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While graduate life is focused on studies, research, and teaching here
at the lab, graduate life is temporary, and it's always a good idea to
keep an eye on potential next stages in your career. Help expand and enrich
our human networks to maintain the flow of ideas through the lab and impact
the world with our accomplishments. Or just keep an eye on what kinds
of expertise are in demand, for yourself and your students.
First, here are some resources and books which some doctoral students
have found insightful, on finding your way into and within a research
career, how scientific communities work, and understanding how scientists
and technologists fit in with the rest of the world. The books are generally
available in the libraries and in paperback.
- Networking
on the Network Phil Agre, UCLA [and AI lab alum]. "As
a [Ph.D] student preparing for a career in research, you have two jobs:
(1) do some good research, and (2) build a community around your research
topic. This community is called your professional network. Unfortunately,
many students neglect their networking; either they feel overwhelmed
by short-term demands, or they associate networking with politics and
manipulation, or they are working in a hierarchical environment that
does not encourage individuals to act on their own. Yet building your
professional network is the best way to ensure that your dissertation
and other research publications will be read. It is also the best way
to get a job once you graduate. The skills are easy enough with practice,
but they are not at all obvious to beginners." See also
"How to Be a Leader in Your Field", ibid. "Detailed instructions
for professional students on the process of becoming an
intellectual leader: Identify an issue, then talk to people who
have ideas about it, pull the ideas together, publicize the result, and repeat."
- Tomorrow's Professor: Preparing for Academic
Careers in Science and Engineering Richard M. Reis, Stanford,
1997. Aimed at graduate students preparing to be professors in engineering
and science. What will be expected of you as a professor, and how you
can prepare as a graduate student. Based in part on interviews with
people who have become professors at many kinds of colleges and universities,
with many vignettes of their experiences. Includes descriptive references
to other helpful books.
- A Ph.D. is Not Enough: A Guide to Survival
in Science Peter J. Feibelman, 1994. Aimed at graduate students
and people beginning research careers. What will be expected of you
as a Ph.D. leading your own research, and thus what you should try to
learn beyond coursework and thesis before you graduate.
- Science in Action, Bruno Latour,
1987. Sociology of technoscience: How scientific/technology communities
work, how theories become important, what your project leader is doing
while graduate students do most of the hands-on research, how technologies
are developed and become industries, how science and technologies enroll
allies from the rest of society and give back.
- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 2nd
ed Thomas S. Kuhn, 1970. Philosophy of science: how scientific
theories develop, how acceptance shifts from one community to another,
what needs to happen for a paradigm shift in your subfield, how it may
take a generation. (Your research may be just a start; your group members
and students are the start of a community. :)
Here are a few resources which may be useful for finding or creating
opportunities for graduate careers, summer projects, etc.
Sidenote to current members of the lab: These pages are
in constant need of updating and correction. In particular it is important
that they don't just represent my opinions. So please, e-mail me at cshelton
or just change the pages if you see something that needs "help."
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