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The Tao of PhD

About

Table of contents

  1. Course Overview
  2. Logistics
  3. Ed Discussion Board
  4. Workload
  5. Respect and Inclusion
  6. Accessibility
  7. Religious Accommodations
  8. Disclaimer
  9. Acknowledgements

Course Overview

As early-stage PhD students, your research is likely in its early stages; your research goals are still evolving. There remains a long and what may feel like a dimly lit road towards becoming a scholar and an expert in your field. You may be uncertain about your advisor’s expectations and how to make the relationship mutually and maximally beneficial. And, if you are like most PhD students, you may be going through periods of intense self-doubt and insecurity even as you try to contribute and establish your unique research footprint.

This seminar aims to help you define and navigate your own path to success as an Allen School PhD student. Specifically, the seminar aims to enrich your sense of belonging, camaraderie and purpose in this phase of your life. It will help you think about how to evaluate and select research topics of importance and scholarly merit and build a productive working relationship with your advisor(s). The seminar will discuss the core skills needed to thrive in the PhD program and beyond, including making engaging presentations and writing clearly and with finesse, as well as skills that help you to best manage your time and achieve the work-life balance critical to your mental health and intellectual resilience. We will talk about how to handle the tough situations that we all occasionally face in academia, including paper rejection, discouraging feedback, research dead ends, and impostor syndrome. In a nutshell, this seminar, buoyed by faculty and student insights and experiences, seeks to help you define and meet your goals, maintain your inspiration, and manage what may be lifelong connections with your academic community.

Logistics

Weekly on Tuesdays from 4:30-5:50pm; Occassionally on Thrusday from 4:30-5:50pm.

We will meet in person in the Bill & Melinda Gates Center for Computer Science and Engineering, Room Gates G04. Look out for announcements on Ed. Refer to UW COVID-19 policy for more information on pandemic safety rules for in-person instruction.

Ed Discussion Board

Discussion notes, questions, and assignments should all be posted on Ed.

Here are some quick notes and tips for using it in this seminar:

  • You can update your personal settings by clicking on the person icon in the upper righthand corner. There, for example, you can:
    • Upload a photo and change the setting for your name (under “Profile”).
    • Update your Notifications, most importantly, determining how often you will be alerted via email about new threads in the discussion you have not read.
  • Heart questions, comments, and answers you find useful or interesting.
  • With the exception of the required posts:
    • You have the option of posting anonymously, which means nobody, including the staff, will know who wrote the post.
    • You have the option of posting privately, which means that only the staff will see the post.
    • You have the option of posting anonymously and privately, which means that only the staff will see the post, but will not know who posted it.
  • Share interesting course related content with staff and peers using the “Related” category.
  • Share seminar-related concerns and difficulties you are encountering using the “Concerns and difficulties” category, anonymously if you wish.

For more information on how to use Ed, check out the quick start guide.

Workload

The workload in this seminar will be light, i.e., under 4 hours a week on average. Most weeks you will be asked to do some short readings before class and submit a short post about them to our discussion board. We expect you will find these readings to be fun, interesting and highly relevant to you. We will also ask you to occasionally meet with your advisor for guided conversations, e.g., about inspirational research papers in your area and about their expectations of you. Additional work may involve preparing an elevator pitch, working on a short talk, reading a research paper, and possibly writing the introduction to one of your future papers, but these will be short assignments of direct benefit to you in your research. The discussions we will have over the course of the quarter will build on each other, so it would be most effective for you to try and attend all sessions.

Respect and Inclusion

This seminar welcomes all current and visiting students in the first and second year of the Allen School PhD program. It is crucially important to us that all students are treated respectfully by both their classmates and the course staff, that the environment is inclusive of all students and conducive to learning and the free and supportive exchange of ideas, opinions and concerns. If at any time you feel that you are not experiencing an inclusive environment, or you are made to feel uncomfortable, disrespected, or excluded, please report the incident to the course staff so that we may address the issue and maintain a supportive atmosphere. Should you feel uncomfortable bringing up an issue with a staff member directly, you may also consider sending anonymous feedback on Ed or via the CSE feedback tool or contacting the Office of the Ombud.

Accessibility

It is the policy and practice of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), activate your accommodations via myDRS so we can discuss how they will be implemented in this course.

If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), contact DRS directly to set up an Access Plan. DRS facilitates the interactive process that establishes reasonable accommodations.

Religious Accommodations

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UWs policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form.

Disclaimer

The Allen School faculty is committed to helping you succeed and will continue to contribute a variety of perspectives and insights for presentation at this seminar. We want you to develop the confidence, perseverance and passion needed to earn a PhD and launch a productive career. Having said that, this is the first time this seminar is being offered and hence, it is an experiment. Please don’t be shy about providing us with feedback at every point along the way!

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank several people who contributed directly or indirectly to this seminar.

  • The Allen School faculty and the grad advising team
  • Spring ‘21 reading group: Joe Breda, Anna Karlin, Naveena Karusala, Lee Organick, Krishna Pillutla, Pratyush Patel, Yasaman Sefidgar
  • Advising document team: Joe Eckert, Anna Karlin, Naveena Karusala, Katie Lim, Pratyush Patel, Peter West
  • Content organization and editing: Sandy Kaplan
  • Seminar initially conceived of by Pratyush Patel in conversation with Lauren Bricker
  • Additional ideas by Ashlie Martinez, Venkatesh Potluri, Marissa Radensky, Mara-Kirdani Ryan
  • Information sources: Justine Sherry and Bailey Flanigan
  • The amazing materials from Harvard CS 290: Seminar on Research Practices and Academic Culture.