To become a successful PhD student

[nguyenho]

Hi all,

I found this article very helpful.

http://matt.might.ne...l-phd-students/

[one eyed rex]

Thanks for the link.

[newms]

Very nice read. Thanks for the link!

[WornOutGrad]

I'm curious if anyone has found articles like this pertaining to students just getting their masters degree. I can still apply the jist of what's in this article, but there's no way I'll accumulate 10000 hours of writing by the time I am ready to write my masters thesis.

<pulls hair out>

[redread]

...6,000 hours?

Edited April 23, 2011 by redread

[bluetourmaline]

I'm curious if anyone has found articles like this pertaining to students just getting their masters degree. I can still apply the jist of what's in this article, but there's no way I'll accumulate 10000 hours of writing by the time I am ready to write my masters thesis.

<pulls hair out>

Ten thousand hours is the time it takes to become a world-class expert at something: enough to win a Nobel Prize or an Olympic medal, play at Carnegie Hall, or revolutionize an industry. It always drives me nuts that this number is bandied around as the minimum, rather than what it actually is, the standard to reach the peak. A thousand hours will get you good enough to handle most things the ordinary person needs, including a master's degree.

Edited April 25, 2011 by bluetourmaline

[far_to_go]

I agree that it probably doesn't take 10,000 hours to be good enough at writing to make it through a graduate program (especially if it's just an MA). Still, I do believe practice is important. I was so inspired by the exhortation, in fact, that I wrote a rather lengthy post on my blog, which has been languishing due to my end-of-semester frenzy.

http://marginalia84.blogspot.com/2011/04/mixed-signals-but-in-this-case-i-dont.html

Shameless self-promotion, I know. However, it deals with advice I received from my advisor about writing/presenting/publishing, so in this context I feel like it's not completely irrelevant.

Edited April 26, 2011 by far_to_go