Year 1: Life in PhD (and more)

Note to self: Before I start ranting, and convert this into a “guide” for PhDs. I want to write a note to myself, Don’t make this a guide, write down your thoughts, unfiltered, and share them with the world. More like for myself in a few years.

In another attempt to clarify my thinking, dump things that have been on my mind, and look back, I wanted to do a raw-ish reflection of my PhD journey (Year 1). This document should evolve over the years; where I can reflect, share, and even look forward to the coming days, weeks, months, years, and (hopefully) not decades lol.

I’m a textbook overthinker, I start here with the question, “What do I even write about here?”. The right question, as one of my dear friends would say, “What’s on your mind, (not so) young Rohan?”.

Short, messy table of contents; for most of these I’ll try and do a before/after, what did I think of things from the outside (Pre-PhD and what do I think now).

Primer: Brief intro about myself, pre-PhD life

I started undergraduate in CS, and ended up not enjoying the more conventional, at least in my environment, CS culture. Most people around me seemed to be enjoying writing code for the sake of writing code, being “cracked engineers”. I could not relate and felt out of place. Don’t get me wrong, I did/do like writing code, but that never seemed to be my primary motivation. Through pure fate and having conversations, I met a great mentor and found myself working in the space of ML and healthcare. If I look back, it makes a lot of sense. It has to do with the fact that I was born and raised in a family of doctors, and I’d seen a lot of the pain that surrounds it, conditioning me to care about the problem. Over time I realized; I enjoy pure problem-solving combined with a messiah complex (lol). With research, it was a good fit; I enjoyed caring about the problem, having time to think about it, and writing code as a means to do something meaningful about the things I cared about.

Attempting to continue this, I applied to graduate school right out of undergrad, couldn’t get in at first, and found myself working in consulting (the only company I interviewed for). I was initially very skeptical of consulting but I quickly found myself having a lot of fun. Stayed there for longer than I ever thought I would, doing work that made an impact. I made close friends who I cherish and changed my perspective towards life, making me less judgemental. On some days, working 16 hours a day, I got a few white hairs because of the stress. I called it the salt-and-pepper look.

The decision to do a PhD

Okay, so how did I end up from earning $$$$$s in consulting to doing a (-)$ PhD?
I’d always loved research, and given my undergrad experience, I enjoyed the process. I also enjoyed consulting, I love working with people and problem-solving. So I decided to apply to grad school regardless, because why not? I got into grad school. I decided to defer for a year, why? 1) I was going through a tough time in my personal life (relationships etc.) and did not want to be away from my safe space, and 2) I was really having fun at work and was climbing the corporate ladder pretty quickly. My personal life got easier, time heals; but professionally as I climbed the ladder, I saw myself spending less time doing things I liked, and more time doing things I didn’t. It was hard letting go of a cushy job, but I felt very strongly that I should try to pursue my intellectual curiosity again. I reasoned that I could always come back to managing and working with people later (although you can never be certain).

Looking back, why did I decide to do a PhD? I think the best answer I have for this now, is that I wanted to minimize regret in the long term. Regret of not exploring my curiosity, regret of not moving forward, regret of not trying. Although one could argue that I could also regret doing this, and don’t get me wrong there are hints of it when times get hard. But a 40-year-old Rohan would be proud of trying to do more, learn more, and experience more, at a younger age. I did not want to look back after a decade and be like oh, I had a chance to do this, and I didn’t.

I see it clearer now, than before starting, as to why I decided to do this. Hindsight’s 20/20, right? I think trusting your gut helps, chasing things that feel right and spark curiosity is a good heuristic.

Grad School: from the outside vs. I’m in this

Disclaimer: I was out of the academic setup for 2 years before starting a PhD.

Before starting, I had little to no expectations tbh, I did not get a lot of time to think and feel. The entire logistics around moving kept me pretty busy. The last day home was rough, I had some hours before my flight, and I was jittery. My buddies and family came to see me off, sweet.

The expectations I did have were: I’d hopefully be working on cutting-edge stuff, with pretty smart folks, and enjoy the intellectual freedom of academia. A lot of the first year, I spent trying to play catchup (since I was a bit out of date lol), trying to figure out what excites me, and doing a lot more coursework than I thought I’d be doing. One of the things that did take some time to adjust, is the money factor, you don’t make much money when you’re in graduate school, but it does teach you discipline, which isn’t bad. Fiscal responsibility and such.

One thing that I used to hear from people, but only rang true when I was in the midst of things, was only get into a PhD if you’re reaaallyyy convinced that you want to. I think what people mean by this, is that a PhD is a very lonely and solo journey, it’s a lot of time spent with yourself where you set everything for yourself: expectations, outcomes, pace, goals. In most other setups, these things are set by others (good grades in school, high paying job, goals for promotions) whereas in a PhD, you have more freedom than you’re used to. I like to think doing a PhD is close to running a startup. You are the product, you are not just responsible for doing good work (research), but also for all the other aspects: marketing, distribution, collaborations, etc. Some of it could come to you as a virtue of where you are, your group, advisor, and for some you need to find ways to make it happen. I think the analogy holds. This is also something I learned here, unless you are already one of the cool kids, you have to find ways to look cooler (wear a leather jacket lol), so that people will hear what you say.

