|
이글은 www.acm.org에서 퍼
온 글을 약간 편집했습니다.
대학원에서 생존하기 위한 전략으로
한번쯤은 꼭 읽어 봤으면 하는 내용입니다.
How to Succeed in Graduate
School:
A Guide for Students and Advisors
by Marie desJardins
This paper attempts to raise some
issues that are important for graduate students to be successful
and to get as much out of the process as possible, and for advisors
who wish to help their students be successful. The intent is not
to provide prescriptive advice -- no formulas for finishing a thesis
or twelve-step programs for becoming a better advisor are given
-- but to raise awareness on both sides of the advisor-student relationship
as to what the expectations are and should be for this relationship,
what a graduate student should expect to accomplish, common problems,
and where to go if the advisor is not forthcoming.
Part I of II
This article originated with a discussion
I had with several women professors about the problems women face
in graduate school, and how more women could be encouraged to go
to graduate school in computer science. Eventually, the conversation
turned to the question of what these women could do in their interactions
with women students to support and encourage them. I volunteered
that over the course of my graduate career I had collected a variety
of papers and email discussions about how to be a good advisor,
how to get through graduate school, and issues facing women. They
were eager to get this material, and I told them I would sort through
it when I got a chance.
After mentioning this project to a
number of people, both graduate students and faculty -- all of whom
expressed an interest in anything I could give them -- I realized
two things: first, the issues that we were talking about really
were not just women's issues but were of interest to all graduate
students, and to all caring advisors. Second, in order to disseminate
the information I had collected (and was starting to collect from
others) it seemed to make more sense to compile a bibliography,
and write a paper that would summarize the most useful advice and
suggestions I had collected.
I solicited inputs from friends and
colleagues via mailing lists and Internet bulletin boards, and collected
almost an overwhelming amount of information. Sorting through it
and attempting to distill the collective wisdom of dozens of articles
and hundreds of email messages has not been an easy task, but I
hope that the results provide a useful resource for graduate students
and advisors alike. The advice I give here is directed towards Ph.D.
students in computer science and their advisors, since that is my
background, but I believe that much of it applies to graduate students
in other areas as well.
In my experience, the two main things
that make graduate school hard are the unstructured nature of the
process, and the lack of information about what you should spend
your time on. I hope that this article will provide information
for both graduate students and advisors that will help make the
process less painful. I want to emphasize that graduate school is
not easy, and these suggestions will not always be easy or even
possible to follow (and they may not even be the ideal goal for
you, personally, to strive for). You shouldn't let that discourage
you: start small, think big, and keep yourself focused on your ultimate
goal, which shouldn't just be to get through graduate school, but
to enjoy yourself, make progress towards being able to do what you
want to do with your life, and learn something in the process.
I owe a debt of gratitude to David
Chapman, whose paper was an invaluable reference for me not only
during the writing of this article, but during graduate school as
well.
The goals of this article are to raise
awareness of the need for a healthy and interactive graduate student-advisor
relationship, to provide pointers and guidance for both advisors
and graduate students in navigating the maze of a doctoral degree,
and to give references and resources for those who hope to learn
more.
Many headaches can be avoided by doing
some advance planning. First, why go to graduate school at all?
The usual reasons given are that a Ph.D. is required or preferred
for some jobs, especially research and academic positions; that
it gives you a chance to learn a great deal about a specific area;
and that it provides an opportunity to develop ideas and perform
original research. Wanting to delay your job hunt is probably not
a good enough reason. Over the past decade, research and academic
positions have become more difficult to find, and many recent Ph.D.s
end up ``killing time'' in a series of postdoctoral positions, or
taking non-research jobs. Having a Ph.D. is not a guarantee of finding
a better job in and of itself! In addition, graduate school is a
lot of work and requires strong motivation and focus. You have to
really want to be there to make it through.
It helps to have a good idea of what
area you want to specialize in, and preferably a couple of particular
research projects you might like to work on, although many graduate
students change their minds about research projects and even specialization
field after they start school. Look for books and current journals
and conference proceedings in your area, and read through them to
get an idea of who's doing what where. (You'll be doing a lot
of reading once you start graduate school, so you might as well
get used to it.) This is where advisors first enter the scene: faculty
members ought to be willing to talk to undergraduates and help them
find out more about research areas and graduate schools. Try to
get involved in research: ask professors and TAs (teaching assistants)
whether they need someone to work on an ongoing project, or start
an independent research project, with guidance from a faculty member.
