While this page was originally envisioned to be a collaborative collection of advice for MuLab’ers (past, present, and future), we leave it here on an unlisted public page for all that might find it useful. If you have any advice to add, please feel free to reach out to us!
Even if there is a remote chance you’d like to stay in academia and have a future doing research, it is worth keeping that option open. Depending on where you are in your career, there are some key tips to help you do just that.
The following tips are specifically for undergrads at Queen’s University, but may be applicable to other institutions as well. They are in no particular order, and only some may be relevant to your situation.
It’s often difficult to know just which courses may offer the opportunity to do a course-long project for credit. More often, these will be found in upper year courses (especially those cross-listed as a grad course), but there are notable exceptions such as logic and AI (CISC 204 and 352, respectively).
If you can find a course with a project option, pursuing it may lead to established work that you can publish in some venue, or at least put online and be proud of. This goes a long way towards any potential future application as a graduate student.
Many of the research labs will have open positions for summer research. Unfortunately, these are not well advertised (or advertised at all), and so reaching out to individual profs may be the only way to find out if something exists (see below for tips on how to reach out to a prof). You can find a full list of research labs (including what they work on) [here].
Summer research positions may or may not lead to a publication. All of them, however, get your foot in the door with a specific lab and give you excellent exposure to what research is all about.
It’s worth commenting on the NSERC USRA situation explicitly. The (competitive) program exists to provide strong undergraduate students with exposure to research and research labs, in the hopes that they consider academia a career path. It provides roughly 75% of a summer research stipend, and the prof makes up the other 25%. Often, you will see positions that are available only if the NSERC USRA application is successful.
While lofty in its aim, the program has a couple of drawbacks: (1) it is underfunded, and so the number of positions is extremely limited; and (2) it is only available for Canadian citizens and permanent residents. From year to year, there may be other options available to international students (e.g., USSRF), but these are not consistently offered.
In terms of the appropriate timing of a USRA student, they tend to go primarily to 3rd year students who are about to enter their final year. This gives them experience just before they start applying for graduate school. The next most likely cohort are those students just finishing 2nd year, followed by those finishing their fourth and final year.
The process involves (1) finding a prof that is willing to support your application; (2) jointly writing what the research will be about; and (3) both prof and student submitting their portion of the application. You cannot apply for a USRA position without the express support of a faculty member.
The QMIND student organization brings together undergrads to work on different types of AI projects in a group setting. If you want to play with some of the latest AI technology, and meet like-minded peers, then joining the club may be an excellent way to achieve that.
Some of the time, you may have the chance to volunteer with a research lab. This can offer some early exposure to research, but should be done very cautiously – without a transaction for the work (either paid position or for credit), it can very quickly lead to an exploitative situation. It is this “slippery slope” possibility that leads to the current policy of MuLab not accepting student volunteers.
As a slight alternative, doing a solo project that aligns with a group (or prof’s) area of expertise is certainly possible. As an example, Prof Muise openly advises students, researchers, industry practitioners, etc. on projects that involve planning (especially the tools created by the lab). This ad-hoc mentorship/advising would be offered regardless of the position of the person looking for advice. So doing an independent project that happens to align with a lab’s research interest is a perfectly viable work-around.
Very carefully! No, in all seriousness, there are a few things that can go a long way to having a better result when reaching out to a professor:
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to applying to graduate school is getting the reference letters you need for the application (both for grad school applications and for the awards you will innevitably apply for (NSERC, OGS, Vector, …)). Here are some tips that undergrads can do early on to make this process easier down the line.
Going back from industry to academia is hard. Very hard. See below on why. If you do think this is the path you want to take, then here are some general tips that may help:
Knowing which decisions you may need to make, well in advance of making them, can help a great deal in preparing yourself to actually make the right call when the time comes. Here, we document the major decision points in your (academic) career, and some of the common things to consider for them.
