If you are asking any or all of these questions, tune in to find some answers. I will share my experience of a decade in answering these kinds of questions. Will have some prescriptive and abstract ways by which your Ph.D. life can be made more exciting, productive, and perhaps, a life changing experience. How do I find out if research is something I like the most and want to spend time in doing a Ph.D. and beyond? I am scared of committing 5 years for a Ph.D., will it be worth the time? How can I find out if I will be able to finish my Ph.D. well? How to find a good thesis advisor? How is the Advisor-Advisee relationship? Many of my friends are joining / doing Ph.D., should I? What are the tools, techniques that successful Ph.D. students use? How important is networking, getting to know people in your area of work? How important is social media, and is there a way to effectively use it during Ph.D. life? So on ...

1. linkedin/in/ponguru @ponguru fb.com/ponnurangam.kumaragurupkatiiitd
Young Researchers’ Symposium
Invited Talk, CODS-COMAD
3 Jan, 2021
Ponnurangam Kumaraguru (“PK”)
#ProfGiri CS, #DeanGiri Student Affairs IIIT Delhi
ACM India Council Member
TEDx & ACM Distinguished Speaker
#PhDLife:
Different Strokes for Different Folks

2. Getting to know the Audience & Protocol
Students / Faculty / Others
Registered Ph.D. students
Thinking about doing Ph.D.
Your City & Twitter handle on chat
2
+1 :-) :D :PMute!!!

3. DISCLAIMER - I
ALL CHARACTERS, REFERENCE, STORIES, EXPERIENCES SHARED IN THIS TALK
ARE NOT FICTITIOUS. IT IS JUST COINCIDENTAL THAT, YOU MAY RELATE TO
SOME OR MANY OF THEM.
3

4. DISCLAIMER - II
Wide audience, different background
Will try to keep it abstract, and hopefully everyone will have something to takeaway
Will also try to be prescriptive wherever possible
4

5. What you wanted me to cover?
5

6. Teaser
6
To Do or Not To do Ph.D.
Life during Ph.D.
Life after Ph.D.
If time permits, some deleted scenes :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR-Ui8-V2M0

7. What is Ph.D.?
7
http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

8. 8

10. 10One of the earlier versions of Wombatsecurity.com

11. 11
Thesis → Wombat
https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2018/march/wombat-security-acquired.html

12. Why do Ph.D.?
12

13. Why do Ph.D.?
13
Satisfaction factor Career growth
opportunities
Financial
growth / status
Skills /
Background
needed
Amount of
ground already
covered
Doing Ph.D.
Working for a
company
Starting a
company

14. Why do you want to do Ph.D.?
14
Want to be a faculty
Want to be the one among X experts around
the world in a given area
Respect in society
Peer pressure
Curiosity
Want to shift from industry to academia
Just for fun :) https://www.ndtv.com/education/23-scientists-from-delhi-governmen
t-universities-in-worlds-top-2-scientists-list-stanford-university

15. Transition from Industry
You should know what you want
Try out some courses, projects
Managing family, job, and PhD
is hard
Need social and family support
15
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/862228291128906498/

16. Teaser
16
To Do or Not To do Ph.D.
Life during Ph.D.
Life after Ph.D.
If time permits, some deleted scenes :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR-Ui8-V2M0

17. Know Your Advisor!
Tradeoff between senior professor &
junior professor
Understand her / his working style
Advisor - Advisee relationship
Once an Advisor, always an Advisor
17
'You can have a book relationship, the
lets-grab-some-coffee relationship, music
relationship,etc. There is one romantic relationship.
You cannot burden that single relationship with all
these small relationships'
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6tipbu

18. 18

19. Set the expectations right
19
http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1365

20. Mandatory course work, qualifier, comprehensive …
Different institutes have different expectations
Take a wide variety of courses - Courses from different schools
Do not stop with only required courses
What is Qualifier, Comprehensive exam…
20

21. Explore a bit before deciding
Student #1 CAPTCHA - Privacy - Usable Security - Social Media & Policing
Student #2 Cyberbullying - Pedophile - Credibility in Twitter
21
“Want the perfect chair”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3DlwnW-SmM

22. Ideas strike anytime
22
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0865w00
https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2014/june/june12_letsgophoneline.html

23. How to narrow down Research areas / topics
23
Opportunity to
dent / contribute
Professional
opportunities
Peer /
Community help
Skills /
Background
Amount of
work done
Topic 1
Topic 2
Topic 3
Luck favors prepared minds!

