Useful Links for (Prospective) PhD Students

Useful links for (prospective) PhD students

The following links might prove useful for (prospective) PhD students, particularly those in the U.S. and in computer science or math. A lot of the material is pretty much universal, though. If you know of other great resources that I could add to this list, send me e-mail at mylastname@cs.ucdavis.edu.

Till Stegers
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Writing Clear Conference Submissions by Shai Halevi, IBM Research.
http://theory.csail.mit.edu/~shaih/pubs/writing-clearly.html

Effective Scientific Electronic Publishing
By Markus G. Kuhn, University of Cambridge.
Read this before placing your papers online.
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/publ-tips/

So long, and thanks for the Ph.D.! and other guides to survive grad school by Ronald T. Azuma, formerly UNC Chapel Hill.
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/azuma_guides.html

The PhD Experience by Mihir Bellare, UC San Diego, and links to other sites.
http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/~mihir/education.html

Networking on the Network: A Guide to Professional Skills for PhD Students. By Phil Agre, UC Los Angeles. (quite long!)
http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/network.html

Phil Agre's homepage has some more guides, including "How to be a leader in your field" and "Hosting a speaker".

An Insider's Guide to Choosing a Graduate Advisor and Research Projects in Laboratory Sciences.
By Marshall Lev Dermer, University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee.
http://www.cs.umbc.edu/www/graduate/choosing.an.advisor

doktorandenforum.de
By my cousin Sebastian Veelken (in German).
Website with many hints for PhD students in Germany; includes a lively discussion forum.
http://www.doktorandenforum.de/ (English summary)

DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service)
Comprehensive information on tertiary education, including PhD studies, in Germany. The site includes information on financial aid.
http://daad.de/deutschland/index.en.html

Wie halte ich einen Seminarvortrag? By Manfred Lehn (in German), University of Mainz.
http://www.mathematik.uni-mainz.de/Members/lehn/le/seminarvortrag

Applying to Ph.D. Programs in Computer Science. By Mor Harchol-Balter, Carnegie Mellon University.
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf

Advice for Foreign Students Wishing to Pursue Graduate Study in Computer Science at UCSC
By Jim Whitehead, UC Santa Cruz.
This text provides some insight for foreign students as to why life might be harder for them at public schools as opposed to private schools.
http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~ejw/advice/

The Harvey Mudd Guide to Graduate School in Computer Science
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/gradschool.pdf

Notes On The PhD Degree. By Douglas E. Comer, Purdue University.
http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/comer/essay.phd.html

The Young Mathematicians' Network
http://www.youngmath.net/concerns

Hints to prepare for the Subject GRE in Physics and Math

For writing your CV, I suggest to look at a lot of examples from homepages of professors and graduate students. There's also http://www.cvtips.com/

Letters of Reference -- A "How-To" Guide for Students. By Bill Power, University of Waterloo.
http://www.grad.uwaterloo.ca/scholarships/Letters%20of%20ReferenceSept2004.pdf

Purdue University's Online Writing Laboratory
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

Publish or Perish! David O'Sullivan, National University of Ireland, Galway, and Hari Jagdev, University of Manchester
Hints for scientific publishing. Slides from a talk.
http://www.nuigalway.ie/engineering/DOSullivan_HJagdev.ppt

2006-2007 Taulbee Survey
Survey of salaries in Computer Science. Includes graduate student stipends.
http://www.cra.org/CRN/articles/may08/taulbee.html

Corporate Lab or Academic Department, Which Fits? Bill Aiello, University of British Columbia
Comparison of the two career paths mentioned above. Slides and audio (almost 3 hours) from the USENIX Security Conference 2006.
http://www.usenix.com/events/sec06/tech/slides/aiello.pdf http://www.usenix.org/events/sec06/tech/mp3/aiello.mp3

Humor

Piled higher and Deeper
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/comics.php

A day in the life of a grad student...
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/grad.day

The "Academic Pyramid Club"
http://chronicle.com/jobs/2004/01/2004011901c.htm

If you think you're just a figure:
http://www.cs.utep.edu/admissions/

Which schools are strong in my discipline?

If you're looking for schools to apply to and know what area you'd like to pursue, these hints might help to find departments that are strong in your particular field.

Ask a professor in that discipline, preferably one that is familiar with your work (and hence your chances to get in). Maybe she will also happen to know that a fellow colleague is currently looking for talented students...

At least for cryptography, there are many pages around that have lists of researchers in the discipline. Use your favorite search engine to search for "lists cryptographers" or so.

Check the journals. Who's work do you like?

Keep records of everything

Another general piece of advice: When applying, keep a copy of everything you send out (e-mails, applications, ...), everything that you receive, and everything that you have other people send out for you (test scores in particular). Make yourself a list right when you start so that you will know when you sent off that letter they claim they haven't received yet. Most admissions offices receive vast amounts of mail, so invariably something will get lost.