How to Succeed in

Graduate Studies?
CREDITS: MARIE DESJARDINS, CRISTIAN BORCEA, STEVE KASS, ROSEMARY HAYS-THOMAS, SHERRY
SCHNEIDER, STEPHEN VODANOVICH, LAURA KOPPES BRYAN, SANDRA CRUZ-POL, DANIEL ERNST,
PAUL WAGNER, TAO XIE, GAIL P. TAYLOR, UBC FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES, SALIH DUFFUAA
Outline 3
A Plan to Succeed
Develop Skills
Shop for a Research Topic
Shop for an Advisor
Thesis Proposal
Perform Research
Managing Your Advisor
Write-up
Time Management
Surviving the Defense
Life balance
Conclusion
Develop A Plan to Succeed 4

List of what you must accomplish

Courses
Exams
Research
Make a timetable with deliverables
Reevaluate every semester

Commitment
Succeed in Graduate Studies 5

Elements
Coursework
Exams and/ or Tests
Research
Succeed in Performing Research 6
Develop Skills and Personality

Develop Skills and Personality

Shop for a Research Topic
Shop for an Advisor
Thesis Proposal Perform Research
Perform Research Managing Your Advisor
Managing Your Advisor
Writing Publishing
Writing Publishing
Thesis/ Dissertation Write-up
Time Management
Surviving the Defense
Develop Skills and Personality 7

Positive attitude/ Self esteem

Adaptability
Autonomy and Confidence
Demonstrate Initiative
Assertiveness
Creative Thinking
Ability to Learn
Develop Skills and Personality 8

Driving for Results

Decision Making
Knowledge in Major
Using Technology
Locating, organizing, analyzing information
Reasoning
Strategic thinking
Develop Skills and Personality 9

Communication skills (listening)

Communication skills (writing)
Communication skills (presenting)
Network skills (Interacting with others)
Team skills (Team participation)
Conflict resolution, Problem solving
Develop Skills and Personality 10

Coaching and mentoring (developing others)

Leadership skills
Observe safety rules
Attendance and Punctuality
Business Orientation
Customer Focus
Develop Skills and Personality 11

What about Ethics?

Where do we learn skills? 12

Through experience, from Research Advisor

Through other Mentors
Through Classes
Through Colleagues
Self-learning Courses
Special Purpose Courses
Practice
Shop for a Research Topic
Scenario - 1
I am looking for any topic that
facilitates me to graduate before
the end of this semester
What will be your impression if you
ware a possible advisor?
13
Scenario - 2
I am looking for any topic that
provides me some extra income
What will be your impression if you
ware a possible advisor?
Shop for a Research Topic 14

A Scenario
I am looking for an interesting topic that facilitates me to positively
contribute to the field
What will be your impression if you ware a possible advisor?
Shop for a Research Topic 15

Choose topic based on your research interests

You Must Like it
Dont choose it just because you can get more income
Also think strategically
Is it a hot Topic?
Is it needed in the market?
If certain topic is hot now will still be hot in 3 years
Shop for a Research Topic 16

Consider expanding on your previous

research experience
If you have no specific research interests
Build your interest in the first semester
Around 70% of research topics are proposed by advisors
Be smart while shopping for a topic
Shop for an Advisor 17

An Advisor Compatible with you

Get Well Together
respective
Avoid choosing an advisor because he is nice
Might withhold frank evaluations of your knowledge, skills, and progress to avoid
hurting your feelings
Shop for an Advisor 18

Avoid some problems that may occur when an advisor

Plans to leave the University
Does not provide enough feedback
Does not meet you
Behave in a way you find irresponsible
How would you know some of these problems
Do you want to agree on one semester trial period?
Shop for an Advisor 19

Full Professor Advisors

More experience
Usually have more Projects (money Support)
more connections
May be less demanding: Dont push you hard
Dont have time to work closely with you
Shop for an Advisor 20

