To go or not to go…To make this decision about gradu-

ate school, you need to take a carefullook at your motivating factors. Many of

my friends (and myself) graduated witha B.S. in engineering feeling that wereally didn’t know what to do with allthe equations we had learned. A profes-sor from my undergraduate years gaveme a good analogy. He said that you’regiven a toolbox at the beginning of your

undergraduate education. Each classyou take gives you a tool for your tool-box. So, the question you’re really ask-ing yourself at graduation is “What do I

do with all these tools?!?” I think an M.S.gives you a few more tools, whileallowing you to use some of the toolsyou already have. A Ph.D. enables youto build new tools.

In getting an M.S., you take advancedcourses in areas of interest along with

some project-based classes to gain experi-ence solving more involved problems.Also, some universities have the option(or requirement) of performing a research

project andwriting a the-sis describingthe work.

A Ph.D.involves coursework requirements sim-ilar to that of the M.S. and may evenhave some additional course require-ments. The major distinction occurswith the dissertation. The Ph.D. disser-tation is a much more involvedresearch project that should push the

frontiers of knowledge in the chosenfield. It should involve doingsomething that no one else hasever done before.

Common motivations for get-ting an M.S. include a desire for a

higher salary or to specialize yourskills so you can work on a differentset of tasks or maybe you were reallyinterested in a class you took and wantto learn more about that subject area.Common motivations for getting aPh.D. are being able to work on a dif-ferent set of tasks and the opportunityto work in a more research-orientedenvironment versus one gearedtowards developing and manufacturingproducts. Also, there are people whoare jokingly called terminal students.They love learning new things.

An important point to stress is thatadditional degrees do not increase thenumber of jobs available to you. In fact,additional education may decrease thenumber of jobs available because youwill be considered overqualified. Also,there are fewer jobs that require a Ph.D.as compared to an M.S. Similarly, anM.S. may limit your job choices as com-pared to a B.S. (I know friends with aB.S. have used their general problem-solving skills to get all types of jobsincluding jobs outside their major.)

A special subset of Ph.D.-enabledtasks is academia. Many people, includ-ing myself, would like to teach and leadresearch in an academic setting that formost technical fields requires a Ph.D.

A higher salary is not necessarily agood motivation for a Ph.D. Getting aPh.D. can take several years, and theloss in income during those yearsmay counter the increased salaryupon graduation.

Internships are a great opportunityto get an idea of the tasks worked onby M.S. and Ph.D. engineers. These

Rob N.Candler

Stuff most students never ask

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experiences can help you decide whichof these careers and degrees are bestfor you.

Okay, so you’re goingto graduate school…

The next step is deciding where toapply. Applications are generally duesome time around December the yearbefore you plan on starting school.Many people apply to five or sixschools because they may not be cer-tain where they want to attend or towhich schools they are likely to getadmitted. The two major steps early inthe application process are: 1) takingthe GRE (Graduate Record Examin-ation) and 2) finding people to writeyou letters of recommendation. Youshould take the GRE with sufficienttime for the scores to be sent to theschools to which you are applying, andyou should give at least one month tothose people who are writing you let-ters of recommendation.

The criteria for selecting a graduateschool can generate a heated debate. Iasked three trusted friends for theirschool selection methods, and I gotthree distinct answers. The first told meto go to the most prestigious school towhich I could get accepted. His reason-ing is that graduating from a prestigiousschool makes the job search, especiallya faculty job search, easier upon gradu-ation. The second friend told me that ifthere is one particular person I wantedto work for, I should go to that school.He also said that if there was no partic-ular person I wanted to work for, Ishould go to the best school that wouldaccept me because it most likely wouldhave someone I could work for. Thefinal person said I should find a loca-tion where I would like to live and finda school there.

My graduate school selection wasbased on parts of advice given to meby all three people. I think a well-respected school is advantageous in thepost-graduation job search. I alsobelieve professors at highly ratedschools have an easier time raisingfunding to pay for their graduate stu-dents. As for the advice of my thirdfriend, “location, location, location,” Ithink it is certainly something to consid-er, although I do not place as muchweight on it as he did. One caveat here:My friends in M.S. programs, which typ-ically take one to three years to com-plete, are generally less concernedabout the school location as compared

to people in a Ph.D. program, whichcan take five to seven years. Contrary tothe belief of some advisors, there is lifeoutside the lab during graduate school.

