Collection of advice for prospective and current PhD students
By Paul Liang (pliang@cs.cmu.edu), Machine Learning Department and Language Technologies Institute, CMU, 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.
Table of Contents
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Advice for prospective students
General advice
Applying to PhD Programs in Computer Science by Mor Harchol-Balter
Graduate School Advice by Stanford CS
Undergrad to PhD, or not - advice for undergrads interested in research by John Hewitt
HOWTO: Get into grad school for science, engineering, math and computer science by Matt Might
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Machine Learning PhD Applications — Everything You Need to Know by Tim Dettmers
Demystifying ML PhD Admissions to US Universities by Hima Lakkaraju
Ph.D. Applications: FAQ by Noah Smith
Quora answer on the admission committee process by Scott Fahlman
Reflecting on CS Graduate Admissions by David Anderson
A PhD is Not Enough: A Guide to Survival in Science by Peter Feibelman
The PhD in CS: Getting There and Being Successful by Michael Hilton, Janet Davis, and Ian Ludden
Statement of purpose
Database of Example PhD SOPs by the CS-SOP initiative
Some Suggestions on writing your statement of purpose by Jennifer Mankoff
Graduate School Personal Statements by Christopher Fletcher
Inside PhD admissions: What readers look for in a Statement of Purpose by Nathan Schneider
How to Write a Bad Statement by Andy Pavlo
Tips and Tricks, How-To Guide for Grad School SoPs by Erica Weng
Graduate School Statement of Purpose by MIT EECS
How to write personal statement for graduate school application by Stanley Chan
Writing a Google AI Residency Cover Letter by Katherine Lee and Ben Eysenbach
Public examples: [Cody Coleman], [Sai Rallabandi], [Jeremy Lacomis], [Sean Kross], [Zahid Hossain], [Jean Yang]
Visit days, choosing advisor and school
How to Choose Your Grad School by Tim Dettmers
How to Pick a Graduate Advisor by Ben Barres
The Definitive ‘what do I ask/look for’ in a PhD Advisor Guide by Columbia CS
Advice for current students
PhD survival guides
So long, and thanks for the PhD by Ronald T. Azuma
Graduate School: Keys To Success by Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau
The illustrated guide to a PhD by Matt Might
How to Be a Successful PhD Student by Mark Dredze, Hanna Wallach
Time Management by Randy Pausch
Advice to a Beginning Graduate Student by Manuel Blum
Finances for CS PhD students by David Anderson
A Survival Guide to a PhD by Andrej Karpathy
15 pieces of advice I wish my PhD advisor had given me by Jim Kurose
The Tao of PhD: Thriving in the Allen School’s Graduate Program by University of Washington
10 tips for PhD students by Daniela Witten
Expectation Setting by Eugene Vinitsky
Research
How to Do Great Research by Nick Feamster and Alex Gray
How to Have a Bad Career How to Have a Bad Career in Research/Academia by David Patterson
Useful Thoughts about Research by H.T. Kung
You and Your Research by Richard Hamming
Advice on Research and Writing by Mark Leone
Reading
How to Read a Paper by Srinivasan Keshav
How to Read a Technical Paper by Jason Eisner
Writing
How to write a good CVPR submission by Bill Freeman
Ten Simple Rules for Mathematical Writing by Dimitri Bertsekas
Notes on writing by Fredo Durand
How to write a (hopefully good) paper by Martin Vetterli
Blogposts
PhDLife Blog - A collection of blog posts from Warwick University
Reviewing
Reviewer Tutorial by CVPR 2022
How to write a good review by CVPR 2020
How to write a reviewer report by Stanley Chan
Presenting
Giving an Academic Talk by Jonathan Shewchuk
How to give a technical presentation by Michael Ernst
Advising students
(coming soon, send PR!)
Teaching
How to Be a Teaching Assistant by Jason Eisner
Fellowship applications
Tips for the NSF GRFP Application by Danielle Perry
NSF GRFP Advice by Christine Liu
Public examples: [Extensive NSF collection by Alex Lang], [Victoria Dean (NSF personal)], [Victoria Dean (NSF research)], [Tara Safavi (NSF)], [Paul Liang (Facebook)], [Devendra Chaplot (Facebook)], [Sai Rallabandi (Facebook)]
Networking
Networking on the Network: A Guide to Professional Skills for PhD Students by Phil Agre
Organizing workshops and tutorials
Hitchhiker’s guide to organizing an academic workshop by Ben Eysenbach and Surya Bhupatiraju
Attending academic conferences
Nine things I wish I had known the first time I came to NeurIPS by Jennifer Vaughan
NeurIPS 2018 through the eyes of first-timers by Fangyu Cai
How To Make A Plan To Attend International Academic Conferences
Job search
Tips for Computer Science Faculty Applications
How to Ask for a Letter of Recommendation
Interview Questions for Computer Science Faculty Jobs
The Ph.D. Job Hunt - Helping Students Find the Right Positions by Ed Lazowska
Checklist for faculty job-hunting in Stat/ML by Aaditya Ramdas
Tips on the interview process by Jeannette Wing
Getting an academic job by Michael Ernst
Academic job search advice by Matt Might
Memoirs
I loved graduate school by Peter Bailis
What my PhD was like by Jean Yang
How to get a Ph.D. in computer science if you're me by Chris Martens