What to Expect When Working With Me
Being independent is the most crucial skill you need to learn while working with me. My role as your mentor isn't to give you all the answers, but to guide you in finding them yourself. True research means taking complete ownership of your project, from its beginning to its end. This involves learning how to formulate and refine your own research questions, meticulously searching for and understanding existing literature, and developing the grit to troubleshoot problems on your own. When you hit a roadblock, your first instinct should be to think critically about it, explore different approaches, and try new resources before coming to me. This process of wrestling with difficult problems is where real learning happens. It builds the resilience, creativity, and problem-solving skills that are essential for a successful career, whether in academia or industry. Ultimately, you should become an expert in your field -- definitely more knowledgeable than I am -- and be fully capable of completing a research project on your own (without me!).
While publishing papers is a necessary part of your academic journey, it should never be your primary goal. Instead, publications should be a natural consequence of your skills and knowledge reaching a level where you have a meaningful contribution to share with the community.
Useful Strategies for Research
One of the most powerful strategies I've used is to "make bold assumptions and verify them carefully." Instead of getting bogged down by a problem's complexity, we'll learn to make an educated guess -- a simplifying assumption that could, if proven true, unlock a solution. This isn't about wild, uninformed stabs in the dark. It's about a calculated, sometimes surprising, hypothesis that gives us a clear direction. The key, however, lies in the second part: "verify them carefully." This is where we shift from creativity to rigorous discipline. We will meticulously test our assumption to see if it holds up under scrutiny. Does it work every time? If not, where does it break down? This push and pull between making an imaginative leap and then carefully, almost painstakingly, proving or disproving it, is what drives new discoveries in our field.
Important Traits for PhD Study
Beyond research skills, there are several personality traits that are vital not only for your PhD but for your entire life.
First, a positive mindset. It builds the resilience needed to overcome inevitable setbacks, like failed experiments or rejected papers. It helps you reframe obstacles as essential learning opportunities, which is vital for maintaining productivity and making genuine progress. This outlook allows you to sustain the long-term effort required for a successful research career. A positive mindset also translates into practical skills like managing your time, prioritizing tasks when facing many deadlines, communicating effectively with collaborators, and controlling your emotions.
Secondly, honesty and integrity. You must be honest about your methods, data, and results, even when they don't align with your initial hypothesis. Any violation of this principle is unacceptable. In theoretical research, this means you must be meticulously careful; you should never make a claim or present a proof before you have thoroughly checked every detail. Of course, making mistakes is a natural and understandable part of the research process, which is entirely different from a willful lack of integrity.
Lastly, it's always great to be a nice PhD student, and even more important to be a nice person!