After your undergrad wraps up, there are 2 core choices ahead of you (well, kind of like 2.5): do you head directly to industry, or do you stick around as a student. For the latter, there is (an infrequently taken) option to go direct to PhD. If you know that you’re for sure going to get a PhD, then this will get you there a bit faster, but it runs the risk of you leaving academia early without a graduate degree to show for it.
When to Consider: Ideally you start to get a sense in 3rd year, but the core decision happens in the fall of your final year. That is when graduate applications are due.
Once you’ve done your master’s degree, the decision is to either continue on to a PhD or move to industry. Within each of those is the major question of where you continue. If you are in a good lab and work well with your prof, then chances are it makes sense to continue with them. This is especially true if you are not changing your topic too much (which has the advantage of leaving you already prepared to hit the ground running with research). In comparison to the MSc -vs- Industry decision, choosing to do a PhD is a major commitment. The expected duration is 4 years, but often can be longer. It takes patience and passion, and you should invest a decent amount of effort into making this choice.
When to Consider: Any time after starting your MSc is an ideal time to consider the PhD. Clear and open communication with your prof is essential to making this decision right. Want to stay with them? Maybe they don’t have the funds. Want to go to industry? Maybe they were counting on you sticking around. No matter the situation, open communication with your prof from the start of your MSc is the right time+place to consider this choice openly.
Once you have completed your PhD and deemed a doctor (hurray!), your choices come down to (1) industry, (2) postdoc, or (3) faculty. It used to be the case that getting a PhD was seen as a waste if you didn’t stick around as faculty, but (for CS in particular) that is no longer the case. Having your PhD means you can demand a far higher salary due to your expertise. It also used to be the case that it was common to enter a faculty position without a postdoc, but the gradual escalation of expectation means that we typically see industry experience or a postdoc (or both) from the faculty being hired.
When deciding to go on for a postdoc, keep in mind that the point of a postdoc is to clearly define yourself in contrast with your supervisor(s). There is a tendency to project the work a student does on the supervisor of the student (they may be defining the problems, coming up with the core solutions, etc). As a postdoc, you are in the driver’s seat. You define the research challenges you want to tackle, and you show what you’re capable of.
When to Consider: Roughly 2 years before you expect to graduate is the right time to start making this decision. It gives you enough time to do the networking required to find the next step for your career.
The choice here comes down to “more postdoc” -vs- “try for faculty” -vs- “bail for industry”. The deeper you go into your years as a postdoc, the more you build a portfolio for a faculty application. But unlike a PhD in CS these days, it doesn’t increase your prospects for an industry position by much. If you know you are going to shift to industry, then better to make that move as soon after your PhD as possible. It is also very common to keep doing 1yr or 2yr postdoc contracts while you search for a faculty job that will work. This is hard to juggle at times (applying for a faculty position is quite involved), but is the norm .
When to Consider: You should be considering “what’s next” from the moment you start your postdoc. Have fun and enjoy your research (and make sure it’s your research), but always be eying what might be next.
There are some common things that play into every decision point, and here we detail the main ones. Your priority profile among these will be unique to you, and it’s important to weigh things for your own specific case.
While you get some limited stipdend as a graduate student, it pales in comparison to what a CS undergrad should receive in an industry role. It’s certainly better than undergrad, but still something to consider (you will be losing money over time, unless you win big scholarships). Postdocs get a fair bit more (50k - 70k), but still less than a PhD graduate would potentially make in the tech industry. Even at the faculty level (~150k salary for a Canadian prof), you can find far more lucrative roles in industry (especially AI-based roles).
