My PhD Experience

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My PhD Experience
Terry Steinbach
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Planning
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Failure to Plan is Planning to Fail

• Create a Time Line.
• Decide when you want to finish.
• Add other sub-deadlines to meet your thesis
  deadline.
• Add other deadlines and their sub-deadlines.
• Prioritize competing items and reorder so as to
  time things correctly.

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Skills Traits

• Exercise Initiative
• Guidance from professors is at a reasonably high
  level, not at a micromanaging level.
• Be Tenacious
• Culture shock quarter long projects to projects
  that take a few years to complete
• Unexpected problems and obstacles
• Do something every day that gets you closer to
  being done. Be disciplined

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Skills Traits

• Have Flexibility
• Take advantage of opportunities and synergies
• Work around problems
• Be willing to change plans as required
• Develop
• Interpersonal Skills
• Build and maintain relationships with advisor,
  fellow students, research and support staff.
• Different working styles.
• Respect expertise, advice and time.

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Skills Traits

• Develop
• Organizational Skills
• Communication Skills
• Academic writing style is different.
• Status reports independent studies
• Keep Balance Perspective
• Pace yourself
• Dont lose self-esteem and confidence

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Build a Support Community

• Faculty
• Other PhD Students
• Join a Research Seminar
• DePaul Staff
• Family
• Friends

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Construct the Foundation
Coursework gt Exams
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Exams

• Reading Lists
• Previous Exams
• Course Listings
• Take CSC426

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Erect the Four Walls
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Networking
Research
Conferences Seminars
Publications
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Networking

• Meet and build relationships with other
  researchers
• Present papers
• Mentally prepare summaries of varying lengths and
  levels of your work
• Business cards with email address
• Volunteer for program committees
• Join appropriate organizations within and outside
  of DePaul

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Attending Conferences Seminars

• Meet people
• Current state of research

Pulications

• Source of feedback
• Forces clarification of ideas
• Read papers in potentially appropriate
  publications

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Put on the Roof
Defense gt Graduation
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It's a Race to the Finish