Contact faculty members and graduate
students at the schools you're interested in. Tell them about your
background and interests and ask them what research projects they're
working on. A good way to do this is via electronic mail if possible
-- email is much easier and quicker to respond to than a paper letter.
A good advisor will be willing to answer these kinds of inquiries
(although if they're busy they may give you only a brief answer
or point you towards a graduate student -- you'll have to use your
intuition to decide whether they're brushing you off or just busy).
If you can't get any answer at all, consider that that individual
might not end up being a very accessible advisor. Asking these questions
will help you narrow down your choices and may increase your chances
of admission if the professors you contact become interested in
working with you.
Your best bet is to find a school
where there are at least two faculty members you'd be interested
in working with. That way, if one doesn't work out, or is too busy
to take on a new student, you have a fallback position. Breadth
of the graduate program (i.e., high-quality faculty in a broad range
of subareas) is also a good thing to look for in a school, especially
if you're not entirely certain what you want to specialize in.
It's also important to most people
to feel comfortable with the community of graduate students. It
pays to talk to some of the graduate students (both junior and senior)
to find out how they like it, which advisors are good, and what
kinds of support (financial and psychological) are available. Because
there are so many students applying to each school, even highly
qualified applicants are often rejected. You should apply to a range
of programs -- and don't take it personally if you do get rejected
by some of them.
You can increase your chances of getting
into graduate school by developing good relationships with your
professors and work managers (this is very important for getting
good recommendations), working on a research project, having a clear
sense of what you want to work on (although it's always all right
to change your mind later), having a broad background in your field
and in related fields (for example, psychology classes are useful
for AI students), getting good grades (especially in upper division
classes in your area of interest), and getting a high score on the
GRE if required. Also, it's a good idea to start thinking early
about sources of funding: apply for an NSF fellowship, for example.
For many new graduate students, graduate
school is unlike anything else they've done. Sometimes it's hard
to know exactly what it is you're supposed to be learning. Yes,
you have to complete a dissertation, but how do you start? What
should you spend your time doing?
Graduate school is a very unstructured
environment in most cases. Graduate students typically take nine
hours or less of coursework per semester, especially after the second
year. For many, the third year -- after coursework is largely finished
and preliminary exams have been completed -- is a very difficult
and stressful period. This is when you're supposed to find a thesis
topic, if you're not one of the lucky few who has already found
one. Once you do find a topic, you can expect two or more years
until completion, with very few landmarks or milestones in sight.
The following sections talk about
the day-to-day process of doing research, criticism and feedback,
working on the thesis, and financial support for research.
The Daily Grind
Being a good researcher involves more
than ``merely'' coming up with brilliant ideas and implementing
them. Most researchers spend the majority of their time reading
papers, discussing ideas with colleagues, writing and revising papers,
staring blankly into space -- and, of course, having brilliant ideas
and implementing them.
Part II of this article discusses
the process and importance of becoming part of a larger research
community, which is a critical aspect of being a successful researcher.
This section contains ideas on keeping track of where you're going,
and where you've been, with your research, staying motivated, and
how to spend your time wisely.
Keeping a journal of your research
activities and ideas is very useful. Write down speculations, interesting
problems, possible solutions, random ideas, references to look up,
notes on papers you've read, outlines of papers to write, and interesting
quotes. Read back through it periodically. You'll notice that the
bits of random thoughts start to come together and form a pattern,
often turning into a research project or even a thesis topic. I
was surprised, looking back through my journal as I was finishing
up my thesis, how early and often similar ideas had cropped up in
my thinking, and how they gradually evolved into a dissertation.
You'll have to read a lot of technical
papers to become familiar with any field, and to stay current once
you've caught up. You may find yourself spending over half of your
time reading, especially at the beginning. This is normal. It's
also normal to be overwhelmed by the amount of reading you think
you ``should'' do. Try to remember that it's impossible to read
everything that might be relevant: instead, read selectively. When
you first start reading up on a new field, ask your advisor or a
fellow student what the most useful journals and conference proceedings
are in your field, and ask for a list of seminal or ``classic''
papers that you should definitely read. For AI researchers, a useful
(if slightly outdated) starting point is Agre's summary of basic
AI references. Similar documents may exist for other research areas
-- ask around, and cruise the information superhighway. Start with
these papers and the last few years of journals and proceedings.
