Expectations for PhD students
Prof James Friend: MADLab UC San Diego 2015

The Basics
1. Think. In research, doing is best done when you’ve firstthought about what you will do.
2. Be impeccable with your word.1 Speak with integrity. Say
only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak
against yourself or to gossip about others.
3. Don't take anything personally. Nothing others do isbecause of you. What others say and do is a projection of
their own reality, their own dream.
4. Don’t make assumptions. Find the courage to askquestions and to express what you really want.
Communicate with others—including your supervisor—asclearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness
and drama.
5. Always do your best. Your best is going to change frommoment to moment; it will be different when you arehealthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance,
simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment,self-abuse and regret.
6. Honesty and ethical behavior is an absolute expectation:
understand the concept of honesty with respect to theintellectual efforts of oneself, others, and the researchcommunity. In doubt? Ask.
Misconceptions
1. The PhD is not structured—there isn’t someone to give
you work to do. You need to develop the ability toconduct your own research from your own ideas andteach others. You must come to lead your own PhD, noone will do it for you.
2. The majority of your work won’t be at the lab bench. A lotof time is spent thinking, reading, talking with andhelping others, helping the lab group, andcommunicating the results of your work. For example,networking is important. See Phil Agre’s detailed pagehere.
3. The PhD is not something to be pursued lightly: it is not
an alternative to a regular job. There are sacrifices inhaving such a degree, along with the advantages.
Probably the most significant sacrifice is a future of hard
work. If you have grit, like overcoming setback, tend toobsess with an idea or project, like working hard, andkeep your goals and meet them in the face of adversity,then the PhD and this career is for you.
Common courtesies and how the lab works
4. Your supervisor is human and will make mistakes.
5. We are a team: You are expected to contribute to thecentral mission of the research group in conducting
internationally competitive research. Support your fellow
students and the others in the team and they will do thesame for you.
6. Graduate students should inform their supervisor of theirdeparture and expected date of return. Understand thatthe supervisor is responsible for your progress and theprogress of the research, and that taking leave may notalways be possible. Extended leave may cause
candidature problems.
7. Your supervisor is extremely busy trying to keep the funds
coming in, in coming up with new ideas, and in taking
care of problems so that you won’t have to deal withthem. While he wants to see you, it may be that he will

1Don Miguel Ángel Ruiz.

have to set times to do so. Likewise, there may be
unavoidable delays in feedback.
8. Your supervisor will be frank with you on his
assessment of your progress. He does this to avoid
misunderstandings. See the basics in how to take hisadvice.
9. You will have co-authorship on publications andpatents (refer to Intellectual Property policy) when you
have made significant contributions to the invention(for patents), research or write-up of a manuscript, andfirst authorship is yours when it is your ideas and workthat forms the majority of a manuscript.
10. If you contribute to a manuscript, speak up atmeetings that you have done so. It is yourresponsibility to voice your views about this. In thisgroup, your supervisor has final say, and being amember of the group implies acceptance of this.
11. Assignment of your IP commercialization rights to theuniversity is expected as a condition of joining thegroup. It makes it easier for all and is almost certainly
in your interest. Failing to do so creates unnecessary
drama, little more. If this isn’t acceptable, please join
another group.
12. You’re expected to attend conferences, nationally andinternationally, representing the group as a leader inyour research area, upon the completion of work
sufficient for a journal manuscript in the area as judged
by your supervisor. Abstracts are to be pre-approvedby the supervisor.
13. Invention related to IP has a very specific meaning.
Working on a project and inventing commerciallyrelevant ideas are two different things. Remember that
this lab will always sacrifice IP in favor of scientificresearch output. This is in your interest as you pursue
the PhD. If you want to make money, the PhD is not foryou.
14. Weekly meetings with your supervisor are typical forour group to see how things are going. Make sure you
keep the meeting to the point. Always bring your lab
notebook.
15. Lab notebooks are to be used at all times. What at firstis a hassle will save your PhD (and someday yourcareer).
16. Your supervisor is enthusiastic and loves his job. Hewill give you many ideas. Some are useful. It is up toyou to glean from those ideas ones that work for you
and the problem you are trying to solve.
17. Failure is expected. Mistakes are expected. Broken
equipment and experiments are expected. Letting us
know even the bad news is always expected. After all,it’s research.
18. Participate. Get involved—the team is among the bestin the world. This is your chance to put in and get out
all you can from it.
19. There will be many difficulties and problems. You mustremain focused on how to get things done in the faceof adversity.
20. We have two aims: internationally leading research,and your success. Everything we do is to continually
strive toward those aims. With you our aim is to
produce a person capable of performing independent
research of internationally competitive quality.