There will be a range of flexibility in the work that you do for every career stage. Sometimes, a PhD position is funded by a specific company and requires work specific to the industry partner. Other times, the funding is generic, and the topic just needs to fit with the advisor’s expertise (usually far more broad than what a particular company wants to see). This hold true for all graduate positions, postdoc roles, and even industry. The latter can range from working on a specific feature of a specific software product, to doing general research of your choosing in a company’s research lab. The only position that comes with a guarantee of flexibility in what you explore is the faculty role. The very definition of becoming a faculty member is to define and pursue interesting research pursuits, so if absolute freedom on what you work on is important, faculty roles are an obvious choice. Even with ambitions as an entrepreneur, you are still subject to what the market will support.
It may seem related to the previous point, but even without the freedom to decide what you work on, some positions may align better to what you want to work on. That is, a role (e.g., a PhD position) may have zero flexibility (the research is already defined), but happens to be precisely what you want to be doing anyways! Ultimately, you need to consider the range of things you could be doing in a position, and weigh the different options against each other in what you want to be doing. Don’t limit yourself to what you’re comfortable/experienced with – every one of the defined transition points allows you to redefine yourself, in a sense. You can embrace that change and learn something new. Even moving to a faculty or industry position, you get to carve out a new path for yourself.
For some, location is a major consideration. Are you willing to move out of Kingston for the next stage? Out of the province? Across the country? Across the planet? There are roles everywhere, and if location is important to you, then you will need to apply the appropriate filters on the positions your pursue. Also, do note the advice given elsewhere in this document – there very well may be an incentive to hold a position in the same country as your nationality, just due to the financial award opportunities it may offer.
IMPORTANT: There is an often ignored bit of advice when it comes to moving into a research lab. It doesn’t matter what the prestige of the person or institution is, you should not enter a toxic lab.
As a case study (Prof Muise has witnessed this case study roughly half a dozen times with students he’s worked with), say you choose a more prestigious lab or school over a lesser one, despite red flags being present. Then you find yourself miserable part-way through your graduate degree. Your choice is to “tough it out”, or give up on everything you’ve already done there and switch labs (or fields). Neither option is fun, and almost certainly tanks your career – you either leave academia with a bitter taste in your mouth, or suffer through immense emotional/physical challenges to just pull through.
The message is simple. Never, ever, knowingly enter a toxic work environment because you think you’ll be better off due to it’s reputation. Take the other path, and both your career and happiness will be better off for it.
With the previous section on lab toxicity in mind, there may be several options that seem interesting and viable (i.e., they’re all non-toxic!). If you have the opportunity to spend any time (physical or virtual) with those you’ll be working with (prof, fellow students, fellow employees, etc), then jump on the opportunity. You’ll be spending 40+ hours a week with them, and so you want to make sure that you’re comfortable in that setting. Be mindful of any red flags, and trust your gut. If you “click” with a supervisor (academia or industry), then consider it a strong indicator over the prestige of another. If you are considering entering a large lab, then focus on who you’ll be working with most closely – it may not be the head of the lab, but rather more senior students/postdocs/employees instead.
Going back from industry to academia is hard. Very hard. This is largely because of two reasons:
For the first point, you can see above for tips on how to avoid this “rust”. For the second, you need to realize what a start contrast it is between graduate funding and industry funding for a highly technical field. You’ll draw about 20k a year as a graduate student (before securing additional awards) after tuition, and that is in contrast to >$100k salaries for someone in an AI field. Money isn’t everything, but this discrepency is very hard to battle against when it comes to the idea of going back to academia from industry.
Even if the transition back is to a faculty role (which is well funded, and public information), moving with that level of expertise is most often a major pay cut as well. Understanding the magnitude of this shift is important before assuming you’ll be able to make the shift down the line. While the absolute funding likely differs, the long-term security of an academic role is far better than that of the tech industry (with exceptions, of course). So stability in your career could/should be a major deciding factor here.
TODO: Visual tree of the paths (along with who’s on them)
Undergrad -> MSc -> PhD -> Postdoc -> Postdoc -> Industry -> Faculty
Alternatives considered
At the time, I was only considering grad school. It seemed fun. I applied to UBC, SFU, UofT, and only had offers from UBC and UofT.