24. Some qualities during PhD
Motivation
Persistence
Time management
Journal writing
Curiosity
Live with problem!
….
24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curious_George_(film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manjhi_%E2%80%93_The_Mountain_Man

25. Procrastination / Productivity
25http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1350

26. Procrastination / Productivity
26http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=2000

27. Time management
PhD Clinic experience
27
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Calendar https://trello.com/

28. Time management
28https://www.notion.so/

29. What Ph.D. students do?
29

30. Allow PhD life to transform you
30
Learn new skills; I took formal courses playing
Tennis, Golf, … They are on my transcript :)
Make friends outside your domain of work
Read topics outside your domain of work
Ask questions (even if it is silly / simple) when you
attend talks
“Fake it until you make it”
https://www.amazon.in/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/076790818X
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2776392

31. 5 / 7 Ph.D. students got married during Ph.D.
I was married before starting my Ph.D.
31

32. 5 / 7 Ph.D. students got married during Ph.D.
I was married before starting my Ph.D.
32

33. 33
Student travels

34. Be active on Social Media, about research :-)
34
https://twitter.com/emilio__ferrara
https://twitter.com/ravenben

35. Be active on Social Media, about research :-)
35
Interact with others working on similar
problems online - RT, Like, Comment
Read their paper, make comments, ask
questions, etc. [Everyone likes Attention]
Tag them in relevant posts / replies

36. PhD students who are active
36
https://twitter.com/eredmil1 https://twitter.com/iamtrask https://twitter.com/seb_ruder

37. 37
Choices matter
“It is our choices [advisor, projects, problems, courses, conferences, etc.], Harry,
that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Albus_Dumbledore

38. 38
Blogademia https://www.mendeley.com/

39. 39
https://www.researchgate.net/

40. GitHub
40
https://github.com/precog-iiitd https://github.com/ivan-bilan/The-NLP-Pandect/

41. Slideshare
41https://www.slideshare.net/precogatIIITD/

42. Create Public Good
http://precog.iiitd.edu.in/resources.html
42
https://snap.stanford.edu/data/

43. How to respond to critique, failure, reviews, etc.?
Positivity
Have social support / Friends /
Colleagues
Celebrate rejection, it's harder, but
possible
You are not alone!
43
https://in.pinterest.com/pin/113293746856175786/

44. Teaser
44
To Do or Not To do Ph.D.
Life during Ph.D.
Life after Ph.D.
If time permits, some deleted scenes :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR-Ui8-V2M0

45. Post-Ph.D. life
45

46. https://india.acm.org/research/phd-clinic

47. https://india.acm.org/research/phd-clinic

48. The END!
48
To Do or Not To do Ph.D.
Life during Ph.D.
Life after Ph.D.
If time permits, some deleted scenes :)
https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0STBXI66Z6MYO3WC6GNXCSX4Y3/ref=atv_sr_def_c_unkc__1_1_1

49. Acknowledgements
All current-past-students who spent / spending time with me
Mohit Chandra (IIITH) for title; Prashant Kodali (IIITH), Siddhartha (Mastercard),
Niharika (Naukari), Vedant (GaTech), Precogs for helping with preparing the talk
49
https://www.kindpng.com/imgv/moJbxx_tigger-png-background-image-tigger-winnie-the-pooh/

50. Pointers
https://medium.com/great-research/do-you-need-a-ph-d-f78d2fb0f286
https://karpathy.github.io/2016/09/07/phd/
https://maithraraghu.com/blog/2020/Reflections_on_my_Machine_Learning_PhD_
Journey/
50

51. 51
pk@iiitd.ac.in
http://precog.iiitd.edu.in/
@ponguru
pkatiiitd
linkedin/in/ponguru

52. Strength of Reading / Knowing
Papers
Magazines
Tech world
NEWS
52
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZdP-G-F0a8

53. Develop a network of friends / critiques
53
Students working in the same area
Strategies to find them
Attend #PhDClinic #AMA
Be active on Slack / mailing lists
Contribute to local tech / related clubs
Become member of ACM India / IEEE
https://india.acm.org/research/phd-clinic

54. Random thoughts
Monitor growth - Keep a journal, Revisit journal, Stay focussed
Self assessment - Be less judgemental, Being open to criticism, Regular updates on
how you are doing and using it to improve / improvise
All about having fund
54

55. Presenting your work!
Keep it short, then make it shorter
Leave lot more time for Q&A
Ask audience questions during the talk
Get rid of bullet points [Tufte]
Podcast - both listen and create
Simplify technical jargon
55
https://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/pi/2016_2017/phil/tufte-powerpoint.pdf
https://www.underratedml.com/, https://twitter.com/mlindiapodcast https://lexfridman.com/podcast/

56. Presenting / Writing your work!
Equations/formulae are often inaccessible
Just because a figure/table is in your paper, doesn't mean it should be in your blog
post or talk
Dont discuss the whole paper, only excite people to read the paper
Build a Story for the audience, it is compelling for specific audience
Elevator Pitch (2 mins, 3 mins, 5 mins)
Write - Write - Write
Writer’s block
56

57. Impact of work
57

58. Why high level of motivation is needed for PhD?
58

59. 7 days of Ph.D. Student life :)
59