Bernstein conference of this year had a useful PhD symposium. My takeaway is to be aware of these:

  • upward management: How to manage your advisor
  • maintaining colabs: collaborations aren’t formed by starting them and wishing them to continue. This approach is very similar to mass application during job search, pointless. Figure out what exactly do you want from that collab. You can’t expect them be form a classroom for you. They appreciate if you “upward manage” them and tell them what the should do.
  • **Nice people”: Most people are actaully nice. If they can’t help, they’ll say so. But most often they are eager to help. Don’t remember that.

Thins to research about:

  • identity work – read Richard Gao’s blog
  • gender diversity