Academia
It is too common for those who have been bred to scholastic
professions, and passed much of their time in academies where
nothing but learning confers honours, to disregard every other
qualification, and to imagine that they shall find mankind ready
to pay homage to their knowledge, and to crowd about them for
instruction. Samuel Johnson
When I was a professor, I compiled this list of hopefully useful links on the various aspects of academic life.
- On getting into graduate school:
- Choosing Graduate School in CS, by Rachel Pottinger
- Advice for undergraduates considering graduate school, by Philip Agre
- CRA article on being a graduate student
- On being a graduate student:
- A PhD Is Not Enough: A Guide to Survival in Science, by Peter Feibelman. ISBN: 0-2016-2663-2
- How to Succeed in Graduate School: A Guide for Students and Advisors, by Marie desJardins
- What Should Graduate Students Know Before Joining a Large Computer Architecture Project?, by Shubhendu S. Mukherjee
- Networking on the Network, by Philip Agre
- How to do Research At the MIT AI Lab, edited by David Chapman
- Guides for Theoretical Computer Scientists, by Ian Parberry
- Slides on giving talks and interviewing, by Margo Seltzer
- Info on science careers, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Graduate student survival guide, Stanford University Med School
- Careers in Engineering: A Student Planning Guide to Grad School and Beyond. ISBN: 0-309-05393-5
- Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning a Master's or a PhD, by Robert Peters. ISBN: 0-3745-2477-7
- CRA article
- On writing papers:
- An evaluation of the ninth SOSP submissions -or- How (and how not) to write a good systems paper, Roy Levin and David D. Redell, ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, 17(3):35-40 (July, 1983).
- How to get your paper accepted at OOPSLA, Alan Snyder, OOPSLA '91 Proceedings, pp. 359-363.
- How to get a paper accepted at OOPSLA, Ralph Johnson et al, panel at OOPSLA'93, pp 429-436.
- "The Task of the Referee", Alan Jay Smith, IEEE Computer, 23(4):65-71 (April 1990).
- On technical writing:
- Good Writing, by Marc Raibert.
- "The Science of Scientific Writing", by George D. Gopen and Judith A. Swan, American Scientist, Volume 78, pages 550-558.
- The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. The classic book on writing. ISBN: 0-024-18200-1
- How To Write, by Herbert E. Meyer and Jill M. Meyer. A great overview of the writing process. ISBN: 1-566-19272-2
- Bugs in Writing, by Lyn Dupre. A rather long (but comprehensive) book on writing clean prose. ISBN: 0-201-60019-6
- On being a professor:
- Ed Lazowska's slides on Leading in the University
- Mentor in a Manual: Climbing the Academic Ladder to Tenure, by Clay Schoenfeld and Robert Magnan. ISBN: 0-9121-5035-1
- Tomorrow's Professor: Preparing for an Academic Career in Science and Engineering, by Richard Reis. ISBN: 0-7803-1136-1
- Academic Careers for Experimental Computer Scientists and Engineers. ISBN: 0-3090-4931-8
- The Academic's Handbook, edited by A. Leigh Deneef and Craufurd D. Goodwin. ISBN: 0-8223-1673-0
- Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers, by Wilbert J. McKeachie. 0-669-19434-4
- Advice for New Faculty Members: Nihil Nimus, by Robert Boice. 0-205-28159-1
- An amusing (and true) evaluation of how professors are evaluated
- Appropriate fiction:
- Small World: An Academic Romance, by David Lodge
- Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses, by David Lodge
- A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole
- Straight Man, by Richard Russo
- Organizations:
- American Association of University Professors
- Science-By-Mail, a fun way to teach kids science.
- Sigma Xi
- Relevant magazines: