A former student about to start a Ph.D. at my alma mater asked me for advice on his first year. I came up with a top ten list. While some of my recommendations are very location-specific, there’s an intention behind even the Philadelphia-specific stuff that can be generalized to other schools.

This afternoon I got an e-mail from a former student of mine who’s about to start the history of science program at my alma mater. The message concluded,

P.S. One more favor. Any advice for me as I begin? Knowing what you know now, put yourself in my position. What advice will enable me to have a successful first year and grad career?

I love these kinds of assignments. I post here my advice for a first-year student, and while some of it is very location-specific, there’s an intention behind even the Philadelphia-specific stuff that can be generalized to other schools. I would love to hear from readers about what advice they would give. (For the sake of argument, and to eliminate the obvious piece of advice, this assignment assumes that it’s too late to say, “For God’s sake, don’t go!” Please gear your comments towards the management of graduate school, rather than its avoidance.)

0) Start keeping a notebook, or research journal, or whatever you want to call it. It’s the place you’ll write down library call numbers, the names of interesting-sounding things that you come across in footnotes, impressions of what you’re reading, research paper ideas, etc., etc.. I started doing this when I was writing my dissertation, and was dogged the sinking feeling that I was looking up stuff, then having the same idea two weeks later. You’re going to be thinking about a lot of stuff. You need a way to keep track of it.

1) Nobody reads everything. You’ll often think you’re the only person who didn’t get through all this week’s reading. You’re not.

1.1) This kind of insecurity, incidentally, will be your constant companion. Everyone else has done the reading, everyone else knows what’s going on, everyone else is smart, and you’re the only person who’s faking it. The key is to use that insecurity profitably, to employ it to get you to do just a bit more than you might otherwise.

2) Learn to read tactically, rather than comprehensively. You’ll figure that out as you go along.

3) Spend some time wandering around campus, looking for good places to work (e.g. Bucks County Coffee, across from the Law School; the Furness Library reading room; that ratty but charming cafe just north of Baltimore on 40th; etc.). You’re going to be doing a lot of reading and writing, so you need lots of places to move around in. You’ll find that different spaces fit your moods, and are good at different times of day. Intellectuals are instinctive nomads, especially when they live in the apartments in West Philly.

4) Remember that you’re not just reading individual works; each article or book is part of a larger conversation or intellectual landscape [insert synthesis metaphor here]. In some ways, its less important to master the details of each piece, than to build that picture of the larger whole.

5) Take notes on everything you read. There’s no better way to find out what you don’t know than trying to write it down. And, paradoxically, you’ll remember the things you take notes on better. You’ll also have the notes to refer to.

6) Start reading book reviews. They are your best friends.

7) One of my professors once said that 5% of your disposable income should be spent on books. Since as a graduate student you have NO disposable income, you’ll have to formulate another equation. The consumption of books should be a slight addiction, except for those Routledge books that always have the cool covers, cost $50, and turn out not to be quite worth it. Those you can get out of the library, then ignore until they’re overdue.

8) Go to the gym, or go running, or something, every day. It’ll give your mind a break, and your mind will need breaks. (Every now and then you’ll find that your mind just turns off for 24-48 hours. Don’t fight it. Just do laundry until your brain comes back online.) Every Saturday or Sunday, do some reading in the morning, then take the rest of the day off. Get off-campus. Go downtown, or better, walk downtown. Go to the PMA. Go to the farmer’s market at the old Reading Terminal. End one of your days at 4th or 5th and South Street, at that really great, crowded used bookstore; then go to the Pink Rose Pastry Shop, at 630 South 4th Street. One of the other evenings should end at Sang Kee’s Peking Duck House, 238 N. 9th Street, the best Chinese food in Philadelphia.

In response to this list, a fellow history of science Ph.D. and good friend of mine e-mailed me his own list of things for first-years to know. It’s gently scrubbed, to remove a few unflattering references to specific institutions, and engaging yet distracting personal details.

1. Don’t be afraid to quit. You may hate it and there is no reason to stay simply because you started. Even if you are doing well, just leave it. Mind you, I don’t think many people do it. You can always take the Masters and leave.

2. Realize that it is a job. It can consume you or you can manage it. I spent every moment reading stuff, and I can honestly say it was the wrong approach. So make sure you have a life in grad school.

3. Only work on things that interest you, not the things that interest your advisor. I cannot imagine anything worse than working on something that is of little interest to me.

4. Get EndNote or some other bibliography program and start using it right away. And a database for archival materials or interviews. If you copy something, record it. If you can scan it, scan it. Make your data portable and accessible.

5. Get the most powerful and lightest laptop you can afford. Do everything with it and back it up every week on a DVD burner. I am tempted to say buy a Powerbook and abandon the PC universe, immediately. I am tired of Sobig et al. Use Word for OS X and either Filemaker or MYSQL. Nissus if you are working in foreign languages.

6. If you really want to do this, then do it right. That means avoiding some of the earlier advice, especially about having much of a life. Read, and read alot. Spend time with the journals, find authors you like and read them. Find people who write well and emulate their style. And start doing your own research early.

7. Publish. Publish crap. The one thing I learned from [name of institution removed] was that writing great essays or articles is a waste. All that matters is the number. As far as I can tell no one reads anyway, so it doesn’t matter what you say.

8. Don’t let present hot topics determine your area of interest. Everyone is writing on biology and genomics. Do something else, please. Hell, a study of how rape statistics in prison are calculated and managed would be great and exciting and have movie potential. Think [critically-acclaimed HBO series] Oz.

9. Remember that you will be unhappy and depressed much of the time. Graduate school is not fun, it is work.

10. Graduate school produces professionals, not intellectuals. If you want to be the latter you have to do it on your own.

Hear, hear!