Before bothering to read
any
paper, make sure it's worth it. Scan the title, then the abstract,
then -- if you haven't completely lost interest already -- glance
at the introduction and conclusions. (Of course, if your advisor
tells you that this is an important paper, skip this preliminary
step and jump right in!) Before you try to get all of the nitty-gritty
details of the paper, skim the whole thing, and try to get a feel
for the most important points. If it still seems worthwhile and
relevant, go back and read the whole thing. Many people find it
useful to take notes while they read. Even if you don't go back
later and reread them, it helps to focus your attention and forces
you to summarize as you read. And if you do need to refresh your
memory later, rereading your notes is much easier and faster than
reading the whole paper.
A few other points to keep in mind
as you read and evaluate papers:
- Make sure the ideas described
really worked (as opposed to just being theoretically valid,
or tested on a few toy examples).
- Try to get past buzzwords: they
may sound good, but not mean much. Is there substance and an
interesting idea underneath the jargon?
- To really understand a paper,
you have to understand the motivations for the problem posed,
the choices made in finding a solution, the assumptions behind
the solution, whether the assumptions are realistic and whether
they can be removed without invalidating the approach, future
directions for research, what was actually accomplished or implemented,
the validity (or lack thereof) of the theoretical justifications
or empirical demonstrations, and the potential for extending
and scaling the algorithm up.
Keep the papers you read filed away
so you can find them again later, and set up an online bibliography
(BibTeX is a popular format, but anything consistent will do). I
find it useful to add extra fields for keywords, the location of
the paper (if you borrowed the reference from the library or a friend),
and a short summary of particularly interesting papers. This bibliography
will be useful for later reference, for writing your dissertation,
and for sharing with other graduate students (and eventually, perhaps,
advisees).
Staying Motivated
At times, particularly in the ``middle
years,'' it can be very hard to maintain a positive attitude and
stay motivated. Many graduate students suffer from insecurity, anxiety,
and even boredom. First of all, realize that these are normal feelings.
Try to find a sympathetic ear -- another graduate student, your
advisor, or a friend outside of school. Next, try to identify why
you're having trouble and identify concrete steps that you can take
to improve the situation. To stay focused and motivated, it often
helps to have organized activities to force you to manage your time
and to do something every day. Setting up regular meetings with
your advisor, attending seminars, or even extracurricular activities
such as sports or music can help you to maintain a regular schedule.
Chapman enumerates a number of ``immobilizing
shoulds'' that can make you feel so guilty and unworthy that you
stop making progress. Telling yourself that you should have
a great topic, that you should finish in n years, that you
should work 4, or 8, or 12 hours a day isn't helpful
for most people. Be realistic about what you can accomplish, and
try to concentrate on giving yourself positive feedback for tasks
you do complete, instead of negative feedback for those you don't.
Setting daily, weekly, and monthly
goals is a good idea, and works even better if you use a ``buddy
system'' where you and another student meet at regular intervals
to review your progress. Try to find people to work with: doing
research is much easier if you have someone to bounce ideas off
of and to give you feedback.
Breaking down any project into smaller
pieces is always a good tactic when things seem unmanageable. At
the highest level, doing a master's project before diving into a
Ph.D. dissertation is generally a good idea (and is mandatory at
some schools). A master's gives you a chance to learn more about
an area, do a smaller research project, and establish working relationships
with your advisor and fellow students.
The divide-and-conquer strategy works
on a day-to-day level as well. Instead of writing an entire thesis,
focus on the goal of writing a chapter, section, or outline. Instead
of implementing a large system, break off pieces and implement one
module at a time. Identify tasks that you can do in an hour or less;
then you can come up with a realistic daily schedule. If you have
doubts, don't let them stop you from accomplishing something --
take it one day at a time. Remember, every task you complete gets
you closer to finishing. Even if you don't make any obvious progress,
you'll have learned something, although it may be ``don't waste
your time on this task again!''
Getting to the Thesis
The hardest part of getting a Ph.D.
is, of course, writing the dissertation. The process of finding
a thesis topic, doing the research, and writing the thesis is different
from anything most students have done before. If you have a good
advisor and support network, you'll be able to get advice and help
in setting directions and goals. If not, you may need to be more
independent. If this is the case, don't just isolate yourself from
the world: try to go out and find the resources and support you
need from professors, other graduate students, mailing lists, friends,
family, and publications like this one.
Finding an Advisor
Finding the right advisor can help
you immeasurably in successfully completing a thesis. You should
ideally have selected the schools you applied to by identifying
faculty members you'd like to work with. If not, start looking around
as early as possible. Of course, the ideal advisor will be in the
area you're interested in working in, will actively be doing high-quality
reseach and be involved in and respected by the research community,
and (not least) will be someone you can get along with.