In fact, a few enjoyable activitiesoutside of your research may actuallyincrease your productivity, because youwill generally have a more positive atti-tude, which could help you avoidburnout. Outside activities can alsohave a more direct impact. Gettingsome distance and perspective from aproblem you have been struggling withis often the quickest way to solve it.Some of my best research ideas havecome to me while running stairs at thestadium. Finding a school that providesthe opportunity for you to enjoy your“off-time” is worthwhile.

As for the second friend’s adviceabout finding a person you want towork for, I think this is a potentiallyrisky strategy. Two friends come tomind who that have had difficulty fromusing this strategy. One selected aschool because the advisor was theleader in his field, but upon his arrival,he discovered that there were ethicaldifferences that prevented him fromworking with that person. The otherfriend found out after his arrival that theadvisor would be unable to obtain thenecessary funds to sponsor him as agraduate student.

But just because I’m against puttingall of your eggs in one advisor’s basketdoes not mean you shouldn’t check outthe school’s subject areas of focus. It isimportant to make sure that the schoolswhere you apply have research beingconducted in your area of interest (ifyou know what your area of interest is).Ideally, you should be able to identifytwo or three possible advisors at theschool. Schools handle student-advisorassignments in different ways. Some willadmit you and then expect you to findan advisor on your own. Others willadmit you with the assumption that you

will work for a particular faculty mem-ber. If you apply to a school that fol-lows the second policy, I would recom-mend finding out as much about theadvisor as possible before you decide toattend that university.

FundingGraduate school is expensive—and

you probably didn’t become a million-aire as an undergrad—so how do youget through graduate school withoutpiling up massive debt? Luckily, findingfunding as a graduate student is ofteneasier than finding funding as an under-grad. Funding comes in many differentflavors, including teaching assistant-ships, where you assist a professor witha course he or she is teaching, researchassistantships, where you performresearch on a specific project, and fel-lowships. Departments may help youattain one of these types of funding.You also can help yourself. For exam-ple, you may have taken several classesin a specific subject as an undergrad,making you a good candidate for ateaching assistantship in that area.(Note: alternative sources of fundingexist, such as working in a laboratoryon an hourly basis or grading papersfor a large class.)

Since you are already mired in reamsof paperwork, you may as well add alittle more to the stack by applying forfellowships. They are the same astuition scholarships with the addition ofa stipend for living expenses. Universi-ties may give fellowships to studentsthey consider highly qualified. Thereare also several fellowships that are notassociated with any specific university.Be aware that many of these fellow-ships are available. Winning one ofthese external fellowships will help yougain admission to and proceed throughany institution. It is certainly worth youreffort to apply. In many ways, the fel-lowship applications can be more

6 IEEE POTENTIALS

important than school applications. Afellowship allows you a high degree offreedom in whom you select as an advi-sor. Who would say no when you’reoffering to work for free! With a fellow-ship, you may also have more freedomregarding your research topic, becausean advisor doesn’t need to immediatelyhave a source of funding for your work.Also, some fellowship programs acceptapplications from students already ingraduate school. These are definitelyworth applying for!

Advisor selectionIf you plan on doing research, the

person you select as an advisor is themost important decision you will makewhile at graduate school. One piece ofadvice offered to me by severalpeople, which I found hard tobelieve at first, is that in termsof advisor selection, the personis more important than the pro-ject itself. In fact, finding a per-son you can work well with isfar more important, in my opin-ion (and the opinion of manywho attended graduate school),than finding a person with the“perfect” project or a projectsimilar to what you were work-ing on as an undergraduate.Just because you focused onone very specific topic in yourundergraduate research doesn’tmean you’re married to that topic. Infact, your advisor may not be directly inyour field of study (assuming yourschool allows interdisciplinary study). Forexample, I have an electrical engineeringbackground, but my advisor is in themechanical engineering department. He’sactually a physicist by training, but that’sanother story.