I spent a lot of time working on designing systems that scale in tech consulting, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that a lot of that is useful in academia, too (if you have the patience). Not just designing technical systems, but also social systems (your peers, collaborators, etc.) You go far when you work with people you trust and are okay doing a bit of the “high effort” work along with “cool stuff”.

Perceptions of success

This aspect has changed considerably for me. I used to have this number in my mind: number of publications, internships, money. I believe a lot of it came from comparison (thief of joyyy) and buying into other’s definitions of academic success. I felt bad for not being from a top undergraduate school, not being a part of a top lab, not having an ICML paper. I remember when I was an undergrad, I told someone that I wanted to submit a top ML paper in NeurIPS (lol) and a Nature paper in my first year of grad school (or similar).

After getting in, I think differently. I do understand the importance of metrics in a world where there needs to be an objective measure for evaluation. But, I strongly believe now that this is secondary and a byproduct of being a little smart with what you choose to work on amongst the things that pique your interest. Success for me now really means working on an exciting project with good people and being proud of having contributed to answering questions that matter to me (and hopefully others too). This isn’t necessarily disconnected from publishing at great venues, but this should be a consequence of doing good research and not a goal. I have become more and more disconnected from the metrics defined by others. I truly believe that doing meaningful work (for you) is much more important than the endless chasing of metrics that are defined by others. Try to enable others in the process too.

A note on everything else: Life et al.

Before moving, I thought I knew myself enough (as I always do) and then I learned more. Not complaining (or am I). I used to broadly think of professional success as the top priority; things have changed. Through the year, I’ve definitely re-thought my criterias for the ideal outcome after a PhD. I’d definitely like to be in a city where I can experience more of life, do the work I love, and be around people that are family.

Location

SO when deciding schools, I did not care much about location, I come from a big city, but the criteria for me to decide schools was based on how good the school was and the fit with the advisor. Amherst is a beautiful city but is a bit too quiet for me, I was used to being around more people. It certainly took some time to adjust, and I still am adjusting. I was completely wrong on this one, and I’d think about this more if I were to go back.

People

The importance of people in my life has only gone up. I was kind of “locked-in” in my undergraduate, often missing out on experiences because I was always working. I got better, and I learned to value people more, but it got even more so after moving. Leaving behind family and decade-long friendships is/was not easy, it still is probably the most difficult thing. Making friends and/or finding partners in grad school is hard, also more so in a smaller city, there are not enough people to meet, but that’s ok! It’s something that I also did not anticipate.

I am blessed to have great colleagues and a fantastic advisor who are hard-working people, but more importantly, are incredibly kind. They make life easier. Over just one year, I went from immediately making close friends, to having pretty much 0 friends for a considerable time, and then finding some of my closest friends in a while. Something that I think I’ve only realized the importance of recently is knowing who takes energy from me, and letting them go. When you’re away from family, your friends are your family. Everything is about people, success is better enjoyed with people, and pain better endured.

The Game

The game is never-ending. You always want that next promotion, that next paper, that next pat on the back. Over time, I’ve come to peace with knowing how much of life I’m willing to sacrifice for my ambition. This helps. Being a super ambitious guy, sometimes my actions/sacrifices do not match my ambition which results in disappointment. I do not think I’m willing to sacrifice all of life’s experiences for years (if not decades) for a certain professional goal, as much as I love what I do. The game never ends, be it industry, climbing the ranks, or academia, again climbing the ranks. One thing that does ring true with me, is that you should try and spend as much time doing things that you enjoy (read: play) and try to minimize the time you spend playing the game.

Imposter Syndrome

This is something that I have struggled with for a while. Well, it goes in cycles of “we’re so back” and “I know nothing”, and maybe that is the point. I suppose over the one year, I have become more comfortable not knowing. I have realized the importance of not waiting too long, and to start work on things when I feel like I have just enough to get started. With the pace of AI research, there are certainly doubts like “How useful are the things that I’m working on now going to be even in 6 months?”. Even though some of what I do might never be “useful”, I certainly have gotten better at figuring things out and enjoying the process (which again is kind of the point of everything).

Et al.

Taking care of your health (emotional and physical) has probably taken the top priority for me. I used to do that before too, but again this has amplified. Working out is probably the daily anchor that I look forward to regardless of whatever is happening around me. Lifting weights helps disconnect, and finding new things/hobbies gives me something to look forward to.

It probably also has something to do with getting older, and the (everyday) quarter-life crisis that comes with it. For now, I’m DJing at house parties, and for friends, music is fun, I enjoy it. I see myself playing gigs at clubs. There used to be days when I used to do hip-hop/breakdancing, maybe I will pick up again. Life is supposed to be on average net positive, and you can decide what your unit of averaging is.

Some platitudes that have started to make more sense

This is probably going to be the most fun thing for me to write, because if you know me well, if any of my friends actually read this, it is that I love professing. And what I mean by that is just giving unwarranted life advice. But I think some of these have started to make more sense than before.

We know when we let people in, but rarely do we know when to let people go.
It’s all about asking the right questions.
Take care of yourself first.
People are everything.
Judge less, it’s everyone’s first time doing life.
Your mind is not always your friend.
Acceptance is a better word than letting go.
Meet people where they are, not where you are.
Tough times build character.
Be more comfortable not knowing.
Time helps; this too shall pass.
Stay present.
Be unapologetically you.