculty Application Experience](https://benlengerich.medium.com/thoughts-from-my-faculty-application-experience-38f1a29c715e)

* [Elizabeth Bondi-Kelly: A blog about my experience on the CS faculty job market](https://sites.google.com/view/elizabethbondi/blog?pli=1)

* [Daniel Seita: My Experience Applying for Faculty Positions](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lmqOBtka-QA4OhOkzq_VlIjfi1Eb4Si6bBgSn8wUknk/edit#heading=h.wqsoyo20cp6x)

* [Faculty Application : EECS Communication Lab](https://mitcommlab.mit.edu/eecs/commkit/faculty-application/)

* [Rose Cersonsky: Academic Jobs](https://rosecersonsky.com/assets/slides/2022-06-14-academic-jobs.pdf)

* [Arjun Raj: Thoughts on applying for faculty positions](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Yew6wb1PMDPanPyJIRspqFvYDcIe7FwwvmKheRy8XHI/edit#heading=h.mmvbe39ryleo)

* [Workshop on Faculty Hiring Process — YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAc3DH2raxwoljRhz0x8w8cXHSffewgd8)

* [Faculty job talks: tips from the faculty — MIT EECS](https://www.eecs.mit.edu/career-opportunities-at-eecs/faculty-job-talks-tips-from-the-faculty/)

* [MIT Faculty Applicaiton Resources](https://mitcommlab.mit.edu/eecs/commkit/faculty-application/)

* [CS Faculty Interview Questions](https://csfaculty.github.io/)

* [Guide to Professorspeak](https://shomir.net/professorspeak.html)

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



## Job Search (Industry)



* [Dr. Scott Freitas: Landing Your ML PhD Dream Job](https://www.scottfreitas.com/blog/2022-phd-job-hunt)

* [Dr. Scott Freitas: Top 60 ML Interview Questions](https://www.scottfreitas.com/blog/2022-ml-job-questions)



## Giving Job Talks



* [Jonathan Birch: Tips for Giving Job Talks](https://twitter.com/birchlse/status/1491006458993209352)

* [Jeannette M. Wing: Tips on the Interview Process](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/wing/www/talks/tips.pdf)



## Post PhD Advice



* [Heng Ji: How to Seek and Secure Funding](http://blender.cs.illinois.edu/Funding_HengJi.pdf)



## Doing Research as an Undergraduate Student



* [Omar Shaikh](https://oshaikh.com): [Opinions on Undergrad Computer Science Research](https://oshaikh.com/blog/undergrad-research)



## Internships (as a PhD student)



* [Polo Chau](https://faculty.cc.gatech.edu/~dchau/): [7 Benefits of Internship](https://youtu.be/sapIzA7T9_Y)

  * "7 Ps of internships": People, Practice, Paper, Patent, Product, Publicity, Payment

* [Anne Meyer-Miner: Engaging Employers Early in Grad Student Training](https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2021/11/29/why-engage-employers-early-grad-student-training-opinion)

  * "Anne Meyer-Minor describes the mutual benefits that occur when company managers collaborate with academics in the career development of advanced-degree trainees."

* [Yong Zheng-Xin: AI Research Internship Search as a CS PhD Student](https://yongzx.github.io)



## Meetings



* [Reflections on Successful Meetings with Undergraduate Researchers](https://medium.com/@jurgens_24580/reflections-on-strategies-for-successful-meetings-with-undergraduate-researchers-ae22306ecd8d)



## Paper Writing



* [Devi Parikh](https://faculty.cc.gatech.edu/~parikh/), Georgia Tech: [Planning paper writing](https://deviparikh.medium.com/planning-paper-writing-553f497e8839)

* [Devi Parikh](https://faculty.cc.gatech.edu/~parikh/), Georgia Tech: [Shortening papers to fit page limits](https://deviparikh.substack.com/p/shortening-papers-to-fit-page-limits-97601318681d)

* [Christos Faloutsos](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~christos/), CMU: [Lessons from 1K rejected research papers](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~christos/TMP/faloutsos_1KR.pptx)

  *  How to create crown jewel figures (fig 1), pick paper title, tool name, write abstract (start with rhetorical question), think like reviewers (relevance, novelty, technical quality, presentation)