If you are faced with several advisorchoices, you will be inclined to take thescientific approach of collecting data,

analyzing this data, and coming to aconclusion based on this data. Thisapproach can work. However, this is amatter of interpersonal relations. Thethings you need to consider are: 1)How/Who should I ask questions (whatis my experimental setup)? 2) Whatquestions should I ask to get usefulinformation (what is my input)? 3) Howshould I interpret the answers I get(how do I analyze my data and filterout the noise)?

My answer to the first question wouldbe to go to the closest sources: the advi-sor and some of his or her students.Meeting with a potential advisor is prob-ably best done in a formal setting, in hisor her office for example, because it isthe most convenient for that person. For

the graduate students of a potential advi-sor, I recommend an off-campus meet-ing. Students are more likely to be can-did if they are not sitting in an office afew doors down from their advisor.

In fact, offering to take a graduatestudent to lunch has a high probabilityof success. Graduate students arerarely independently wealthy and arefrequently hungry. In fact, I once hadfour rooms of furniture moved for twolarge pizzas. I also had my home wire-

less network overhauled for a fishsandwich, a cheeseburger, and twomilkshakes. In short, never underesti-mate the power of food when it comesto graduate students. (A short side noteto any advisors reading this: meetingswith free food are much better andmore enthusiastically attended thanmeetings without.)

Now that you know whom to ask, itis just a matter of what to ask them.You’ll find that you can get a lot ofgood information by simply askingdirectly. When talking to a potentialadvisor, remember that he or she wantsa good advisor/advisee match as muchas you do, so ask about currentresearch projects and get a feel aboutthe level of funding an advisor may

have for new students. Also, keep inmind that this “face time” could helpwhen the advisor is thinking aboutadmitting new students into the group.

Don’t be afraid to ask lots of ques-tions, especially if the advisor is tellingyou about some of his or her research.You aren’t expected to know everything.Also, it will show the professor that youare motivated, smart, and interested.

As for the meetings with the studentsof an advisor, there are several ques-tions you can ask to get a general feelfor how the advisor runs his or hergroup. One good piece of quantitativeinformation is the average time studentstake to graduate. I would recommendneglecting the top and bottom 10% orso of the data, as outliers in this caseare often the cause of the student andnot the advisor (i.e., some students justdon’t want to leave the relative comfortof graduate school).

You can ask how helpful the groupmembers are to each other. Having agood relationship with the people inyour research group is important. If you

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2005 7

can do the work up front to find agroup that works well together, youwill benefit in the long term. My alltime favorite question is, ”Would youchoose this advisor if you had it to doover again?” As a prospective graduatestudent, I asked this question to severalfourth- and fifth-year students. I didn’tget the across-the-board yes’s I hadexpected. In fact, I got a majority ofno’s, along with explicit reasons.

The amount of time an advisorspends with his or her students is alsogood to know. Advisors may have peri-odic group and/or individual meetingswith their students. The period of timebetween these meetings is of interest toyou, depending on whether your workstyle is interactive or independent. Also,how available is their advisor whenneeded? Is he or she in the office regu-larly for questions? Available via e-mailfor questions?

Different advisors have differentmanagement styles that range fromhands on to letting you do whateveryou like and giving advice only whenasked. The type of advisor you seek isup to you. One good measure of thelevel to which an advisor manages hisother group is the number of timerequirements imposed. Some advisorslet you work whenever you want, aslong as you get the work done. Somewould like you to be in the officeduring certain hours during the day toguarantee that you interact with oth-ers in your research group. Also, thisway they can find you if they needsomething. Other advisors take roleon a daily basis and may explicitlystate the number of vacation days you

are permitted. There is not really aright or wrong style here, just differ-ent styles and personalities.

Also, you want to know how theadvisor gets funding for his or her stu-dents. A great mentor will have troubleproducing great graduate students ifthere is no money to get the studentsthrough school. Specifically, ask abouthow the students are funded in thesummer and whether they are predomi-nantly teaching assistants, who arerequired to work part-time in supportof a class, or research assistants.

