4 ms·

Lessons learned the hard way in grad school (so far)

49 points by andreyk 7y ago

andreyk 7y ago
Author here, hope you enjoy! Feel free to ask anything too or suggest revisions. Disclaimer up front, as I say in the text these are not the only lessons I have learned, just the most directly linked to experiences I can use as examples. And, these are of course applicable to most creative work, not just grad school. PS there was a pretty lengthy discussion on the /r/ML subreddit already, which you might find interesting (https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/fsi7iv/d_lessons_learned_from_my_failures_as_a_grad/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/fsi7iv/d_l...)
librish 7y ago
Has your answer to the question "would you recommend going for a PhD?" changed since you started?
- andreyk 7y ago
  Nope! As I said in there, this is inherently in the nature of doing a PhD, and having done research in undergrad and MS I knew that going on. May not make it easier to go through tough stuff, but it does make it easier to not lose desire to do PhD.
russfink 7y ago
Love this. If I had one to add, don't be afraid to go back to a previous idea with a fresh perspective. I spent several months researching a similarity technique. After making no headway, and realizing that a "crutch" was doing all the work, I dropped the first idea to pursue the crutch exclusively. After many more months, I realized that crutch would not work after all, and was depressed. But then I had a different idea about the original technique. I went back to that, applied the new twist, and eureka! It is like those old coyote road runner cartoons. The frustrating thing about the coyote was that he never went back and fixed tiny problems with his attempts, instead he dropped every nearly-successful attempt and moved on to something completely different, just to find that it had different bugs in it.
- busyant 7y ago
  > After many more months, I realized that crutch would not work after all, and was depressed. But then I had a different idea about the original technique. I went back to that, applied the new twist, and eureka! This sounds like it's worthy of a blog post in and of itself. Also, the road runner/coyote analogy is superb.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  > It is like those old coyote road runner cartoons. The frustrating thing about the coyote was that he never went back and fixed tiny problems with his attempts, instead he dropped every nearly-successful attempt and moved on to something completely different, just to find that it had different bugs in it. I've heard the same thing about GI Joe. COBRA had working weather satellites---why didn't they just try again in next weeks episode?!
kaybe 7y ago
You write 'fellowship rejected' 3 times, I read 'managed to apply for 3 fellowships'. Just like you did with the paper submissions I think these can also count as successes.
- andreyk 7y ago
  Indeed!
mikekchar 7y ago
The biggest mistake I had in grad school (which I didn't survive) was to talk to other people in the department. I was building a parallel discrete even simulator (using an optimistic strategy with rollback). There were a couple of people in the department doing work that needed simulation. I naively went around to them and showed them what I was doing and asked them if there was anything they might find useful. I had read up on the research of the other people in the group, looked at what they were doing and the simulation side was decidedly... um... not robust, shall we say. I identified a bunch of issues that they were certainly having and showed how what I was doing would help them out. OMG. What a shit storm that caused. My supervisor was thankfully very good about it (I had not cleared my wonderful idea with him). But after a few months of being accused of being a spy and people being cautioned not to talk to me under any circumstances, I decided that industry was the way forward for me. I realised I was not suited for the cut-throat nature of academic life ;-) I say this knowing that some people will be shocked, but that anybody in academia will be mostly shocked at my naivety. Seriously bad idea, but one that idealistic, younger me thought was natural.
- kbk 7y ago
  The academia is corrupted.
  - tastroder 7y ago
    No, while reports like this are sadly still pretty common there's also other strains in academia that are open to collaboration between groups and welcome it. The advice you replied to likely highly depends on where you work and who you work for.
- alimw 7y ago
  A spy for whom?
  - mikekchar 7y ago
    Other professors were convinced I was trying to steal their ideas and give them to my supervisor. It caused him a lot of trouble.
gautamcgoel 7y ago
Went to college with this guy, great to see him kicking ass on the front page of HN!
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
abidlabs 7y ago
Good stuff Andrey! Sounds very familiar :)

