Comments on: How to Choose Your Grad School

By: KC

KC — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 06:43:01 +0000

Hello Tim,

I’m having a hard time choosing between different programs and I’m very grateful for this advice! Your metrics are wholesome and well thought out. I’m definitely sharing this with anyone who’s seeking grad school advice. 🙂

By: Tim Dettmers

Tim Dettmers — Mon, 15 Feb 2021 04:55:56 +0000

In reply to Ag.

Looking back at both my own independent research experience and the experience I gathered in internships, I would heavily discourage independent research. Having an advisor and peers helps you learn so much more in much less time, and you can experience “real research,” which helps you decide if a PhD is really for you. It will also help you in admissions since your advisor can write you a recommendation letter (which is much more important than a paper). It is challenging to publish independent research without prior research experience — you need to be very lucky to get a paper through peer review. I was fortunate when I published my independent research, and looking back at the research, it is clear that I was quite a novice at doing research.

In some cases, you cannot do internships and will not be able to find mentors (like I did). The best way to do independent research is to pick a sub-area that interests you and then pick a small and simple problem. Try a couple of ideas to resolve the problem. If it works, try to do an extensive analysis of your solution to the problem. The combination of a simple solution to a simple problem with good analysis has a good mix of being feasible without much experience and rigorous enough to pass peer review. From PhD students that supervise undergrads, it seems that about 25% – 33% of projects lead to a publication. So if you do independent research (without the help of a PhD student), you can expect that you will succeed with less than 25% probability.

By: Ag

Ag — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 13:39:12 +0000

Hey it would be great if you write about how you did research independently without any research support? I’m somewhat in a similar situation now, have the same views as you do abt. Social vs Academic Progress.
It would be great if you could share some tips on how one can do research independently? Some pointers and suggestions . Thanks!

By: Tim Dettmers

Tim Dettmers — Sat, 02 Jan 2021 08:41:01 +0000

In reply to shiv k. Thank you for leaving a comment! It always makes me happy to see people enjoy my more personal blog post and find them useful!

By: Tim Dettmers

Tim Dettmers — Sat, 02 Jan 2021 08:38:23 +0000

In reply to Brad Yang. Your comment means a lot to me, thank you! It made my day :)

By: Brad Yang

Brad Yang — Fri, 01 Jan 2021 07:14:21 +0000

Wow thank you so much for these blog posts. I am a high school student looking into studying machine learning in college, and I am learning so much from your unique experience and perspective. I would have paid 1000$ for this if I knew how good the content is. It seems that we are clones in terms of what we love in life, and you seem to kindle the path for me clearer than any of my peers or parents. I will come back to this post (and perhaps many others) frequently to be cleansed from our daily lives. You are almost exactly who I want to be growing up, being thoughtful in every aspects of life. Please keep blogging 🙂

By: shiv k

shiv k — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 10:05:00 +0000

Thank you very much. Love from India. I was unable to think straight about joining a new institute or old and the points taht i was considering were not giving any results. After reading this wonderfully written advice, i took a pen and paer and considered all of these points carefully and hopefully very soon will make a decison. I cannot thank you enough for this advice. will be grateful to you

By: Tim Dettmers

Tim Dettmers — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 00:14:15 +0000

In reply to Werner. Thank you, Werner, I really appreciate your kind words!

By: Werner

Werner — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 20:23:22 +0000

Beautiful and wise words that could be helpful to anyone. Not just picking grad school, but the general concept of applying different perspectives to any decision with long term consequences. You made a clear, structured, very PhD-like point 😉 in this post. How we as human beings are so much more than our careers, and how easy it is to forget about that in our western, materialistic cultures. Glad it worked out well for you, and hope it will touch many people. For me, the time of grad school choices is long gone 🙂 but I still feel like I learned something from these words.

By: Tim Dettmers

Tim Dettmers — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 17:30:28 +0000

In reply to Mark. Thank you so much, Mark! Please share it with colleagues and friends if you found it useful!