1. 2019 PhD Student Orientation
John Ousterhout
Director of Graduate Studies
Welcome to Stanford!
We’re excited that you chose to come to Stanford, and we’re looking forward to working with you.
PhD students are largely responsible for both the results and the energy of the department.

2. PhD Student Orientation
Your Career
The next year
The next 5 years
The next 50 years
You are about to make the biggest transition of your career: the difference between last year and this year is much larger than any other previous transition.
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

3. PhD Student Orientation
The Next Year
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

4. It’s All About Rotations
Job #1: find the right advisor
The Curse of the Open Door
Are you in the right subfield?
Most important overall factor for success as a graduate student
Advisors guide students through the transition to research (no class for this)
How to choose projects, carry them out, present the results, and behave professionally
Other topics: choosing a career, general life issues
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

5. PhD Student Orientation
About Rotations
Rotations allow students and faculty to get to know each other
Students drive the process
You approach faculty, ask to rotate
Plan ahead!
It’s a market:
Faculty evaluate students during rotations
Students evaluate faculty during rotations
Some students (and faculty) are more popular
Not everyone gets their first choice (students or faculty)
Before rotations: align based on a 15-minute meeting
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

6. PhD Student Orientation
Evaluating Faculty
Things to think about:
Research interests: faculty will spend more time on projects they are excited about
Compatible style: how much do you enjoy talking with them?
Hands-on vs. hands-off
How much time do they spend with students?
Talk to their existing students:
How often do you meet with XXX? For how long?
Greatest strengths and weaknesses?
Talk to senior students:
What do you know now that you wish you’d known during your first year?
It’s worth extra work: know what you are getting yourself into
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

7. PhD Student Orientation
Rotation Advice
Rotate only with faculty you can potentially align with, until you have at least one firm offer that you are happy with
Ask beforehand:
“How many new students do you expect to take this year?”
“How many students will be rotating with you?”
“How many of your slots have you already committed?”
Ask afterwards:
“How did I do? What parts were you least happy with?”
“Are you prepared to offer me an RAship now? If not, when will you make the decision, and how will you make it?”
An evasive or heavily qualified answer probably means “no”
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

8. Rotation Advice, cont’d
Take rotations seriously
Don’t take more than one class at a time
Take initiative, get involved
Put yourself in harm’s way
Do something concrete (don’t be picky; any activity is good)
Work with other students
Serve as apprentice to a senior student
Be realistic
Probably can’t write a paper in a quarter
Learn about an area, a professor, and a style of doing research
Start thinking researchy ideas
Make connections with other students and faculty
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

9. PhD Student Orientation
The Next 5 Years
How should you think about your life as a PhD student?
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

10. PhD Student Orientation
A New Level
You have always been the best; excelling has been easy… No more!
The people around you are very very good.
The problems will be much harder.
Some people go through a confidence crisis… don’t!
Your admission was not a mistake.
You may need to develop new work habits: your first idea is no longer good enough
If things are easy, you’re not attacking a hard enough problem
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

11. You Must Drive Yourself
In the past, you could just do what you were told… No more!
Few deadlines to structure your work
Your advisor can help, but only so much
It’s easy to waste a lot of time
By the time you graduate you must be able to:
Set your own agenda
Decide what’s important
Manage your time efficiently
Motivate yourself (e.g. create deadlines, force yourself to meet them)
Suggestion: always be working on something
Typical students waste about one year
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

12. PhD Student Orientation
Depth vs. Breadth
Breadth
Ultimate goal is depth:
Explore narrow topic in tremendous detail
World’s leading expert
But, can’t go directly there
Depth
PhD
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

13. Depth vs. Breadth, cont’d
Courses
Breadth is essential:
Learn about problems
Learn about techniques
Get ideas
Initial years: more breadth
Later years: increasing depth
Depth
Read Papers
PhD
Other Projects
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

14. PhD Student Orientation
Go Deep
Unique opportunity to study something in extreme depth:
Explore every nook and cranny
Answer all the questions, not just the easy ones
Don’t just staple 3 papers together
Hard to be really deep in a conference paper (12 page limit)
3 shallow works ≠ deep
(Maybe OK if they build on each other)
Deep study → deep understanding
How the pieces contribute to the whole
Details matter
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

15. A PhD is Just the Beginning
Your PhD probably won’t be the most important work of your career
Most important thing for the next 5 years: Prepare yourself to do great work over the next 50 years
Knowledge
Experience
Techniques
Mindset
You need to do, but how much you learn is even more important
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

16. PhD Student Orientation
The Next 50 Years
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

17. PhD Student Orientation
There’s Not Much Room on a Tombstone
Work on a small number of things, do truly great work
Focus on what’s important, not what’s easy
You’re here because you have extraordinary potential; don’t waste it
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

18. PhD Student Orientation
Impact
Success ≈
# papers?
# papers
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

19. Counting Papers → Mediocrity
The tyranny of conference deadlines
Deadline-driven research
Size the work to fit the time until the next submission deadline
Don’t do long (deep) projects
Once the paper is accepted, stop working on it (work on the next paper instead)
Excuses:
I need a lot of papers so I can get a good job
I need a lot of papers so I can get tenure
My students need a lot of papers so they can get jobs
There’s never a good time to start doing the important stuff… so start now.
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

20. PhD Student Orientation
Impact
Papers are a means to an end: impact
What is impact? Changing the way people think or behave
An open-source software package used by thousands (millions?)
A paper that becomes standard reading in a graduate course
An idea that forms the basis for a large body of future work
An idea that leads to a new Silicon Valley startup
Teaching students in a class
How to achieve impact:
Time
Focus
Depth
Luck!
Having impact is deeply satisfying
Over my 40-year career, there are 5 projects that I think have had high impact (VLSI tools, Tcl, LFS, Homa, APOSD)
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

21. PhD Student Orientation
Conclusion
You have the potential to do extraordinary, high-impact work
Life goal: maximize the single greatest thing you do
You are moving up to a new level:
Great people to work with, learn from
Really hard problems
This year: find the right advisor, get settled in a research group
The rest of your PhD:
Create a base of skills, techniques, experience
Be extremely deep in your PhD research
The rest of your career:
Keep thinking and working deeply
Do things that are really important
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation

22. PhD Student Orientation
Questions/Comments?
September 19, 2019
PhD Student Orientation