Install Latex:

1. For Windows, install MiKTex 2.7 from http://miktex.org, and then install TeXnicCenter from http://www.texniccenter.org/.
2. For Linux, install TeXLive from http://tug.org/texlive/
3. For Mac, install TeXShop from http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop.html

Career Tips: are you ready to go?

Check if you have enough motivations to get your degree. Check if you want to work hard, no matter how hard it can be to you, to get your degree.

How to be a bad graduate student?

Dave Patterson in UC Berkeley has some talks about "How to have a bad career in research/academia" . Here is my version of "how to be a bad graduate student".

If you have the following symptoms, you have the working habits of a bad student (from Dr. Daniel Lemire)

• cannot keep track of tasks assigned to you and be responsible for such tasks;
• lies about what has been done and what hasn't been done;
• repeatedly ignores some of your boss' phone calls or emails.

If you meet one of the following criteria, you probably can't finish a decent thesis (from Dr. Bruce Spencer ).

1. weak language skills (written and oral communication are weak with respect to technical topics -- even for many native speakers of English);
   
2. not open to research culture (student does not make an effort to talk to others about research and does not come to colloquia or group meetings);
3. unclear about objectives (supervisor does not portray the point of the research and how it fits in the big picture);
4. laziness, inability or unwillingness to focus (student does not come to work regularly, or dissipates research energy when there);
5. insufficient background (student does not have clear grasp of the essential elements of computer science and the required background for the research topic);
6. no research spark (student does not possess an innate ability to innovate, especially necessary for PhD.).