The secret to being a grad student

Here's my secret to suceeding as a grad student:
Do whatever you want to do and don't tell your prof until you've done it

I realized after advising Sars about her current situation, that I've just gone and done my own thing many times and didn't tell Brendan until I had done it and had some preliminary results. Sometimes Brendan is indifferent to the idea when I first mention it, but I will go and do it anyways, and after I show him results, he's impressed. Other times, the idea just comes to me and I just do it without telling Brendan and show him if it turns out. This is how I developed my distributed computing system, did a lot of the "award winning" video epitome work, and factorgrams. I often found myself doing similar things at Microsoft. Nebojsa didn't always know what I was doing, except that I was doing "stuff" and he loved that.

My advice:

1. Do what you enjoy doing because then work doesn't feel like work


2. Don't be afraid to do things without specific approval from your prof (or even mentioning it) in order to satisfy #1

Well, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying just do your own thing and don't listen to your prof. I'm saying, listen to your prof, talk with your prof, but also take the initiative and don't feel that everything you do has to be approved by your prof. Sometimes you just have to take things into your own hands.

Of course, your mileage may vary. Both Brendan and Nebojsa are pretty easy going and don't micro-manage me and I'm able to put myself on cruise control between meetings. But if you've got an inkling about something and want to try it out, I say just do it. You don't have to tell your prof everything that you're doing (unless you're using expensive lab equipment, etc.). I don't mean you have to dedicate months, weeks, or even days to it. Just explore the idea, try it out, and if it looks promising, show your prof and pursue it further, if not, drop it. Of course, if your prof has you working on something, don't neglect it, keep doing that, but you can still work on your own thing on the side. Consider it a 20% personal project, Google style. Just for the record, I was doing this naturally before I had heard of Google's 20% rule. Though I don't consciously try and dedicate exactly 20% of my time to doing my own thing, I just do what seems appropriate.

This works for me, but as with most things, use your own judgement.