Read research summaries by faculty
members (which are usually published by the department), go to talks
they give, and attend or audit courses given by professors you might
be interested in working with. Talk to other graduate students and
recent graduates. Ask them how their relationships with their advisors
are/were, how quickly the advisor's students graduate, and how successful
(well recognized, high-quality) their research is. What kinds of
relationships do they have -- frequent interactions, collaborative
work, encouraging independence? handing out topics or helping students
to create individual research areas, or a more hands-off style?
Other things to find out about potential
advisors:
- What is the average time their
Ph.D. students take to finish their degrees? What is the dropout
rate for their students?
- How long have they been on the
faculty? There are advantages and disadvantages to being one
of the first members of a new research group. On the positive
side, you often have more freedom to choose your research topic
and to influence the direction of the group's research. On the
negative side, you may be more isolated (since there won't be
older graduate students in the group), your advisor won't have
as much experience, and if they don't get tenure you may be
scrambling for a new advisor several years into your thesis.
A good advisor will serve as a mentor
as well as a source of technical assistance. A mentor should provide,
or help you to find, the resources you need (financial, equipment,
and psychological support); introduce you and promote your work
to important people in your field; encourage your own interests,
rather than promoting their own; be available to give you advice
on the direction of your thesis and your career; and help you to
find a job when you finish. They should help you to set and achieve
long-term and short-term goals.
Once you identify one or more potential
advisors, get to know them. Introduce yourself and describe the
area you're interested in. Attend their research group meetings
if they hold them regularly. Give them a copy of a research proposal
if you have a good idea of what you want to work on, and ask for
comments. Ask whether they have any TA or RA (research assistant)
positions available, or if there are any ongoing research projects
that you could get involved with. Read their published papers, and
the work of their students. Drop by during office hours and ask
questions or make comments. Offer to read drafts of papers -- and
do more than just proofread.
The type of relationship that each
student needs with an advisor will be different. Some students prefer
to be given more direction, to have frequent contact, and to be
``checked up on.'' Others are more independent. Some may need contact
but be self-conscious about asking for it. Other things that vary
include what kinds of feedback is preferred (lots of ``random''
ideas vs. very directed feedback (pointers)), working individually
vs. in groups, working on an established research project vs. a
new, independent effort; working in the same area as your advisor
or doing an ``outside'' thesis.
You may find that your thesis advisor
doesn't always give you all of the mentoring that you need. Multiple
mentors are common and useful; they may include other faculty members
in your department or elsewhere, senior graduate students, or other
colleagues. You may want to seriously consider changing thesis advisors
if your advisor is inaccessible or disinterested, gives you only
negative feedback, doesn't have the technical background to advise
you on your thesis, or harasses you.
The most important thing is to ask
for (i.e., demand politely) what you need.
Finding a Thesis Topic
Doing a master's project is often
a good idea (and is required by some schools). Although choosing
an appropriately scaled-down topic may be difficult, having the
ideal topic is also less important, since you will have the chance
to move on after only a year or so. If you have a good idea of what
you want to do your Ph.D. dissertation on, choosing a master's project
that will lead into the dissertation is wise: you will get a head
start on the Ph.D., or may decide that you're not interested in
pursuing the topic after all (saving yourself a lot of work and
grief farther down the road).
A good source of ideas for master's
projects (and sometimes for dissertation topics) is the future work
section of papers you're interested in. Try developing and implementing
an extension to an existing system or technique.
Generally speaking, a good Ph.D. thesis
topic is interesting to you, to your advisor, and to the research
community. As with many aspects of graduate school, the balance
you find will depend at least in part on the relationship you have
with your advisor. Some professors have well defined long-term research
programs and expect their students to contribute directly to this
program. Others have much looser, but still related ongoing projects.
Still others will take on anyone with an interesting idea, and may
have a broad range of interesting ideas to offer their students.
Be wary of the advisor who seems willing to let you pursue any research
direction at all. You probably won't get the technical support you
need, and they may lose interest in you when the next graduate student
with a neat idea comes along.
If you pick a topic that you're not
truly interested in simply because it's your advisor's pet area,
it will be difficult to stay focused and motivated -- and you may
be left hanging if your advisor moves on to a different research
area before you finish. The same is true for choosing a topic because
of its marketability: if you're not personally excited about the
topic, you'll have a harder time finishing and a harder time convincing
other people that your research is interesting. Besides, markets
change more quickly than most people finish dissertations.