Associate Professor advisors

May push you hard
future career depends on your results
work with you
Might have more up-to-date information
Assistant Professor advisors
Me: Depends on your Luck
and Regulations
Shop for a Research Topic 21
(The slide is not Misplaced)

Your topic, approved by your advisor

Rare to know the topic from the moment you start working with
advisor
If work is part of a project, it is somewhat clearer
More common to work on 1-3 topics in an area
New ideas come up during the work
Publication-wise, some ideas will be more successful than others
Student Responsibility to his advisor 22

Time Commitment
Honesty
Productivity
Teamwork, cooperation and assistant
Feedback and communication
Respect
Loyalty
Thesis Proposal 23

Might be your first Official Write-up

Some Literature Survey
Motivations
Objectives
Problems specification
A plan
with a timetable, milestones, and deliverables
Thesis without a chapter or two
Contract between you and committee: agree on content to be
added in the final thesis
Thesis Proposal 24

The first impression on your writing

Following research guidelines and ethics
Give attention to literature survey
Avoid saying:
It was only a draft so I didnt think it counted
I borrowed only the introduction and background material; the
remaining is my original work
I listed the reference [explicitly quote]
Thesis Proposal 25

So what is the problem

Plagiarism is representing somebody elses words as my own words
So ..
Choosing a Committee 26

With your Advisor Agreement

Reasonable People
Good Reputations
Advice
Assistant
Recommendations
Feedback
Feedback and feedback
Perform Research 27

Be Proactive: Dont wait for advisor to push you

Reading papers:
Identify both strong and weak points
Advisor might point to important papers in your topic
Find more papers
Read a few papers every week
Read outside your area as well
Follow technology news
Let advisor/colleagues know about interesting things you read
Perform Research 28
Identifying important and hard problems
Learn to differentiate between interesting problems and
junk
Advisor will help
Problem solving/design
Always ask : whats the novelty of my solution?
Also: how is it different from/similar to alternative solutions?
If Advisor suggests a potential solution
Instead of saying doesnt work!
Say X didnt work, but how about Y or Z?
if advisor points out drawbacks in your solutions
Dont get upset/discouraged
its technical, not personal
Perform Research 29

Implementation
Inmost research problems, will have to
implement your ideas
Except for purely theoretical problems
Everysuccessful project goes through this hard
phase
Design is more fun than implementation
No magic here: work hard!
Ifyou dont know how to implement something
or have troubles with a bug
ask colleagues or advisor for help
Dont suffer in silence
Perform Research 30

Evaluation
Prove that your solution works as claimed
Should know from the design time experiments
and metrics
Form a hypothesis: what type of results you
expect
Experiments contradict hypothesis: think of
potential reasons and discuss them with advisor
Work in the lab a significant amount of time
Learn from interactions with colleagues/advisor
Progressing Efficiently
31
Make a daily to-do list
Prioritize: do the most important things first
Multitask
Do many experiments (Maximize luck)
Plan for the tomorrows work before you leave
Work on at least one weekend day (this will save
you months!)
Read literature mostly at night
Put a date on EVERYTHING! Its a locator device
Watch out for inefficient computer use or texting
From Iris Lindberg - http://thelindberglab.com
Managing Your Advisor 32

Trust advisor and earn his trust

good work
reliability
Advisors, are not perfect. They try their best to help
doubts might appear when
A paper is rejected
Different opinions on how to proceed
Seemingly advisor cares only about his career

Remember
Advisors work hard to support research work
You work hard to produce results
What is good for student is good for advisor and vice versa
Impress Your Advisor 33

Ask for weekly meeting, write the minutes and

send them after the meeting to your advisor
Set your own deadlines and meet them
Milestones
Papers
Experiments
Committee meetings
Read the literature on your own
Think critically about experiments
Participate fully in lab meetings, if any
Work smart/ hard
Writing Publishing 34

Always Recall Plagiarism to avoid it

Write minutes meeting and action items
When reading a related paper summarize key issues in your own
language
Document
summaries of experiments and results
Problem faced and solutions
Possible future work
Special purpose implemented experiments
Writing Publishing 35

