Welcome
Welcome to our group’s site! Eventually, all the resources you need to successfully complete your M.S. / Ph.D. will be listed here. The plan is to have this site be a living organism where we will keep adding and updating information. If you have any suggestions or material that could/should be added, please let me know! I plan to include useful readings, schedules, and due dates for each quarter so you know exactly what is due when and how to best meet these deadlines. By organizing content and setting dates for deliverables each quarter, I hope you will see that the Ph.D. is not this an unachievable idea. It definitely takes hard work, good planning, and daily progress chipping away at a larger goal. Unavoidably there will be times when life becomes busy and you will feel you don’t have control. At some points you will fall behind and at other you will make amazing progress. No matter what, communicating with me is key!
During your graduate school years, you will have the wonderful opportunity to explore and learn and teach yourselves anything you find necessary to solve the problems we will be tackling. These next few years will likely be the most time you have to dedicate to learning because once you get a job, the amount of time you have to learn new things will decrease dramatically. The most important skill you will learn in graduate school is to learn how to learn. Everybody has their own motivation behind pursuing a graduate degree… the one thing that I typically find to be the common denominator is enjoying the process of figuring out how to make something (a code, a device, an analytical solution etc.) work!
Site Logistics
The goal of this website is to contain information that will help you grow as students, researchers, learners, listeners, engineers etc. Some sections will focus on hard skills and others on soft skills. We will aim to gradually cover everything during our group meetings and ensure that you progress in a holistic manner and build all your skillsets!
As you will see in one of the resources, everybody has their own learning style. Ultimately I want you to find your own way that works for you and your progress. If you don’t know what works, it will take some time but I will never impose my ways on you (apart of course from ways that ensure quality deliverables!)… so these are suggestions that I have found that work for me.
- Begin with Start Reading for papers / book recommendations. These resources are meant to get you thinking about learning and research.
- The faster you can read and comprehend journal papers the more quickly you will begin to make progress on your own research. Reading journal papers is a skill. I’ve listed only a few in Start Writing to get you started. They are well written and the type of writing I eventually expect from you (and myself!). The section is called “Start Writing” because you should get in the habit of taking notes about each paper you read.
- To break up the reading/writing it’s always great to look to other educators, scientists, engineers, authors, etc. with new ideas on a variety of topics. These include podcasts, TED talks, conference recordings, and more. I’ve compiled a list in Start Listening that I enjoy for you to reference but by no means stop here.
Graduate School
I love teaching and researching because I love learning. I view my role as a teacher as the logical continuation of my own studentship. Throughout the next few years my job is to provide you advice and guidance towards earning your Ph.D. and finding what triggers you the most. Inspired by brilliant colleagues I have compiled a resource with advice but to begin, here is my first advice:
Breakaway from the undergraduate mentality. Grades no longer matter. The most important trait is being inquisitive, independent and taking initiatives. When we meet it will be great if you tell me “I figured it out!”… but it will be equally great if you say “I didn’t figure it out but I figured out 1000 ways that don’t work!” (and you won’t be the first one). You should ask “why” frequently. You should doubt me. You should doubt everybody. Your ideas and thoughts are important. For more read here.