Finding an advisor who encouragesattendance at academic conferences is agood thing. Academic conferences are agreat place to network, which is impor-tant for your career in either academeor industry. Also, do the students pub-lish their work in respected journals? Ithas been said that publications are thecurrency of a good research program.

Don’t be reluctant to “trust your gutfeeling.” If you didn’t enjoy the firstmeeting and don’t look forward to thenext one, this is an important clue.Your relationship with your advisor willbe tested along the way. Grad school isfull of emotional peaks and valleys.You need to be comfortable when deal-ing with this person at all times.

If a particular advisor makes youuncomfortable from the start, youshould think about finding anotheradvisor. If you make what you think isthe right choice but later realize thatyou have made a mistake, don’t beafraid to change. This may set yourgraduation date back a bit, but youwill be happier if there is a goodworking relationship.

Meeting with your advisorHaving regular one-on-one meetings

with your advisor is a good thing, if bothyour schedules permit it. (If this is notpossible, bouncing your ideas off a col-league can be helpful as well.) Regularmeetings will help keep you going inthe right direction with your research,which will reduce the time you couldpotentially waste on dead-end ideas.When you go to meet with your advisor,it helps to have some sort ofprintout/handout that shows results fromwhat you have been working on. Itshows your advisor that you’ve beenactually working. It will also help youradvisor give constructive feedback, as itis easier to understand an explanationwith visual aids than it is to understandan explanation without them. (Imagineattending a class where the teacherwasn’t allowed to write anything on theboard or show any slides!)

Group matesTypically, you will work with a pri-

mary advisor who advises a group ofstudents who are in similar fields ofstudy. This group of people is oftenreferred to as the research group. Ithink of these people as your groupmates. Some people believe that yourgroup mates are the most importantpeople at your school, even moreimportant than your advisor. While thatopinion is debatable, it is rather obvi-ous that these people are the mostaccessible to you. Quite often you shareoffice and/or lab space with them andsee them on a daily basis. They areknowledgeable and current in yourfield, and they are readily available.

8 IEEE POTENTIALS

Everyone will benefit if you all can giveconstructive feedback on each other’swork. The less self-conscious you feelaround your group mates, the morehelpful everyone can be for each other.

So, don’t be hesitant about interact-ing with your group mates. Many of mybest ideas have come from casual chat-ting with my group mates. Social inter-action also helps work to be more fun.Sharing an office with people is gener-ally more enjoyable if you know andlike them. Also, having a friendshipwith your group mates invests you ineach other’s well being, making youmore likely to help each other in timesof need.

Industrial collaborationYou may not have much control

over whether or not collaboration withthe industry takes place. What’s more,the quality of collaboration can vary, sothere aren’t any generalizations to bemade here. However, there are somepossible pros and cons. Pros includethe funding that often accompaniesindustrial partners, access to high-quali-ty testing equipment that you may nothave access to otherwise and the addi-tional credibility that often comes withan industrial partner. There are severalaspects that could be a pro or a con,depending on the circumstances andyour personality. For instance, this addi-tional mentor can provide useful guid-ance or just be another managerdemanding a bunch of your time.

Also, industrial collaborationsare often accompanied by a muchmore structured project. This canbe a good thing in the sense thatthe project has a set direction withdefinite goals and real-world appli-cations. It can be a bad thing forpeople who believe that structuredprojects limit their creativity.

A potential con of industrialcollaboration is the restriction ofpublishing that can occur. Infor-

mation is valuable to companies, andthey aren’t always interested in giving itaway. They may want to carefullyscreen any joint work you wish to pub-lish, requiring you to send an earlydraft to them with enough time for it topass an approval process. Sometimesthey may not want to have it publishedat all. Whatever the case may be, itwould be wise for you to find out theirrules on publishing early on.

Self-doubt and sticking outAll the content for this section came

from helpful discussions with engineer-ing colleagues in underrepresentedgroups. However, after I wrote it, it waspointed out that this information is use-ful for everyone.

