Goals

What Do I Do?

What Am I Writing?

Google paper, Glenside 2 paper, FPGA synthesis paper.

A PhD “hack” that a coworker mentioned to me regarding the optimal timing of your Generals: you can propose in your generals unpublished work that you’ve already mostly done. Pre-publication, the work isn’t really considered “done”, so even if the paper is written and under submission, it’s still okay to propose it in your Generals. This will vary from school to school and advisor to advisor, of course, and also depends entirely on where you’re trying to go after your PhD: specifically, you probably want a more rigorous process if you’re trying to go on the academic job market.

Zach proposed an idea: people remember your maxes of your work more than the integral of your work. That is, they remember the single big things you’ve done; they won’t necessarily remember many small contributions which add up to something large. The integral just requires more data; it requires them to know so much more about you.

He later clarified that he thinks the integral matters late in your career.

Reflection on Goals