* [Maxwell Forbes (UWash): Making a Figure 1](https://maxwellforbes.com/posts/figure-creation-tutorial-making-a-figure-1)

* [Diyi Yang](https://faculty.cc.gatech.edu/~dyang888/), Georgia Tech: [Paper Clinic for checking paper structure, organiziation, overall impression](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B3vPV47FA77AOqTc4OEHhmCw7aCArLloK_pffC3H1n0/)

* [Stevie Chancellor](http://steviechancellor.com/), University of Minnesota: [How to Write More with Less Stress by Writing Every Day](https://stevie-chancellor.medium.com/how-to-write-more-with-less-stress-by-writing-every-day-20127c9ded66)

* [Toward a good scientific writing](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40071-014-0080-8)

* [Terry Tao's advice](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/advice-on-writing-papers/)

* [Perfecting Your Scientific Writing: Tips & Tricks](https://elitemanuscripts.com/2020/04/17/perfecting-your-scientific-writing-tips-tricks/)

* [Improving your scientific writing: a short guide](https://lijunsun.github.io/files/ScientificWritingV39.pdf)

* [Three Sins of Authors in Computer Science and Math](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jrs/sins.html)

* [How to write a great research paper](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/academic-program/write-great-research-paper/)

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

* [Adam Wierman: Advising](http://users.cms.caltech.edu/~adamw/advising.html)

* [How to Write a Good Article](http://people.csail.mit.edu/fredo/FredoBadWriting.pdf)

* [Ten simple Rules for Responsible referencing](https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006036#sec001)

* [Tips for being concise in academic writing](https://lauraripperproofreading.com/2018/01/26/how-to-be-concise-tips-for-academic-writing/)

* [Marco Tulio Ribeiro: Writing, part 1 — the process](https://medium.com/@marcotcr/writing-part-1-the-process-6bb92cb522eb)

* [Jia-Bin Huang: How to Write a Good Research Paper](https://www.dropbox.com/s/uqxkm89fbjm2x54/2023_03_13%20CMSC800%20Paper%20Writing.pptx?dl=0)

* [Sasha Rush: How to Write an "okay" research paper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNlwVGxkG7Q)



## Paper Accepted, Then What?



* [Casey Fiesler: what ACM copyright model should I choose?](https://caseyfiesler.com/2014/10/02/acm-publication-copyright/)

* [Jay Wang: arXiv submission instruction](https://notes.zijie.wang/arxiv-preparation.html)

* [Jay Wang: tips and tricks to make ACM TAPS happy](https://notes.zijie.wang/how-to-make-taps-happy.html)



## Writing Rebuttals



* [How we write rebuttals](https://deviparikh.medium.com/how-we-write-rebuttals-dc84742fece1) by Devi Parikh, Dhruv Batra, Stefan Lee

* [How to ML Rebuttal – A Brief Guide](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cdEypaZXnJ10IckV49iBXEl27gCFnwEhQfLr680Fv18/edit) by Tim Rocktäschel and Jakob Foerster

* [Jay Wang: How to mark up paper revisions with LaTeX?](https://notes.zijie.wang/paper-revision-markup.html)



## Handling Paper Rejections



* [Aditya Parameswaran: "Coping with Rejection"](https://www.loom.com/embed/89bfb10668d94595b265a156126474a5)

* [Niklas Elmqvist: "Dealing with Rejection"](https://sites.umiacs.umd.edu/elm/2016/10/25/dealing-with-rejection/)

* [Robert Kosara: "Dealing with Paper Rejections"](https://eagereyes.org/blog/2016/dealing-with-paper-rejections#reviewing-in-visualization-and-hci)



## Research Novelty



* [Michael Black](http://ps.is.mpg.de/person/black): [Novelty in Science: A guide for reviewers](https://perceiving-systems.blog/en/news/novelty-in-science)

  *  Reviewers regularly mistake complexity, difficulty, and technicality for novelty. A better way is to replace *novelty* with *beauty*.

* [Marco Tulio Ribeiro: Coming up with research ideas](https://medium.com/@marcotcr/coming-up-with-research-ideas-3032682e5852)

* [Marco Tulio Ribeiro: Organizing and evaluating research ideas](https://medium.com/@marcotcr/organizing-and-evaluating-research-ideas-e137637b599e)



## Broadneing the Impact and Visibilty of Your Research



* [Polo Chau: Should PhD Students Have Websites?](https://medium.com/polo-club-of-data-science/should-phd-students-have-websites-8bfc8020985a)

  * Yes, for multiple benefits. 1: craft professional brand. 2:

enhance visibility. 3: facilitate sharing. 4: broaden audience.



