This is very US-centric, your mileage may vary in other countries. For example: >For instance, I started my first successful Ph.D. project at the beginning of

This is very US-centric, your mileage may vary in other countries. For example: >For instance, I started my first successful Ph.D. project at the beginning of my fourth year and didn't get the paper published until the middle of my fifth year. If you're an international PhD student in Australia your student visa ends after 3 1/2 years. What I would add: - Randomness You're new, so you have no idea whether your project will work out. Most don't, that's just how research works. Some supervisors have a magic nose when it comes to evaluating a project, but even they occasionally fail. One of the best things you can learn in your PhD is when to pull the plug on a project that's just not working out. For me it was very frustrating to see other PhD students who 'stumbled' into having more papers than me, some projects immediately throw up results once you go near them and you get heaps of papers, some projects have to have their results pulled out of them by force. - be pro-active Most supervisors don't regularly keep tabs on their students, they're busy themselves. If something is unclear immediately find your supervisor and ask. It's better to over-ask then to under-ask and do the wrong thing for a month. I tried to talk to my supervisor at least 3-5 times per week (when he was in his office). - write, write, write In the current funding system the only thing that counts is publications. Start writing as early as possible, ideally have an outline of the paper when you're starting your project. Keep on writing in the paper even though you don't have the results yet - you want to 'tell a story', writing the story will tell you which experiments or analyses you have to run, and which graphs and tables will support your story. If your story doesn't work out change the story later. Writing the paper will also keep you from doing unnecessary work that sounds interesting in itself but won't add to the story. - hard workers are more successful than geniuses Guo touches on this a bit. Someone who works hard will have inevitably more success than a lazy genius. - start communities if there are none For software people, many unis have Hacky Hours now - often there's a local Software Carpentry community or similar. Get involved with those people, at the least just to get out of your office/lab once in a while. - Alternative careers are myriad Chances are you won't become a Professor. Depending on your field there are many, many hidden opportunities outside of academia, so look around!