文档库 最新最全的文档下载
当前位置:文档库 › 耶鲁教授给研究生的建议

耶鲁教授给研究生的建议

(Yale Uninversity) Stephen C. Stearns 教授給研究生的建議相見恨晚啊!!!Always Prepare for the Worst.

Some of the greatest catastrophes in graduate education could have been avoided by a little intelligent foresight. Be cynical. Assume that your proposed research migh t not work, and that one of your faculty advisers might become unsupportive - or e ven hostile. Plan for alternatives.

Nobody cares about you.

In fact, some professors care about you and some don't. Most probably do, but all are busy, which means in practice they cannot care about you because they don't have the time. You are on your own, and you had better get used to it. This has a lot of implications. Here are two important ones:

1. You had better decide early on that you are in charge of your program. The deg ree you get is yours to create. Your major professor can advise you and protect yo u to a certain extent from bureaucratic and financial demons, but he should not tell you what to do. That is up to you. If you need advice, ask for it: that's his job.

2. If you want to pick somebody's brains, you'll have to go to him or her, because they won't be coming to you.

You Must Know Why Your Work is Important.

When you first arrive, read and think widely and exhaustively for a year. Assume th at everything you read is bullshit until the author manages to convince you that it i sn't. If you do not understand something, don't feel bad - it's not your fault, it's th e author's. He didn't write clearly enough.

If some authority figure tells you that you aren't accomplishing anything because yo u aren't taking courses and you aren't gathering data, tell him what you're up to. If he persists, tell him to bug off, because you know what you're doing, dammit. This is a hard stage to get through because you will feel guilty about not getting g oing on your own research. You will continually be asking yourself, "What am I doin g here?" Be patient. This stage is critical to your personal development and to main taining the flow of new ideas into science. Here you decide what constitutes an imp ortant problem. You must arrive at this decision independently for two reasons. First, if someone hands you a problem, you won't feel that it is yours, you won't have t hat possessiveness that makes you want to work on it, defend it, fight for it, and make it come out beautifully. Secondly, your PhD work will shape your future. It is your choice of a field in which to carry out a life's work. It is also important to the dynamic of science that your entry be well thought out. This is one point where y ou can start a whole new area of research. Remember, what sense does it make t o start gathering data if you don't know - and I mean really know - why you're do ing it?

Psychological Problems are the Biggest Barrier.

You must establish a firm psychological stance early in your graduate career to keep from being buffeted by the many demands that will be made on your time. If yo u don't watch out, the pressures of course work, teaching, language requi rements and who knows what else will push you around like a large, doci le molecule in Brownian motion. Here are a few things to watch out for:

1. The initiation-rite nature of the PhD and its power to convince you that your valu

e as a person is being judged. No matter how hard you try, you won't be able to avoid this one. No one does. It stems from the open-ended nature o

f the thesis pr oblem. You have to decide what a "good" thesis is. A thesis can always be made b etter, which gets you into an infinite regress of possible improvements. Recognize that you cannot produce a "perfect" thesis. There are goin

g to be flaws i n it, as there are in everything. Settle down to make it as good as you can within the limits of time, money, energy, encouragement and thought at your disposal. You can alleviate this problem by jumping all the explicit hurdles early in the gam e. Get all of your course requirements and examinations out of the way as soon as possible. Not only do you thereby clear the decks for your thesis, but you also con vince yourself, by successfully jumping eac

h hurdle, that you probably are good eno ugh after all.

2. Nothing elicits dominant behavior like subservient behavior. Expect and demand t o be treated like a colleague. The paper requirements are the explicit hurdle you wi ll have to jump, but the implicit hurdle is attaining the status of a colleague. Act lik

e one and you'll be treated like one.

3. Graduate school is only one of the tools that you have at hand for shaping your own development. Be prepared to quit for awhile if something better comes up. There are three good reasons to do this.

First, a real opportunity could arise that is more productive and challenging than an ything you could do in graduate school and that involves a long enough block of ti me to justify dropping out. Examples include field work in Africa on a project not di rectly related to your PhD work, a contract for software development, an opportunit y to work as an aide in the nation's capital in the formulation of science policy, or an internship at a major newspaper or magazine as a science journalist. Secondly, only by keeping this option open can you function with true independence as a graduate student. If you perceive graduate school as your only option, you will be psychologically labile, inclined to get a bit desperate and ins ecure, and you will not be able to give your best.

Thirdly, if things really are not working out for you, then you are only hurt ing yourself and denying resources to others by staying in graduate sc hoo l. There are a lot of interesting things to do in life besides being a scienti st, and in some the job market is a lot better. If science is not turning you o n, perhaps you should try something else. However, do not go off half-cocked. This is a serious decision. Be sure to talk to fellow graduate students and sympathetic f aculty before making up your mind.