## Conferences



* [Ten Tips for Newcomers at an Academic/Industry Conference](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gnZgja2vKFlqrM3ypACN_O-oe21La6gfu4gpOzDnLYQ/edit?usp=sharing)

* [7 reasons why every PhD student should attend academic conferences; Alessandra Bassey](https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/phd-conferences/)

* [The Great Benefits of Attending Academic Conferences; Miguel Otero-Iglesias](https://www.uaces.org/resources/articles/great-benefits-attending-academic-conferences)

* Navigating your first academic conference; Joshua C. Palmer (URL currently not accessible)



## Presenting Posters



* [Jay Wang: Print Academic Posters on Foldable Fabric](https://notes.zijie.wang/print-fabric-poster.html)



## Department Seminars and Events



* [Why seminars are important to the graduate experience](https://daniels.du.edu/blog/why-seminars-and-workshops-are-important-to-the-graduate-experience/)

* [Why invited talks are important](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/148672/what-s-the-point-of-invited-talks)

* [Participating in graduate seminar discussions](https://www.evalefkowitz.com/blog/participating-in-graduate-seminar-discussions)



## Fellowship



* [Dr. Scott Freitas: Tips & Tricks to Land a PhD Fellowship](https://www.scottfreitas.com/blog/2022-fellowship-applications)

	* TL;DR

	* Understanding the Benefits

	* Comparing Fellowships

	* Application Process

	* Gaining the Edge

* [Five tips for a successful Facebook Fellowship application from the people who review them](https://research.facebook.com/blog/2020/9/five-tips-for-a-successful-facebook-fellowship-application-from-the-people-who-review-them/)

* [Morgan Klaus Scheuerman: Tips for Applying to PhD Fellowships in HCI / Social Computing](https://morganklauss.medium.com/tips-for-applying-to-phd-fellowships-in-hci-social-computing-5abf5052987d)

* [Jazette Johnson: 7 Tips for Applying for the Microsoft Research Ada Lovelace Fellowship](https://medium.com/@jazettej/7-tips-for-applying-for-the-microsoft-research-ada-lovelace-fellowship-d4a5a8910345)

  * Ada Lovelace Fellowship was discontinued, but the tips apply to other fellowships

* [CS PhD fellowship list (CMU)](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~gradfellowships/)

* [CS PhD fellowship list (GT)](https://ml.gatech.edu/content/fellowship-award-opportunities)

* [Graduate Fellowship list (Johns Hopkins)](https://research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-opportunities/graduate/)



## Ph.D. Syllabi and Research Group Handbooks



* [Spencer Bryngelson](https://github.com/comp-physics/group-docs)

* [Eric Gilbert](https://docs.google.com/document/d/11D3kHElzS2HQxTwPqcaTnU5HCJ8WGE5brTXI4KLf4dM)

* [Mor Naaman](https://s.tech.cornell.edu/phd-syllabus/)

* [Jon Froehlich](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YiiDsfpiolpXjUTj8xWrQwQQUzqrfqT9bocOpaYDrtI/edit)

* [Collection of Lab Handbooks](https://github.com/samuelmehr/labhandbooks)

* [Graduating advising philosophy, David Darmofal](http://darmofal.mit.edu/graduate-advising-philosophy)



## Getting Help



* [Talk to your ombudsperson](https://ombuds.oregonstate.edu/what-ombuds)

* [Ask the internet](https://academia.stackexchange.com/)

* [General advice](https://inomics.com/advice/10-biggest-struggles-of-phd-students-610514)



## Academics Blogging about Academia



* [Matt Might](https://matt.might.net/#blog)

* [John Regehr](https://blog.regehr.org/)



## Other Grad School Advice Pages and Sites Like Ours



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

* [The Tao of PhD (UW course)](https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse590x/22wi/resources/)

* [Awesome PhD Advice](https://github.com/pliang279/awesome-phd-advice)

* [Awesome Tips from Jia-Bin Huang](https://github.com/jbhuang0604/awesome-tips)