applying to grad school, or "how i learned to stop worrying and implore people to make my life miserable"

okay, so it's not nearly as bad or as melodramatic as the title suggests, but i thought it was a clever idea for a title anyway. so there. maybe someday i'll even get around to actually seeing the movie...

and now we continue with "chris's most sagest advices for anyone considering graduate school."

1. be absolutely sure it's really what you want to do. hahahahahahahahahaha. okay, sorry, that's just hilarious. it's the first impulse of what to say for pretty much anyone who's been there (including me), but also utterly useless for the person asking. you have no idea what you're getting into, so there's really no way for you to make an informed decision. besides, the vast majority of people who go are just doing it to postpone their integration into "real" society for as long as possible anyway.

2. opinions may differ on this, but i'm discussing my experience here, and it's biased. deal with it. so, myself having been 50% of the aforementioned "school may be bad but at least it's familiar" mentality, and the other 50% vain "hrmmm, 'Dr.' has a nice ring to it" s-o-b (also known as the "mmmm, titles... shiiiiiny." distraction), i pretty much took the first opportunity that dropped in my lap. looking back, i'm pretty sure that this was not the most prudent thing to do. i'm starting to think that in order to really be successful at a phd, it's basically required to be obscenely passionate about your topic. such that you actually want to spend your spare time doing it, for example (like my computer generated music tomfoolery). i know nikolaus thinks about algorithms and such for his robots outside the office (quite a bit even, it seems). me, on the other hand, i prefer to leave work at work. often i spend inordinantly large amounts of time at work, but i don't really give it any thought when i'm at home. that, and, well, sensor networks may be cool and all, but they certainly wouldn't leave any gaping hole in my life were someone to take them away from me; let's just leave it at that.

3. possibly the most important by many orders of magnitude: make sure that the project you are working on/under (most likely where your funding is coming from) specifies a *concrete deliverable.* even if the application is stupid (like nikolaus's turbine inspection task), you'll be forced to work towards something, and the "research" will fill itself into the blanks. i seem to have gotten myself stuck in a position where i'm being funded by alcherio's slush fund, and every time i try to do something, the response is some variation on "no, that's not really it, why don't you try something else." which, while discouraging, would even be okay were it not for the eventual (inevitable) point where he realizes that you don't have as many publications as he would have wanted/expected, and freaks out because we're "not making progress," though somehow still has no idea where or how he wants to move forward. if, however, there was external pressure to get some ridiculous system working, regardless of the potential research interest, i'd at least have a solid, tangible goal to work towards, most likely with reasonably obvious steps that need to be taken... yeah, well, that's not the case. learn from my mistakes.

4. once you've chosen a topic, find a way to get to know a professor or two that specializes in whatever it is that you're interested in. using your friends to get personal introductions is also highly recommended, but of course may not always be possible. (hint: join darbnet, you'll like it anyway, and eventually it will probably be an excellent venue for asking if anyone knows someone who wants a phd student in field XYZ.)

5. that's probably about it, but a list of five somehow seems nicer than a list of four, so i'll add that you shouldn't forget to consider the other non-related benefits of certain schools/locations as well. i, for instance, am extremely happy that i got the opportunity not only to live in a different country but also to learn a new language. quite frankly, this is probably more important to me, and may even end up being more useful to me in my life than my actual phd. then there's the little detail about compensation. assume for the moment that you're pursuing a phd in the sciences (since getting someone to pay you to study humanities is not likely to happen in this universe). the research stipends that i'm aware of in the states vary wildly, but tend to hover around the poverty line nonetheless. on the other hand, i paid off all my undergraduate loans within approximately two and a half years, while they were still in deferment, since i'm still technically a student. this, my dear friends, is what we in the business refer to as a "really fucking great feeling." which admittedly may have something to do with the fact that paying interest is against my religion, but still, it's pretty damn cool, and i'm proud of myself for it. so, yeah, you're clearly not going to get rich by going to grad school, but at least be aware of what you'll be getting and what your options are.

okay, doug, now it's your turn, since i've been asking about what you've been doing for OVER FOUR MONTHS NOW, and so far you've written me a couple of comments asking me questions, which are fine and welcome, but not terribly informative. so yeah, what the hell are you doing now that you've graduated, how was your europe trip, and tell me more about what you're thinking about grad school.

hopefully that's enough chastisement for now. [smirk]