Article Reflections on my (Machine Learning) PhD Journey

Takeaways

  • Focus on the process – learning, research and community participation instead of goals (to publish a paper).
  • If you feel stuck, you can focus on drawing connections on what ideas you have collected.
  • How to stay on top of the progress:
    • Keep a reading list
    • Have a reading strategy
      • Taking notes is important. So that you can discover and revisit ideas later.
    • Expand horizons by reading related areas
    • Curate the sources
    • But personally, I don’t think any human can keep up with the research papers and at best, we are just catching up.
  • To develop a research vision and grow research maturity
    • Take initiatives
    • Focus on what matters
    • Perseverance. Similar to what James Clear wrote in [[Atomic Habits]] that motivation only gets you started before it wears off, you need some thing else to get you through the process.

research is fundamentally a community endeavor

If there is a community, chances are that you will get help from it at certain point and you pass on the help in return. I mean, the collaboration is essentially how human society works towards a better place efficiently.