May 2018 - Lost & Found

I am writing this post to help perspective/new Ph.D. students to understand the culture and dynamics at the Interactive Robotics Laboratory (IRL), and to help existing Ph.D. students to evaluate their progress toward the completion of their degrees.

A. You May be Boarding the Wrong Bus

Getting a Ph.D. degree is an important decision for a student. I really don’t think everyone is suitable for a Ph.D. The first thing I tend to do when a student walked in my office talking about getting a Ph.D. is to try to talk them out of it. It’s not because I think they are intellectually incapable, rather I feel there are many other options in life then getting a Ph.D. In particular, I would strongly discourage you from pursing a Ph.D. degree if the main motivations are:

to get a higher paid job – you could find a good job easier without a Ph.D. (getting a M.S.is probably the best bang for the buck) and would most likely be financially more sound to start working several years ahead;
to stay in school because you are not sure what else to do – go get a real job! Quite often, spending 16-18 years in school creates the momentum to spend 5 more years in school. This is just not good reasoning!
to have a title of ‘Dr.’ associated with your name – nothing is cool anymore after you own it.

For the rest of us, who are curious about exploring the unknowns, Ph.D. study can be a rewarding experience. Think about this: you get paid (and tuition waived) to be educated, to work on cool projects, to play with fancy toys, and to talk with other intelligent people on a daily basis! Is there a catch? Of course! but we will talk about it later…

B. Where You Sit on the Bus also Matters

So what should you expect by the time of graduation? That depends on what you want to do afterwards. There are just not that many places hiring Ph.Ds. and your choices are pretty much limited to academia, government, and industry, where each requires a slightly different skill set. Clearly you are unlikely to be able to teach well if you never taught, or run a large project if you never managed a team before. So make up your mind early and talk to me about what you want so you can receive a customized training experience.

Overall, before you graduate, you should have:

the ability to do independent research. You should have accumulated enough knowledge of your field of interest to be able to identify new research directions on your own;
the ability to effectively convey your ideas and findings both verbally and in writing;
a bag of relevant skills that are tailored for your intended career;
a Curriculum Vitae (CV) that is strong enough for getting your dream job.

If you are short on any one of these, you may not want to graduate yet…

C. Action Items

To achieve these objectives, this is what I expect you to be doing during the next a few years:

Read. Reading is the most important way for you to catch up with the fast evolving field. I will provide the initial papers, but you need to find a lot more on your own! Google Scholar is a great place to start. Exploring the reference section of a paper and who cited it often brings you more papers to read. The more your read, the more you will feel the need to read more (a rare case that positive feedback is actually a good thing);
Think. Independent thinking is what makes you a scholar. Standing on the shoulders of giants (after reading their papers), we should be able to think just a little bit further (or different);
Build. As engineers we create things with our hands. Working with physical systems is very challenging, but is also rewarding to see the stuff you built works. It also inspires the creation of new ideas. You will learn the problem solving skills through solving real world problems;
Talk. This includes ‘asking’ if you have a question; ‘discussion’ if you want other people’s opinions or to bounce ideas around; ‘presenting’ of your problems, solutions, results, and conclusions; and ‘teaching’ other team members with what you know;
Write. We should not keep the best only to ourselves. I expect each Ph.D. student to present at least one conference paper per year and have a minimum of two journal papers accepted for publication before dissertation defense. Write your first paper early, even if you are not completely ready and the paper may likely to be rejected. It takes some time to get into the game;
Lead. I want every one of you to be a leader at IRL because you will be the future leaders wherever you will be. Leading to me means taking a step forward when confronted with challenges, taking on responsibilities when others are hesitating, and be a source of inspiration to others.

D. Three Stages

In the next a few years, you would likely to experience three stages:

During the first year, you will be taking most of the required courses. You will also be assigned with specific tasks. Some tasks will be for training purposes, some will be related to research projects, and others will be related to housekeeping. You are expected to be integrated into the research group quickly (just shadow someone to get started). It is always a good idea to ask around and learn something from everyone.

From the second year on, you are expected to grow your own research independence. The tasks that you will be assigned will be at a higher level, without obvious answers. You are expected to read, think, come up with, and test your own ideas. You will also start to play leadership roles in different projects.

From the third year on, I expect you to have a good understanding of the research field, be able to identify gaps in the state-of-the-art, and be able to provide your own contributions. After banging your head against walls in different directions for a few years you will find a part of the wall that might be weakest. This would be the time to write a research proposal, so that you can continue to bang your head against that part of the wall until it goes through. At this point, you will know a lot more in your specific research area than I do. You are also expected to help mentor and manage the activities of your junior colleagues.

In general, you should expect to graduate in 3-5 years if you already have a Master’s degree. Direct-track students can expect one additional year (4-6 years).

E. The Responsibilities

We are working as a group. Our long-term survival and reputation depends on many factors. During your Ph.D. study, I expect you to:

maintain a high level of motivation and academic integrity;
efficiently manage your time and resources;
keep a positive, open, and curious mind;
be systematic and meticulous in doing research;
be responsible and take ownership of your work;
be persistent and not discouraged by failures;
be professional and respectful;
be a good citizen, team player, and be willing to help others;
keep a clean and safe lab environment.

As your research advisor, you can count on me to:

provide inspirations and general research directions;
identify and respect your interest, strength, and limitations;
work with you to identify interesting, feasible, and clearly-defined research topics;
locate resources for conducting the research;
monitor progresses, perform quality control, and provide feedback in a timely manner;
learn, self-improve, and keep an open mind;
provide support for scholarship, fellowship, and job applications;
provide career advice and other support;
host a yearly picnic.

F. Things to Avoid

You should not treat graduate school as a 9 to 5 job. You will need to spend as much time and effort needed to train yourself and to get the research going.

You should not be bothered by seeing other students getting away with an easy graduation. If they got a degree without received proper training, they will simply not be able to compete with hard working students graduating around the world each year.

G. Other Random Advices

Failure. You may actually learn more from a failed attempt than successful ones, as long as you ask the right questions. Some people see failures as defeats, others see them as challenges. It is simply a matter of perspective. I often felt having a productive year after received my 10^th rejection letter of the year.
Pressure. The ability to handle pressure and stress will be an important part of your life, especially after your Ph.D. This includes two parts: be effective and positive when the pressure is high (i.e., don’t collapse under pressure!); be productive and self-motivated when the pressure is low (i.e., don’t collapse under no-pressure!);
Ashamed. Don’t feel ashamed if you think that you are a Ph.D. student but have no idea about (serial port, ROS, Kalman filter, replace with any technical term). Feel free to ask. People will not laugh at you; Ok, maybe they will, but not for long.
Confidence. Self-coubting is a human nature. You have no idea how many times I have doubted about myself (and am still doing it). Feel free to question yourself, but don’t let it bother you;
Science. If you are not interested in following general science developments, you are unlikely to be very creative with your own research;
Travel. The period of graduate study is the best time to see the world. Although you probably don’t have too much money, you also probably don’t have too many other things to worry about, such as children. I will give you extra vocation time if you present me with a good travel plan. Tip: presenting papers in conferences is another way of getting free trips!
Health. Go out and play whenever you have free time! Last time I checked, Morgantown is still in the mountains!

H. Conclusion

Ph.D. study at IRL is demanding (yes), fun (should be), and rewarding (absolutely!)

We all know that greedy gets us nowhere. We were all probably told by our moms to be kind (e.g., friendly, generous, and helpful), who were probably told by their moms, and so on. This crazy idea may be traced all the way back to some named or unnamed philosophers, but how can it make sense? Why should we hand out our precious resources (e.g., time, things, or even opportunities) to others in this hyper-competitive world? Why shouldn’t we calculate the costs and benefits of all our potential options and pick a move that maximize some sort of utility functions (e.g., money or advancement)? This is precisely what we do when playing chess or tennis, when there is no friends and only one opponent in the game. Nobody expects us to be generous there.

The reason is probably that we are not capable of making many meaningful calculations in life. Beyond a few artificially constrained games, we are severely under-actuated and underpowered creatures that are trying to navigate in the vast ocean of human society. Each decision that we made may not change that much how we move up or down in a long term. Instead, the movement of waves below us makes far greater a difference. With a very limited horizon, we have no way to know for sure what’s around us and what’s coming up next. How can we make a decision then? Moms told us to use heuristics that have been proven to make long-term stochastic sense (ok, not in these exact phrases), which are to be kind, friendly, generous, and helpful, among others.

Now, let’s take a minute to think about robots. Our robots today are greedy. They are self-interested, having a tunnel vision (not literately) of the world around them, and trying to maximize some sort of utility functions. They work well in structured environments that can be fully modeled, and are getting better by days in more complex settings. If we use a linear interpolation to predict the future, the robots will get smarter, more capable, and more selfish. This is probably why the internet is full of worries about our future with robots.

I think this is like saying all chess and tennis players are greedy, and we should be careful with them. The robots today are self-centered only because the way their working environment are set up to be. As moms of robots, we, roboticists have to teach our robots how to survive in the real complex world, a world that greedy gets them nowhere.

If the robots are going to be as intelligent as humans in the future, we should not expect them to be that different from us: there will be good robots, there will be bad ones, and there will be many in between ones. And all these robots have to deal with good, bad, and in-between humans. It’s this enormous diversity that invalidates short-term and self-centric thinking, and makes it more important to be kind to others. Call me wishful thinking, and I don’t know if we should feel happy or sad about this, but the kind robots are probably the ones that eventually will replace us.

Month: May 2018

A Survival Guide for Ph.D. Study at IRL