When decision was made
The AI course in 3rd year was kind of fun, and I enjoyed the larger project that my capstone turned out to be. From what I can recall, the decision to go to grad school was made at the start of my fourth, but I didn’t decide on the school (UofT) until very late in the game – mid-summer just prior to starting.
What your “endgame” was Due to some frustrating politics in the faculty at my undergrad that I witnessed, I was 100% sure (at this point in time) that I would not be a faculty member down the line. Grad school was just an interesting adventure on the way to industry.
How you made the decision
My girlfriend at the time (and eventual wife) also received offers for UBC and UofT. It was a hard choice for the two of us, but we ultimately decided on UofT since (1) the school was well known, (2) it was close to her family (Barrie), and (3) the advisors we would be working with seemed really nice (turned out to be true!).
Advice for formal self I was the first in my family to go beyond the undergrad level, so the “game”, as it were, was unknown to me. I skipped the “grad visit day” at UofT, where they invited prospective students to come see the campus and meet potential advisors. I did not realize at the time that this was a signal to their admissions that I was uninterested. I realized my mistake very late in the game, when I messaged the prof who did my interview about not receiving any info about the upcoming school year. I was, in fact, not enrolled, and she pulled some major strings to get me back into the program only a month before classes were set to begin.
The advice I would have to myself back then would be to try and find a student mentor who recently went through the process to help me out, and also to ask questions on how things work rather than just assuming.
Alternatives considered
Either to jump into industry, or continue on with my co-advisors for a PhD. I didn’t consider other PhD roles.
When decision was made
I started thinking about this near the end of my first year, and it was decided near the end of my MSc (16 months in). I sat down with my co-advisors over lunch, and they made a very transparent plea about wanting me to continue, and a frank discussion about the options.
What your “endgame” was
I still thought that I would never be a prof, but was having fun implementing fascinating ideas and getting to travel the world to present my results (I had never travelled far before, so this was a major “hook” for me).
How you made the decision
To be honest, it was the least-effort path to take. Just continue doing more of the same. Much of the decision came down to not wanting to pay the price of making a harder decision / transition.
Advice for formal self
Not sure I would advise anything different here. My research focus changed entirely, despite remaining with the same two advisors, and I think this was an extremely smart move. It set me back by roughly 6-10 months, but I found a far better suited field of research.
Alternatives considered
It was in the midst of my PhD that the opportunity (for my first postdoc) came up – they published an open call for positions at the University of Melbourne, and my advisor knew the team quite well. This was the only option considered and applied for.
When decision was made
With about 1.5 years left on my PhD thesis. I interviewed with about a year left, and actually went to start the postdoc job about 4-6 months before defending my final thesis. This was all allowed from both sides, but led to a weird situation of working on the postdoc while still technically a student. I was largely done, but there’s a 3-month gap that needs to occur between the first internal defense and sencond more public defense at U of T.
What your “endgame” was
At this point, I still assumed that I was headed to industry. I loved to program, and was good at it. I was a decent TA, but didn’t think I’d enjoy being an instructor.
How you made the decision
It was an academic path when I didn’t plan on staying in academia, but the opportunity was brilliant. Postdocs are paid well in Australia, and my wife+I had never traveled to that part of the world. We made the decision to go together largely for the experience itself.
Advice for formal self
Figure out the tax situation before taking off. It gets really weird when you are hopping around nations, and we had to do a bunch of re-filing because we didn’t understand things beforehand.
Alternatives considered
Partway through my first postdoc at Melbourne Uni, I warmed up to the idea of becoming a faculty member some day. Speaking to a close colleague and mentor, who followed a similar path through Australia and then back to Canada for a faculty position, the strong advice was that I should try to find another postdoc position at a top school in the US. This stepping stone means that I’d be more likely called on to interview, and then land a job in Canada/US (it’s expensive to fly in a candidate from Australia). So the options were the big schools around the US.