In order to do original research,
you must be aware of ongoing research in your field. Most students
spend up to a year reading and studying current research to identify
important open problems. However, you'll never be able to read everything
that might be relevant -- and new work is always being published.
Try to become aware and stay aware
of directly related research -- but if you see new work that seems
to be doing exactly what you're working on, don't panic. It's common
for graduate students to see a related piece of work and think that
their topic is ruined. If this happens to you, reread the paper
several times to get a good understanding of what they've really
been accomplished. Show the paper to your advisor or someone else
who's familiar with your topic and whose opinions you respect. Introduce
yourself to the author at a conference or by email, and tell them
about your work. By starting a dialogue, you will usually find that
their work isn't quite the same, and that there are still directions
open to you. You may even end up collaborating with them. Good researchers
welcome the opportunity to interact and collaborate with someone
who's interested in the same problems they are.
To finish quickly, it's usually best
to pick a narrow, well defined topic. The downside of this approach
is that it may not be as exciting to you or to the research community.
If you're more of a risk-taker, choose a topic that branches out
in a new direction. The danger here is that it can be difficult
to carefully define the problem, and to evaluate the solution you
develop. If you have a topic like this, it helps a lot to have an
advisor or mentor who is good at helping you to focus and who can
help you maintain a reasonably rigorous approach to the problem.
In the extreme case, if your topic
is so out of the ordinary that it's unrelated to anything else,
you may have difficulty convincing people it's worthwhile. Truly
innovative research is, of course, exciting and often pays back
in recognition from the research community -- or you could just
be out in left field. If you have a far-out topic, be sure that
people are actually interested in it, or you'll never be able to ``sell''
it later, and will probably have trouble getting your work published
and finding a job. In addition, it will be hard to find colleagues
who are interested in the same problems and who can give you advice
and feedback.
In any case, a good topic will address
important issues. You should be trying to solve a real problem,
not a toy problem (or worse yet, no problem at all); you should
have solid theoretical work, good empirical results or, preferably,
both; and the topic will be connected to -- but not be a simple
variation on or extension of -- existing research. It will also
be significant yet manageable. Finding the right size problem can
be difficult. One good way of identifying the right size is to read
other dissertations. It's also useful to have what Chapman calls
a ``telescoping organization'' -- a central problem that's solvable
and acceptable, with extensions and additions that are ``successively
riskier and that will make the thesis more exciting.'' If the gee-whiz
additions don't pan out, you'll still have a solid result.
A good way to focus on a topic is
to write one-sentence and one-paragraph descriptions of the problem
you want to address, and do the same for your proposed solution;
then write an outline of what a thesis that solved this problem
would look like (i.e., what chapters would be included, or if you're
ambitious, what sections in the chapter).
Sometimes finding a small problem
to work on and building on it in a ``bottom up'' fashion can work
equally well, as long as you don't fall into the trap of solving
lots of small unrelated problems that don't lead to a coherent,
solid, substantial piece of research (i.e., a thesis).
Remember that a thesis is only a few
years of your work, and that -- if all goes well -- your research
career will continue for another 30 or 40. Don't be afraid to leave
part of the problem for future work, and don't compare yourself
to senior researchers who have years of work and publications to
show for it. (On the other hand, if you identify too much future
work, your thesis won't look very exciting by comparison.) Graduate
students often pick overly ambitious topics (in theory, your advisor
will help you to identify a realistic size problem). Don't overestimate
what other people have done. Learn to read between the lines of
grandiose claims (something else a good advisor will help you to
do).
Some schools may require that you
write a thesis proposal. Even if they don't, this is a good first
step to take. It forces you to define the problem, outline possible
solutions, and identify evaluation criteria; and it will help you
to get useful feedback from your advisor and other colleagues. Writing
a good thesis proposal will take up to several months, depending
on how much background work and thinking you've already done in
the process of choosing the topic.
The proposal should provide a foundation
for the dissertation. First, you must circumscribe the problem and
argue convincingly that it needs to be solved, and that you have
a methodology for solving it. You must identify and discuss related
work: has this problem been addressed before? What are the shortcomings
of existing work in the area, and how will your approach differ
from and be an improvement over these methods?
Present your ideas for solving the
problem in as much detail as possible, and give a detailed plan
of the remaining research to be done. The proposal should include,
or be structured as, a rough outline of the thesis itself. In fact,
unless your final topic differs significantly from your proposed
topic (which many do), you may be able to reuse parts of the proposal
in the thesis.