There are two phenomena that arecommon among minority students inengineering. The first is the “impostersyndrome.” Imposter syndrome is basi-cally feelings of self-doubt that manifestthemselves in thoughts such as, “Do Ireally deserve to be here? Everyoneelse is so much smarter than I am!”Actually, virtually all students havethese feelings at some time during theirschooling. They can result from generalinsecurity, thoughts that you wereadmitted to fill some sort of quota, orgoing to a major university for graduateschool after graduating from a lesser-known undergraduate university. Thelist of reasons why people worry islong. The important thing to remember

is that you were admittedbecause you were a qualifiedapplicant. If the school didn’tthink you were well suited toattend, you would have got-ten the thin rejection enve-lope instead of the thickacceptance one.

The second phenomenonis called the “minority spot-light,” suggesting that you aremuch more recognizable ifyou are a less than common

race or gender. This can actually be agood or a bad thing. On the positiveside, a good talk at a conference or agood performance in class will bemore readily remembered. On thenegative side, you’re more likely toget noticed if you skip class!

There are several things you can doto ensure that your experience in grad-uate school is a good one. The first oneis to establish a community. Just asestablishing a good relationship withyour group mates helps, finding agroup of students you can closely iden-tify with can be valuable. Seek thesepeople out and talk with them. Fortu-nately, many of these groups alreadyexist. A female colleague stressed theimportance of finding an advisor andresearch collaborators who believe thatwomen are equally as capable as men.This is a worthwhile tip for anyone in aminority group. If you have children orare planning to have children duringgraduate school, it would be a goodidea to check into family servicesoffered by your prospective schools,such as family housing and child care.

Also, seek the help of role modelsand mentors. I draw a distinctionbetween role models and mentors inthe following way. Role models arethe people you idolize, the peoplewho are in the place you would liketo be in 10 years. Mentors are the peo-ple who can guide you to becomewho you want to be. Sometimes you

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2005 9

can find a role model and mentor inthe same person. However, you willoften have to seek out several peopleto fill these roles.

Lessons learned the hard way Business cards—You don’t want to

be the only person at a conferencewho has no contact information toshare. Consider leaving the addressand phone number off the cards.Graduate students can change officesseveral times during their graduatetenure. Instead, have a web site and e-mail address, which seldom change,printed on the card and post yourmailing address and phone number onthe web site, where they can be easilychanged. Anyone you meet at a con-ference will likely contact you first viae-mail, anyway.

Web sites—Have one. They are themost convenient way to disseminateinformation about yourself. Put a yourphotograph of yourself on the web site.This will help people who want to meetyou at a conference by letting themknow what you look like in advance.

Data collection and display—This isa big one. As a scientist, engineer, oralmost anyone trying to get a Ph.D.,you are likely to handle a lot of data. Ifyou collect and organize it properly,you will be prepared when you need toassemble it all for a conference, paper,or thesis. If you organize it poorly, youwill cause yourself pain and suffering,waste time recollecting data, and possi-bly even cause doubt and confusionabout your results. Here are some sug-gestions I wish I had from my first dayof graduate school.

Start collecting data in a format youcan process. For example, some mea-surement equipment will output data asa graphic file. It looks nice but rendersindividual data points essentially inac-cessible. Whenever possible, collectdata in the rawest format possible (i.e.,numbers). You can always plot the rawdata if necessary. Having data in a rawformat allows you to replot it in anotherformat (e.g., with different units), replotit along with another set of data, orprocess it in some useful fashion.

Plotting data very well is very impor-tant because graphs of data are fre-quently where insight is gained aboutyour work. More than once I’ve heardmy advisor say, “That sounds great.Now let me see the data!” Since plotsare such an important part of any con-ference presentation or journal publica-

tion, they should be well designed. Theaxes should be clearly labeled in a largefont. The salient aspects of the datashould be emphasized (e.g., pointed towith arrows), and all your graphsshould be produced with the same soft-ware, if possible, to maintain a profes-sional appearance.

