It is very typical from (us) students to don’t do our homework before entering applying to a Ph.D. program. I admit I basically made some research about universities that I wanted to apply to, and probably went a little further by looking for professors I wanted to work for. I found two very useful links directed to new potential Ph.D. students. They might look discouraging, but we should get the best from anything, including these links.
Dr. Michael Franz, from CS department at the University of California Irvine, posted these really interesting guidelines about sending him an email if interested in starting a Ph.D. with him: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~franz/Site/prospectivestudents.html. I admit that if I were interested in being his student, I would had doubts when I finished reading that page. It is interesting to see how a Ph.D. program from a top university in the U.S. will handle new Ph.D. students admissions.
Dr. Franz noted in his website a link about “Notes on The Ph.D. degree“, an even more interesting page from Dr. Doug Comer with different notes about entering a Ph.D. program. The section that I like the most, is the “warnings” section, about why and why not entering a Ph.D. degree. This is the coolest thing a potential Ph.D. student should realize about what a Ph.D. is not:
“A practical way to impress your family or friends: Your mother may be proud and excited when you enroll in a Ph.D. program. After all, she imagines that she will soon be able to brag about her child, “the doctor.” However, a desire to impress others is insufficient motivation for the effort required.”
But the most important section is the one that describes what a potential student should have, from which I would prefer this one:
- Self-motivation: By the time a student finishes an undergraduate education, they have become accustomed to receiving grades for each course each semester. In a Ph.D. program, work is not divided neatly into separate courses, professors do not partition tasks into little assignments, and the student does not receive a grade for each small step. Are you self-motivated enough to keep working toward a goal without day-to-day encouragement?
This is key to have as a Ph.D. student. It will be a long journey, of many years, maybe 4, maybe 7 in some universities. Like I say to me, it’s not just starting it, is finishing it. Nobody will be behind you pushing to finish, not even your adviser. And years might pass and you will not even notice.
So, we as Ph.D. students should be aware of many things before starting the program. These kinds of things can make our lives much easier, and help us accomplish things that would make us more than happy at the end knowing that we accomplished them. To be prepared from the beginning is key to achieve things during our time at the Ph.D. program. And what we do during these 4 to 7 years is going to be the foundation of the career we will have when we finish.