For publishing you need extensive help of your advisor

Possible targets (conference or Journal)
Structure of the paper
Revisions
Follow-up
Submission
Thesis/ Dissertation Write-up 36

Often happens in a rush at the end

Consequently has a lot of problems
Takes multiple drafts
Product worthy of publication
Usually, two-three research papers with deep introduction and
conclusion
Needs to be thorough
Best if publish papers as you go!
Thesis/ Dissertation Write-up 37

Comprehensive literature Survey would be a possible Journal paper

The detailed problem specification with a proposed solution design
could be a conference paper
Methodology with experimental results, analysis, and evaluation
would be a second possible journal paper
Writing Papers 38

Might be hard
Good results are not published due to sloppy writing
Ask advisor for models of good papers
Get advisors feedback early and often
Re-write
Read on writing
One idea per paragraph
Do paragraphs follow one another in a logical
structure?
Writing Papers 39

Typical structure
Abstract - Introduction
Related work - Design
Implementation - Evaluation
Conclusions
Have clear abstract/introduction
Ifvague or poorly written, reviewers will just look for
reasons to reject afterwards
Dont claim more than you did
Distinguish between will do and have been done
Time Management 40

Borcea
Students in high-ranked schools work between
60 and 80 hours per week [Cristian Borcea]
Faculty spend a similar amount of time
You will compete for jobs with students form other schools as well

Citing Borcea advisor: school breaks are for

undergrad students
Good time to work in case you have teaching duties
The advisor has more free time to help you
Dont have time to finish all your tasks?
41
Must acquire time management skills
Write down your tasks (both work-related and

Borcea
personal), set deadlines, and categorize them
function of importance
Pauschs
Importance graph for task
Continue withtime management:
Obviously, finish
these tasks
these tasks first

Urgency
More on time management
42
Dont have time for personal life?

Borcea
Some personal tasks must have high importance

Family/friends help you avoid going nuts

According to previous slide, you might end up not doing urgent, but not
important tasks; its ok, the world goes on

Know yourself and manage advisors expectations

Learn to estimate accurately the time it takes to do certain tasks
Learn to say no if its not possible to do a task before a
deadline

Cristian
Try hard to respect deadlines once you agreed to them
Inform your advisor as soon as you are getting behind the
schedule
Defense Time 43

Reason
Finish writing during your final year
Execute the proposal
Advisor and committee members think you are ready
What about these reasons?
Family Problems
Financial Problems
Job-related Problems
Surviving the Defense 44

Borcea
Finish writing during your final year
In parallel with job searching
Thesis defense is reason to celebrate
Advisor/committee wont allow you to defend if not
ready
Not a good idea to defend if you dont have a
job

Cristian
Unless you dont receive support any longer
You could get job before thesis defense
Risk: you might never get the drive to finish
Surviving the Defense: Question 45

Time

Husni Al-Muhtaseb
Be confident and well-prepared
You should be the rare experts in your topic
Let your questioner finish his comment/ question
Be prepared to rehearse the question
Keep your answers short but precise
Deflect hostile questions
Confess your ignorance

Husni Al-Muhtaseb - Credits: Marie DesJardins, Cristian Borcea, Steve Kass, Rosemary Hays-Thomas, Sherry
Schneider, Stephen Vodanovich, Laura Koppes Bryan, Sandra Cruz-Pol, Daniel Ernst, Paul Wagner, Tao Xie, Gail 45
Life balance: A Brain on A Stick
You are a human being
Not a brain on a stick
You have friends and family
outside graduate school
Seek out the many resources
at KFUPM that can help you
through the tough times

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd012609s.gif

46
Conclusion 47

Succeed in Performing Research

Develop Skills and Personality
Shop for a Research Topic
Shop for an Advisor
Thesis Proposal
Perform Research
Managing Your Advisor
Writing Publishing
Thesis/ Dissertation Write-up
Time Management
Surviving the Defense