If you decide to plot all your datain the same fashion, you will need toselect a single plotting program. Thisprogram should be versatile, capableof plotting linear and logarithmicgraphs in several colors and styles,and have the ability to add text andchange font sizes. You should be wellversed in the program. If you are cur-rently not familiar with a plotting pro-gram, don’t panic. Most plotting pro-grams can be learned well with just afew days of effort. Selecting a pro-gram that is commonly used is notnecessary, but it can be helpful. Usinga widespread piece of softwareincreases the likelihood that you canshare code with your colleagues.There are a number of good plottingprograms, such as MATLAB, Gnuplot,and Origin. I use MATLAB because itis versatile, widespread, and I amcomfortable with it. I have even madea MATLAB “cheat sheet” whichincludes minutiae I tend to forget,such as commands that assign data-point color and type.

Besides the proper ways to collectdata, I would be remiss if I didn’t men-tion the other type of visual display:pictures. There are many different typesof pictures in academic publications:photographs of an experimental setup,pictures of devices, schematic drawings,graphical results from simulations, etc.As with collecting data, a lot of timecan be saved with taking pictures prop-erly the first time. Time spent collectingquality images is time well spent. Youmay surprise yourself at how importanta few good pictures can be for gettingyour message across.

The major recommendation for col-lecting pictures is to take them in highresolution. Some journals not only rec-ommend it, they require it. You canalways save them in a more condensed,lower quality format, but you cannotmake the resolution better than yourexisting file. Also, if you need to zoomin on a particular feature, an image withmarginal resolution will severely limithow much you can zoom. Images takenin .tiff format have large file sizes, butthey also have a correspondingly highresolution. The images can be resavedas a more byte-friendly .jpg or .gif if asituation arises where this is necessary.

Also, I strongly recommend backingup your computer hard drive frequent-ly. CDRs are well under US$1 each. Themoney spent on CDRs is money wellspent when considering the alternativeof losing a year, month, or even a weekof work. I back up my hard drive atleast once per month, as well as afterevery time I’ve collected a significantamount of data or written anything.

Writing—Writing technical papersand giving technical talks is the mostfeared and hated part of graduateschool for some students, yet it is oneof the most important. I have a story toillustrate this point:

I was sitting in a large lecture hall at aconference on the eastern coast of theUnited States. It was the middle of theafternoon, so I had already spent overfour hours listening to technical talks. Thecurrent speaker had been talking forabout 10 minutes, but the material wasorganized poorly, causing me to loseinterest. To fill the time until the next talk,I decide to look up his written paper in theconference proceedings. Wow! His workwas great, but I would have not knownthis had I not looked at his paper.

In this story, the student was savedby the fact that his paper was well writ-ten. Had the paper been of poor quali-ty, I would have concluded that thework was of poor quality. He would

have improved his situation if his pre-sentation had been as good as hispaper. (I’m sure a large portion of theaudience just tuned out instead of look-ing at his paper.) The basic point toremember is that, as a student, the pri-mary purpose of your research is toexpand the knowledge of your particu-lar field. If you spend nine monthsdoing excellent work and only threedays on the writing, you probablywon’t effectively pass on the informa-tion to others. This defeats the purposeof published research, which is to sharethe things you learn.

Fear not, though! Even if youweren’t born as good a writer as MarkTwain, all is not lost. There are manyplaces you can seek help to improveyour papers/presentations (make sureto seek help early!).:

1) Have your advisor and group matesread a preprint of your work. They areknowledgeable about your work and canhelp with technical content.

2) Have someone working in yourfield, but not in your specific area, readyour paper. They can provide a freshperspective and very valuable com-ments regarding the structure and flowof your paper (e.g., “You talk about theresults two pages before you describeyour measurement setup,” or “youdidn’t provide enough details when youdescribed how you built the device.”).

3) Seek professional help (manyschools have technical writing centersthat can help you refine your work).

References—Any publication you sub-mit to will require you to cite relevant,prior work by you and others in yourfield. It is not uncommon to have over100 references in a Ph.D. dissertation.Organizing these references can seemlike a daunting, almost overwhelmingtask. Thankfully, there is software thatwill store and organize these referencesfor you, such as EndNote, ProCite, andReference Manager. There are threemajor timesaving features of these refer-ence programs.