49 points by andreyk 7y ago

Author here, hope you enjoy! Feel free to ask anything too or suggest revisions. Disclaimer up front, as I say in the text these are not the only lessons I have learned, just the most directly linked to experiences I can use as examples. And, these are of course applicable to most creative work, not just grad school. PS there was a pretty lengthy discussion on the /r/ML subreddit already, which you might find interesting (https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/fsi7iv/d_lessons_learned_from_my_failures_as_a_grad/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/fsi7iv/d_l...)

librish 7y ago

Has your answer to the question "would you recommend going for a PhD?" changed since you started?

andreyk 7y ago
Nope! As I said in there, this is inherently in the nature of doing a PhD, and having done research in undergrad and MS I knew that going on. May not make it easier to go through tough stuff, but it does make it easier to not lose desire to do PhD.

russfink 7y ago

Love this. If I had one to add, don't be afraid to go back to a previous idea with a fresh perspective. I spent several months researching a similarity technique. After making no headway, and realizing that a "crutch" was doing all the work, I dropped the first idea to pursue the crutch exclusively. After many more months, I realized that crutch would not work after all, and was depressed. But then I had a different idea about the original technique. I went back to that, applied the new twist, and eureka! It is like those old coyote road runner cartoons. The frustrating thing about the coyote was that he never went back and fixed tiny problems with his attempts, instead he dropped every nearly-successful attempt and moved on to something completely different, just to find that it had different bugs in it.

busyant 7y ago
> After many more months, I realized that crutch would not work after all, and was depressed. But then I had a different idea about the original technique. I went back to that, applied the new twist, and eureka! This sounds like it's worthy of a blog post in and of itself. Also, the road runner/coyote analogy is superb.
blaser-waffle 7y ago
> It is like those old coyote road runner cartoons. The frustrating thing about the coyote was that he never went back and fixed tiny problems with his attempts, instead he dropped every nearly-successful attempt and moved on to something completely different, just to find that it had different bugs in it. I've heard the same thing about GI Joe. COBRA had working weather satellites---why didn't they just try again in next weeks episode?!

kaybe 7y ago

You write 'fellowship rejected' 3 times, I read 'managed to apply for 3 fellowships'. Just like you did with the paper submissions I think these can also count as successes.

andreyk 7y ago
Indeed!

mikekchar 7y ago

The biggest mistake I had in grad school (which I didn't survive) was to talk to other people in the department. I was building a parallel discrete even simulator (using an optimistic strategy with rollback). There were a couple of people in the department doing work that needed simulation. I naively went around to them and showed them what I was doing and asked them if there was anything they might find useful. I had read up on the research of the other people in the group, looked at what they were doing and the simulation side was decidedly... um... not robust, shall we say. I identified a bunch of issues that they were certainly having and showed how what I was doing would help them out. OMG. What a shit storm that caused. My supervisor was thankfully very good about it (I had not cleared my wonderful idea with him). But after a few months of being accused of being a spy and people being cautioned not to talk to me under any circumstances, I decided that industry was the way forward for me. I realised I was not suited for the cut-throat nature of academic life ;-) I say this knowing that some people will be shocked, but that anybody in academia will be mostly shocked at my naivety. Seriously bad idea, but one that idealistic, younger me thought was natural.

kbk 7y ago
The academia is corrupted.
- tastroder 7y ago
  No, while reports like this are sadly still pretty common there's also other strains in academia that are open to collaboration between groups and welcome it. The advice you replied to likely highly depends on where you work and who you work for.
alimw 7y ago
A spy for whom?
- mikekchar 7y ago
  Other professors were convinced I was trying to steal their ideas and give them to my supervisor. It caused him a lot of trouble.

gautamcgoel 7y ago

Went to college with this guy, great to see him kicking ass on the front page of HN!

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

abidlabs 7y ago

Good stuff Andrey! Sounds very familiar :)