What you should read before starting your PhD
July 17th, 2008 by joseNew to AcademicProductivity.com?
Here are a few posts that other readers recommend you check out:
Here is one of the best summaries of how things can go wrong when one chooses to follow the academic path. I got this from Hacker news. The author of this well-written piece came from the industry, and compares the world he knows with what he encountered at the academia.
Things he finds:
- Doing a PhD is lonely
- Your picking the right advisor will determine your happiness level more than anything else
- The way you code within the academic world has nothing to do with the way people code in the
industry
But maybe we already know this.
What I’d like to see is someone writing a similar piece on life after your PhD. I had this silly idea that things would be easier and I’d have more time after my PhD Thesis for… you know, hobbies and other stuff normal people do. Nothing farther from reality.
About the author: Jose Quesada wanted to be a matador, an acrobatic pilot, or a painter, but found those activities not demanding enough, so he chose an academic career. He secretly hopes to orchestrate a system that produces papers without any human intervention (particularly, his).
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July 17th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
As long as you’re suggesting good reading pre/early in your Phd, I have to recommend: Advice for a Young Investigator by Santiago Ramon y Cajal.
Its written in the late 19th century by one of the founders of modern neuroscience, but it still seems incredibly relevant today. Even as a non-neuroscientist, I found it incredibly insightful. There are a few anachronisms – but I think that just adds to the experience.
Highly recommended.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:00 am
[...] I learnt during, and about, my PhD [You may want to read his disclaimer first.] Happy laughs. (HT: Jose) . . . . This post represents the advice I wish I could have given to myself when I was thinking [...]
July 27th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
[...] Jose posted an article last week about one person’s PhD experience, highlighting many of the common difficulties [...]