1) Most word processing software willwork with reference software to create abibliography in any format. You tell thesoftware which reference to cite andwhere to cite it, and the software automat-ically creates a numbered bibliography.You can even insert another reference inthe middle of the paper, and the softwarewill recreate and renumber your bibliogra-phy. We’ve come a long way from thedays of typewriters and correction fluid!

2) Many online databases of academ-ic material can now directly import theinformation into your reference data-base, saving you from having to manu-ally enter all your references into thedatabase. I recommend you start usingthis software as early as possible toavoid having to go back through yourold papers and type in the references.

3) You can save .pdf files of thepapers you cite and use the referencesoftware to link the citation to the locationof the file on your computer. This is veryuseful for times when you need to checkan equation or statement from a paperyou’ve cited. This is a lot easier than rum-maging through a dusty file cabinet!

Acknowledgments—Don’t overlookthem. They are an important part of anypublication. Acknowledgments are a pain-less and appropriate place to thank peo-ple for a contribution to your work.Things worthy of acknowledgment rangefrom help fixing an experimental appara-tus to telling you about a good referenceyou should read. The people around youwill be very grateful when their help isacknowledged and possibly very hurt if itis ignored. So, be very generous with youracknowledgments. They don’t cost athing, and I’ll bet that if you think about it,you’ll realize that a lot of people con-tribute to the success of your research.

Writing a thesisSince I’m only in the early stages of

the process, there is not much I can say.As with most tasks that involve writing,starting is by far the hardest part. I’vealways found editing my writing lessstressful than writing something fromscratch. To this end, any work you canpublish in a conference or journal duringyour time at graduate school will paydividends when it comes to thesis-writingtime. You can paste these papers togeth-er, smooth over the rough edges, and fillin some details, which seems a lot easierthan staring at a blank screen, faced withthe gargantuan task of creating morethan 100 pages of writing from nothing.

ConclusionOf course, there is still a lot to figure

out, but you wouldn’t be going to grad-uate school if you didn’t like to figurethings out. So, work hard, enjoy yourtime, and roll with the punches.

AcknowledgmentsThere is a large list of people who con-

tributed to the content given. Thanks to

John Owens, Lale Lovell, Bill Candler, andBryan Smith for valuable opinions fromthe world after graduate school. Thanks toJeffrey Li for his pre-graduate school per-spective. Thanks to my advisor, TomKenny, for encouraging this venture. Manythanks to Tori Bailey, Jan Moolsintong,Amy Herr, Evelyn Wang, and Sumita Pen-nathur for assistance in writing, especiallythe section on issues faced by underrepre-sented groups. Finally, a special thanks toJorge Cham <http://www.phdcomics.com> for allowing inclusion of his comicstrips, which frequently offer more insightthan any number of words could.

Read more about it• K. Donaldson, The Engineering

Student Survival Guide. • Bloom, Karp, and Cohen, The

Ph.D. Process: A Student’s Guide toGraduate School in the Sciences.

Funding• National Defense Science and

Engineering Graduate Fellowships,http://www.asee.org/ndseg

• Hertz Foundation, http://www.hertz fndn.org

• National Science Foundation,http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/dge/programs/grf/

• http://www.finaid.org/otheraid/grad.phtml

Minority issues• R. Felder, “Impostors everywhere,”

Chem. Engr. Education, vol. 22, no. 4,pp. 168–169, Fall 1988.

• Society of Women Engineers,http://www.swe.org

• National Society of Black Engi-neers, http://www.nsbe.org

• American Indian Council of Archi-tects and Engineers, http://www.aicae.org

• Society of Hispanic ProfessionalEngineers, http://www.shpe.org

About the authorRob Candler is a fifth-year Ph.D. stu-

dent in the electrical engineeringdepartment at Stanford University,working with Dr. Thomas Kenny. Robhas an M.S.E.E. from Stanford (2002)and a B.S.E.E. from Auburn University(2000). His research interests includeapplications and packaging of microme-chanical sensors.

Illustrations by: Jorge Cham<http://www.phdcomics.com>. Printedwith permission.

10 IEEE POTENTIALS