june 2010 slide 1 vtu phd workshop phd process: part ii personal, communication and environmental...

June 2010 Slide 1 VTU PhD Workshop

PhD Process: Part IIPersonal, Communication

and Environmental Aspects

Jayant Haritsa

Computer Science & Automation

Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

THESIS

ADVISOR

INSTITUTION

RESEARCHCOMMUNITY

REAL WORLD

Part I

Part II

The PhD Process


PERSONAL ASPECTS


Motivation for PhD

• VTU requirement for promotion

• Cultural capital (add the Dr prefix)

• Masochistic mindset (long pain period)

• Enjoy discovery / writing / talking


Work Ethic

• INDEPENDENT research

• It is YOUR thesis, not the Advisor’s!

• The advisor is not a NANNY!

• CANNOT do PhD as side business

• Focus on ONE problem at a time– 2 * 0.5 << 1 * 1

• WELCOME criticism of your work


Survival Pre-requisites [1]

• Ability to look at life in a perverse (creative) way– (Mark Twain) Age is an issue of mind over matter.

If you don't mind, it doesn't matter !

• Patience and mental strength to negotiate the troughs (inevitable for every PhD)

• Trust your gut feelings in spite of negative results– Luck favors the prepared mind (Pasteur/Hamming)

• Good sense of humour – you will definitely need it!• Ability to smile (through gritted teeth) at advisor


Survival Pre-requisites [2]

• Industry experience – NO!– "Real problems" only imply short-term

applicability– May even be counter-productive since

immediate reaction is to start programming, rather than conceptual thinking

• PhD registration Research Scholar

• PhD is “training to do research” AND “actually doing research”

X


VTU Faculty Specifics

• Difficult to devote time due to academic and familial responsibilities– Make sure to set aside a fixed daily time slot

for research and make this sacrosanct

• Course students can participate in the research work under your direction and thereby accelerate the progress


Good PhD Thesis• Relevant to society – NO!• Relevant to industry – NO!• Right question: “Did I have fun thinking about the

problem and did I devise elegant solutions that I am proud to show my mother (and she didn't find any mistakes in the proofs)?”

• Doing a PhD is hard enough without the burden of additional expectations ...

• All good dissertations find their way into the real-world sooner or later


ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS


BAD ADVISOR CHOICE

• Knows less about the topic than you do(even at the beginning)

• Not visible in the research community

• Says “Yes” to a student without assessment

• Popular with students due to low expectations, not subject mastery

• Most notable achievement in last five years has been getting his PF transferred


GOOD ADVISOR CHOICE [1]

• Junior Young Turk– Great enthusiasm and involvement

– Current with research topics

– Remembers PhD tribulations

– Expects the world from you

– Micro-management of your work


GOOD ADVISOR CHOICE [2]

• Senior Big Shot– Broad perspective of research area

– Can advertise your work well

– Provides academic freedom to explore

– Perenially rushed for time

– Will not write your thesis


BAD CHOICE of FRIENDS

• ondu idly-vada / by-two coffee dost– Unless your thesis topic is “Topological sorting

arrangements of circles and donuts”

• Indian philosophy buff– Indian philosophy is an intellectual mechanism

for providing extremely sophisticated reasons as to why work cannot be done

• Lazy genius– Will drag you into the mud with him


GOOD CHOICE of FRIENDS

• Technically competent and ambitious– a healthy spirit of both cooperation and

competition

• Willing to call “a spade a spade” and criticize you to your face

• Brings out the best research in you


RESEARCH COMMUNITY• Take every opportunity to meet with the

“movers and shakers” in the field– attend local international conferences such as

COMAD, HiPC, FSTTCS, IndoCrypt, …– attend summer schools (Yahoo, Microsoft, …)– apply for six-month internships in research labs

after you are about half-way through your thesis– send technical reports for comments outside– for funding, approach academies (INAE/IASc

/NASc /INSA) and DST/CSIR/KSCST/VTU


REAL WORLD

• Family– starts calling you a “visiting professor”– question your sanity with cold-blooded regularity

• Well-wishers– take great delight in asking you

“Is the thesis done yet?” “Can we call you Doctor now?”“Do all PhDs take this long?”


COMMUNICATIONASPECTS


WRITING and PRESENTATION IMPERATIVES

• It is your duty as a scientist to share your discoveries with others

• Your work is understood only from what you present / publish

• You are evaluated only based on what you write in your reports, etc.


Acquiring Writing Skills [1]

• http://dsl.serc.iisc.ernet.in/~haritsa/geninfo/techwrite.ppt (by Vikram Pudi)

• Essential for both publications and thesis

• Spelling: Automated Spellcheckers

• Style: Elements of Style by Strunk & White– Clarity, elegance and flow

– Technical precision is paramount• e.g. rampant misuse of “optimal” and “ideal”

– Avoid ornate language – this is not a literary exercise• e.g. The linked list appeared like a chain of jasmine flowers


Acquiring Writing Skills [2]

• Organization– Modular (like programming)

– Linear narrative (no “item songs” )

– Minimize redundancy

• Choose good titles/acronyms (like variable names)– Time Will Tell: Leveraging Temporal Expressions in IR

– Real-time commit protocol called PROMPT (Permits Reading Of Modified Prepared-data for Timeliness)

• Read and revise word-by-word!– 10 page paper usually takes a month to write satisfactorily


Acquiring Presentation Skills

• Slides should be in large font / visible colors

• Ideas should be conveyed through pictures / animation as far as possible

• Focus on conveying the main idea, and not every single detail

• Rehearse the entire talk a few times

• Memorize the inter-slide transitions

• Carry out dry-runs with your peer group


PUBLICATIONS

• ESSENTIAL to publish at least TWO papers before submitting thesis – Progress milestones confidence buildup– Honest feedback from anonymous experts – Early warning of potential disaster situations– Ideas for future work – Thesis gets written/revised at a steady pace,

not delayed to the end, when it can prove to be an overwhelming task

– Makes the resume speak for itself


PUBLICATION FORA

• Unique feature of CS: The top conferences and journals are viewed as equivalent fora.– Evaluating Computer Scientists and Engineers for

Promotion and Tenure• David Patterson (Univ. of California, Berkeley)

• Lawrence Snyder (Univ. of Washington, Seattle)

• Jeffrey Ullman (Stanford University)

“In those dimensions that count most, conferences are superior.” “Conference publication is both rigorous and prestigious.”


CS Conference/Journal Quality

• Most reliable, comprehensive and recent are the rankings by Australasian CORE

• ~1500 conferences and ~2000 journals

• Ranks them into A+, A, B, C categories

• Website: http://www.core.edu.au/

• Goal should be to publish in A+ and A categories • ICDE database conference (A+): ~15% accepts


Further Reading• How to Get a PhD: A Handbook for Students and Their

Supervisors– E. Phillips and D.S. Pugh, OUP

• Getting a Phd: An Action Plan to Help You Manage Your Research, Your Supervisor and Your Project– John Finn (Routledge Study Guides)

• Authoring a PhD: How to Plan, Draft, Write and Finish a Doctoral Thesis or Dissertation– Patrick Dunleavy (Palgrave Study Guides)

• http://www.phdcomics.com/


Take Away


QUESTIONS ?


END

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