Avoid Taking Lectures - They're Usually Inefficient.

If you already have a good background in your field, then minimize the number of additional courses you take. This recommendation may seem counterintuitive, but it has a sound basis. Right now, you need to learn how to think for yourself. This req uires active engagement, not passive listening and regurgitation.

To learn to think, you need two things: large blocks of time, and as much one -on-one interaction as you can get with someone who thinks more clearly than you do.

Courses just get in the way, and if you are well motivated, then reading and discus sion is much more efficient and broadening than lectures. It is often a good idea to get together with a few colleagues, organize a seminar on a subject of interest, a nd invite a few faculty to take part. They'll probably be delighted. After all, it will b e interesting for them, they'll love your initiative - and it will give them credit for t eaching a course for which they don't have to do any work. How can you lose? These comments of course do not apply to courses that teach specific skills: e.g., e lectron microscopy, histological technique, scuba diving.

Write a Proposal and Get It Criticized.

A research proposal serves many functions.

1. By summarizing your year's thinking and reading, it ensures that you have gotte n something out of it.

2. It makes it possible for you to defend your independence by providing a concret

e demonstration that you used your time well.

3. It literally makes it possible for others to help you. What you have in mind is to o complex to be communicated verbally - too subtle, and in too many parts. It mu st be put down in a well-organized, clearly and concisely written document that can be circulated to a few good minds. Only with a proposal before them can they giv

e you constructive criticism.

4. You need practice writing. We all do.

5. Having located your problem and satisfied yourself that it is important, you will h ave to convince your colleagues that you are not totally demented and, in fact, des erve support. One way to organize a proposal to accomplish this goal is:

a. A brief statement of what you propose, couched as a question or hypothesis.

b. Why it is important scientifically, not why it is important to you personally, and how it fits into the broader scheme of ideas in your field.

c. A literature review that substantiates (b).

d. Describe your problem as a series of subproblems that can each be attacked in a series of small steps. Devise experiments, observations or analyses that will permi t you to exclude alternatives at each stag

e. Line them up and start knocking them down. By transforming the big problem into a series of smaller ones, you always kn ow what to do next, you lower the energy threshold to begin work, you identify th e part that will take the longest or cause the most problems, and you have availabl e a list of things to do when something doesn't work out.

6. Write down a list of the major problems that could arise and ruin the whole proj ect. Then write down a list of alternatives that you will do if things actually do go wrong.

7. It is not a bad idea to design two or three projects and start them in parallel to see which one has the best practical chance of succeeding. There could be two or three model systems that all seem to have equally good chances on paper of prov iding appropriate tests for your ideas, but in fact practical problems may exclude so me of them. It is much more efficient to discover this at the start than to design a nd execute two or three projects in succession after the first fail for practical reaso ns.

8. Pick a date for the presentation of your thesis and work backwards in constructi ng a schedule of how you are going to use your time. You can expect a stab of te rror at this point. Don't worry - it goes on like this for awhile, then it gradually get s worse.

9. Spend two to three weeks writing the proposal after you've finished your reading, then give it to as many good critics as you can find. Hope that their comments ar

e tough, and respond as constructively as you can.

10. Get at it. You already have the introduction to your thesis written, and you hav

e only been here 12 to 18 months.

Manage Your Advisors.

Keep your advisors aware of what you are doing, but do not bother them. Be an in teresting presence, not a pest. At least once a year, submit a written progress repo rt 1-2 pages long on your own initiative. They will appreciate it and be impressed. Anticipate and work to avoid personality problems. If you do not get along with you r professors, change advisors early on. Be very careful about choosing your advisors in the first place. Most important is their interest in your interests.

Types of Theses.

Never elaborate a baroque excrescence on top of existing but shaky ideas. Go right to the foundations and test the implicit but unexamined assumptions of an importa nt body of work, or lay the foundations for a new research thrust. There are, of co urse, other types of theses:

1. The classical thesis involves the formulation of a deductive model that makes no vel and surprising predictions which you then test objectively and confirm under con ditions unfavorable to the hypothesis. Rarely done and highly prized.

2. A critique of the foundations of an important body of research. Again, rare and valuable and a sure winner if properly executed.

3. The purely theoretical thesis. This takes courage, especially in a department load ed with bedrock empiricists, but can be pulled off if you are genuinely good at mat h and logic.

4. Gather data that someone else can synthesize. This is the worst kind of thesis, but in a pinch it will get you through. To certain kinds of people lots of data, even if they don't test a hypothesis, will always be impressive. At least the results show that you worked hard, a fact with which you can blackmail your committee into gi ving you the doctorate.