When decision was made
After about 1 (of 2) years, we decided that a return to North America was in the cards. I applied successfully for an NSERC PDF, which gave me about a year to figure out where I would take that funding.
What your “endgame” was
At this point I had a much better sense that eventually becoming a prof might be a path I was interested in. My ability to present improved on the conference circuit, and so I was confident that I could do well as an instructor (though didn’t know if I would actually enjoy it).
How you made the decision
The freedom that came from an NSERC PDF was huge. It meant that I was essentially bringing my own money, and target labs only had to find a desk for me. This landed me a position at MIT in a lab essentially of my choosing. I picked the lab based on the work that they did (which I mistakingly mischaracterized).
Advice for formal self
There were more appropriate research labs at MIT that would have been a much better fit for where I was in my career (research focus, etc). I’m tempted to say that “I should have chosen a different lab”, but ultimately the advice is “I should have listened to my mentors that were encouraging me to try a different lab”.
Alternatives considered
With the postdoc wrapping, my alternatives at the top of my mind were (1) faculty position at the few Canadian institutions we’d like to travel to; (2) industry position locally.
When decision was made
It was made roughly half a year before my postdoc completed.
What your “endgame” was
At this point, I was fairly confident that a faculty position was an eventual target, and I had put applications in to a few Canadian schools (no interviews).
How you made the decision
I had applied and was given an offer to a well-known tech company with an office locally. The work would have been great, and the team seemed awesome. With about a week left to sign the offer, another opportunity sprung up at a local initiative IBM was building to collaborate (on research) with MIT. This is after interviewing with them, and learning they didn’t really have the funds to make it happen (I had colleagues inside IBM at the time). This new opportunity (what’s now known as the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab) meant I would be a core part of starting something fresh and exciting. It was a very hard call (I hate “playing the game” of competing offers), but I backed out of the original position and went to IBM.
Part of the decision here was to build some capital. I had been a student/postdoc for about 16 years, and my kid was due to be born ($$$). I got extremely lucky with this opportunity for several reasons:
Advice for formal self
Pause to take it all in. It was a massive transition, and a lot of things happened all at once. Hard for it to not be a blur, but at the big pivot points you really should try.
Alternatives considered
3 Canadian universities and ~5 US universities. Very specific set of criteria for me and family to move to (city size, country/continent, faculty position, etc).
When decision was made
About a year into the industry position, I knew it was eventually going to come to it. This wasn’t a reflection of the position I was in, but rather where the family and I wanted to be. I interviewed in Jan or Feb of 2019, was hired a couple months later, and continued working (with the permission of my employer) until the end of 2019.
What your “endgame” was
Faculty position. If it didn’t pan out (didn’t want to move to a far off place just for the position), then I would have looked to industry in Canada.
How you made the decision
Of the applications, I had a small handful of initial interviews in the US, and only two real “call backs” from the Canadian universities – flown out to interview in person. More interviews may have followed, but I pulled all the applications once receiving the offer from Queen’s (the other Canadian university did not ultimately send an offer).
Upon receiving the offer, I negotiated a delayed start date so we had time to move our lives back north of the border, and I started at the university in January of 2020. Then the pandemic prompty hit, and we’ve been scrambling ever since!
Advice for formal self
Don’t compromise. I didn’t at the time (very targetted applications rather than a scattershot), and that was absolutely the right move to make.
Remove the subsections that are irrelevant, and fill out the rest.
Define your path from Undergrad, MSc, PhD, Postdoc, Faculty, Industry, and list each transition as a subsection.
List the full path at the start.
Use the following subheadings for each transition.
Alternatives considered
Quick description of what the choices were.
When decision was made
When was it you started thinking about things and when you decided.
What your “endgame” was
What you thought your ultimate career future would hold.
How you made the decision
The motivation and tactics you took to make the decision.
Advice for formal self
What you would have done differently or what you wish you knew.