You will probably have to take an
oral exam in which you present and/or answer questions about your
proposal. Be sure that your committee members are as familiar as
possible with your work beforehand. Give them copies of the proposal,
and talk to them about it. During the exam, don't panic if you don't
know the answer to a question. Simply say, ``I'm not sure'' and
then do your best to analyze the question and present possible answers.
Your examining committee wants to see your analytical skills, not
just hear canned answers to questions you were expecting. Give a
practice talk to other students and faculty members. Remember: you
know more about your thesis topic than your committee; you're teaching
them something for a change.
Writing the Thesis
Graduate students often think that
the thesis happens in two distinct phases: doing the research, and
writing the dissertation. This may be the case for some students,
but more often, these phases overlap and interact with one another.
Sometimes it's difficult to formalize an idea well enough to test
and prove it until you've written it up; the results of your tests
often require you to make changes that mean that you have to go
back and rewrite parts of the thesis; and the process of developing
and testing your ideas is almost never complete (there's always
more that you could do) so that many graduate students end up
``doing research'' right up until the day or two before the thesis
is turned in.
The divide-and-conquer approach works
as well for writing as it does for research. A problem that many
graduate students face is that their only goal seems to be ``finish
the thesis.'' It is essential that you break this down into manageable
stages, both in terms of doing the research and when writing the
thesis. Tasks that you can finish in a week, a day, or even as little
as half an hour are much more realistic goals. Try to come up with
a range of tasks, both in terms of duration and difficulty. That
way, on days when you feel energetic and enthusiastic, you can sink
your teeth into a solid problem, but on days when you're run-down
and unmotivated, you can at least descending order of abstraction:
high-level content-oriented comments, mid-level stylistic and presentation
comments, and low-level nitpicky comments on syntax and grammar.
Try to keep your comments constructive (``this would read better
if you defined X before introducing Y'') rather than destructive
(``this is nonsense'').
You'll want to read a paper at least
twice -- once to get the basic ideas, then a second time to mark
down comments. High-level comments describing your overall impression
of the paper, making suggestions for organization, presentation
and alternative approaches to try, potential extensions, and relevant
references are generally the most useful and the hardest to give.
Low-level comments are more appropriate for a paper that is being
submitted for publication than for an unpublished paper such as
a proposal or description of preliminary research.
Most graduate students (at least in
the natural sciences) have a source of financial support that pays
their tuition and a small living stipend. Although nobody ever got
rich being a graduate student, you probably won't starve either.
Sources of funding include fellowships (from NSF, universisites,
foundations, government agencies, and industry), employer support,
research assistantships (i.e., money from a faculty member's research
grant) and teaching assistantships. Kantrowitz provides an extensive
list of funding sources for math, science, and engineering graduate
students.
Start looking for money early. Many
schools arrange support in the form of an RA or TA position in the
first year, but after that, you're on your own. Deadlines for applications
vary, and if you miss one, you'll probably have to wait another
year. After you apply, it can take six months or so to review the
applications and several more months to actually start receiving
money.
Ask faculty members (especially your
advisor, who should be helping you to find support or providing
support out of his or her grant money), department administrators,
and fellow graduate students about available funding. Go to your
university's fellowship office or its equivalent, and look through
the listings in The Annual
Register of Grant Support, The Grant Register, The
Chronicle of Higher Education,
and Foundation Grants to Individuals. Look into NSF grants (there are several
different programs). Take advantage of your status as a woman or
minority if you are one (this may be the only time when it actually
is an advantage). Most universities have fellowship programs that
may be administered through individual departments or may be campus-wide.
If you haven't yet begun actively
doing research, getting an RA position from a faculty member may
be a good way to become involved in a research project. Working
on an existing research project by maintaining or developing hardware
or software, writing reports, and running experiments will give
you a feel for what it's like to do research -- and you may even
find a thesis topic. Ask around to see what's available, and go
talk to professors whose work you find interesting.
For a research grant or fellowship,
you will probably have to write a proposal, so the more you've thought
about potential thesis topics, the better off you'll be. You may
need to tailor your proposal to the interests and needs of the particular
funding agency or program you're applying to, but stick to something
you know about and are sincerely interested in.
Write for a general audience, since
the people reviewing your application may not be in the same field.
Emphasize your goals and why the project you propose to work on
is important. Talk as much as you can about how you're going to
solve the problem, and be sure that your proposed solution will
satisfy the goals you've set forth. Follow the rules for format,
page layout and length, or your application may not even be reviewed.
|
KSA |
5/13/00 |
|
