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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

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

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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.
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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
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What you wanted me to cover?
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Teaser
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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

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

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10One of the earlier versions of Wombatsecurity.com

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

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Why do Ph.D.?
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Why do Ph.D.?
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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

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Why do you want to do Ph.D.?
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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

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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
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https://www.pinterest.com/pin/862228291128906498/

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Teaser
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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

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Know Your Advisor!
Tradeoff between senior professor &
junior professor
Understand her / his working style
Advisor - Advisee relationship
Once an Advisor, always an Advisor
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'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

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

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

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

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How to narrow down Research areas / topics
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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!

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

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

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

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

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

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What Ph.D. students do?
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Allow PhD life to transform you
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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

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

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

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Be active on Social Media, about research :-)
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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

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

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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

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Blogademia https://www.mendeley.com/

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https://www.researchgate.net/

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

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

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

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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!
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https://in.pinterest.com/pin/113293746856175786/

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Teaser
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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

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Post-Ph.D. life
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https://india.acm.org/research/phd-clinic

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

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The END!
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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

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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
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https://www.kindpng.com/imgv/moJbxx_tigger-png-background-image-tigger-winnie-the-pooh/

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

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

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Develop a network of friends / critiques
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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

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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
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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
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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/

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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
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Impact of work
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Why high level of motivation is needed for PhD?
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7 days of Ph.D. Student life :)
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