There are really as many kinds of theses as their are graduate students. The four t ypes listed serve as limiting cases of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Doctoral w ork is a chance for you to try your hand at a number of different researc h styles and to discover which suites you best: theory, field work, or lab work. Ideally, you will balance all three and become the rare person who can tran slate the theory for the empiricists and the real world for the theoreticians.

Start Publishing Early.

Don't kid yourself. You may have gotten into this game out of your love for plants and animals, your curiosity about nature, and your drive to know the truth, but you won't be able to get a job and stay in it unless you publish. You need to publish substantial articles in internationally recognized, refereed journals. Without th em, you can forget a career in science. This sounds brutal, but there are good reas ons for it, and it can be a joyful challenge and fulfillment. Science is shared kno wledge. Until the results are effectively communicated, they in effect do not exist. Publishing is part of the job, and until it is done, the work is not complete. You m ust master the skill of writing clear, concise, well-organized scientific pap ers. Here are some tips about getting into the publishing game.

1. Co-author a paper with someone who has more experience. Approach a p rofessor who is working on an interesting project and offer your services in return f or a junior authorship. He'll appreciate the help and will give you lots of good com ments on the paper because his name will be on it.

2. Do not expect your first paper to be world-shattering. A lot of eminent people be gan with a minor piece of work. The amount of information reported in the averag e scientific paper may be less than you think. Work up to the major journals by pu blishing one or two short - but competent - papers in less well-recognized journals. You will quickly discover that no matter what the reputation of the journal, all edit orial boards defend the quality of their product with jealous pride - and they shoul d!

3. If it is good enough, publish your research proposal as a critical review paper. If it is publishable, you've probably chosen the right field to work in.

4. Do not write your thesis as a monograph. Write it as a series of publishable man uscripts, and submit them early enough so that at least one or two chapters of you r thesis can be presented as reprints of published articles.

5. Buy and use a copy of Strunk and White's Elements of Style. Read it before you sit down to write your first paper, then read it again at least once a year for the next three or four years. Day's book, How to Write a Scientific Paper, is also excelle nt.

6. Get your work reviewed before you submit it to the journal by someone who ha s the time to criticize your writing as well as your ideas and organization.

Don't Look Down on a Master's Thesis.

The only reason not to do a master's is to fulfill the generally false conceit that yo u're too good for that sort of thing. The master's has a number of advantages. 1. It gives you a natural way of changing schools if you want to. You can use this to broaden your background. Moreover, your ideas on what constitutes an important problem will probably be changing rapidly at this stage of your development. Your knowledge of who is doing what, and where, will be expanding rapidly. If you decid e to change universities, this is the best way to do it. You leave behind people sati sfied with your performance and in a position to provide well-informed letters of rec ommendation. You arrive with most of your PhD requirements satisfied.

2. You get much-needed experience in research and writing in a context less threat ening than doctoral research. You break yourself in gradually. In research, you learn the size of a soluble problem. People who have done master's work usually have a much easier time with the PhD.

3. You get a publication.

4. What's your hurry? If you enter the job market too quickly, you won′t be well p repared. Better to go a bit more slowly, build up a substantial background, and pres ent yourself a bit later as a person with more and broader experience.

Publish Regularly, But Not Too Much.

The pressure to publish has corroded the quality of journals and the quality of intell ectual life. It is far better to have published a few papers of high quality that are widely read than it is to have published a long string of minor articles that are quic kly forgotten. You do have to be realistic. You will need publications to get a post-d oc, and you will need more to get a faculty position and then tenure. However, to t he extent that you can gather your work together in substantial packages of real q uality, you will be doing both yourself and your field a favor.

Most people publish only a few papers that make any difference. Most papers are c ited little or not at all. About 10% of the articles published receive 90% of the citat ions. A paper that is not cited is time and effort wasted. Go for quality, not for quantity. This will take courage and stubbornness, but you won't regret it. If you are publishing one or two carefully considered, substantial papers in good, refereed journals each year, you're doing very well - and you've taken time to do the job ri ght.

Acknowledgements Thanks to Frank Pitelka for providing an opportunity, to Ray Hue y for being a co-conspirator and sounding board and for providing a number of the comments presented here, to the various unknown graduate students who kept the se ideas in circulation, and to Pete Morin for suggesting that I write them up for p ublication.

Some Useful References.

Day, R.A. 1983. How to write and publish a scientific paper. 2nd ed. iSi Press, Phila dephia. 181 pp. wise and witty.

Smith, R.V. 1984. Graduate research - a guide for students in the sciences. iSi Press, Philadelphia. 182 pp. complete and practical.

Strunk, W. Jr, and E.B. White.1979. The elements of style. 3rd Ed. Macmillan, New York. 92 pp. the paradigm of concision.

相关文档