(Part 2) Top products from r/GradSchool

I’m currently teaching myself French for a translation exam as well, and I’ve found this book to be super helpful in teaching me grammar basics, common expressions, and fairly useful vocab. I also like it because it starts giving you reading exercises really early on so it’s good practice for a translation style exam. Once I have a better grasp on the basics I’ll move up to reading like a high-school level book in my research area, and then to academic articles from there.

Also: don’t let German intimidate you!! The hardest thing with German for me was that it was my first language that used cases, but since you know Latin you’ve already got that down. Also if you happen to be a history student once you know some German you should get Deutsche Geschichte by Manfred Mai, it introduces a lot of common history/culture vocab in context and was super useful to me when I was learning. Good luck! :)

I really liked Reading Statistics and Research for figuring out what stats mean in the context of other papers. I think it covered everything through my 3rd stats course.

When I'm trying to figure out which tests to use in my own research, how to do them (in SPSS), and how to interpret them, Laerd Statistics is my go-to. There's some information on there for free, but a subscription is super cheap and worth every penny. I'm not usually the type to drop money on something that I could figure out for free with Google, but having one website to go to that includes most of the basic stats, and where the explanations always make sense, are super detailed, have good sources, and are step-by-step (including things like checking for assumptions and how to write about your results) --I think it's totally worth $26 per year.

ETA: I'm also in social science.

I recommend "Data Analysis: A Bayesian Tutorial". It's pretty short and easy to read and has examples and pseudocode for many of the discussed methods. Use whatever programming language you're most comfortable with (MATLAB does have nice built in functions for dealing with large matrices). Depending on the amount of data, I'd avoid excel and just load ASCII data files from your code if possible.

A couple of ideas:

In my lab, each week part of the lab presents research, part of the lab does a 5 minute summary of a paper. As part of this they have to write up a 1 paragraph summary that I publish on Faculty of 1000 with them. This way we work on their writing and we keep on top of the literature. Organize this for the lab. If your PI is not on F1000, start a blog of paper write ups. As a side bonus, let the corresponding author know you wrote up their paper and it is an instant networking tool as people always like to see their work recognized, especially if they are on twitter this works well.

Buy this book and work through it: http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Writing-Biomedical-Research-Papers/dp/0071345442/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396711896&sr=8-1&keywords=mimi+zeiger.

It is essentially a workbook on how to write better. I did this before I wrote my dissertation and then my NIH F32. My F32 reviews said it was the best written fellowship they had ever seen.

Writing with Style is great. It's not about thesis writing specifically, but is focused on how professional authors think about their audience when they write. It's enjoyable and useful.

My two favorite books on meditation are Search inside your self and 10% Happier.

"Search inside your self" is written by a former engineer and current meditation teacher at Google. The books focus is almost entirely on piratical advice on meditation based on peer reviewed research. To be clear, he is not him self a researcher so don't expect that level of detail or writing but there are several pages of references. Here is a talk from him so you know what you're in for.

As I said else where in this thread when /u/slugmaiden recommend "10% happier", I've read a few books on meditation and most are simply "here's a bunch of random meditation techniques". "10% happier" is an actual, interesting, readable, story of how he went from a coke addict that had a panic attack on live TV to a regular practicer of meditation.

Of course! The core of this system is in a book by David Allen called Getting Things Done (surprise surprise). This system is so insanely helpful, I have about 80% of it implemented and it's life changing what managing your tasks allows you to do AND how much free space you get in your head to be creative. 10/10 would recommend.

This book is awesome. It helps very much in gaining perspective when all looks like shit.

I have a statistics professor as one of my co-advisors, and she highly recommends this book. I have it on hand at all times.

If you haven't heard of the book Ignorance: How It Drives Science, by Stuart Firestein, I recommend checking it out. It's a fairly short read that explores the idea that it's not really knowledge we are/should be looking for, but more questions (I mostly agree with this).

Eats, Shoots & Leaves The no nonsense guide to punctuation.

The Craft of Research

Craft of Scientific Presentations

Edward Tufte I've never read anything of his, but I see this recommendation from time to time.

Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy Because sometimes you need a vacation. :)

Russell and Norvig's Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach is a standard for undergrads and early grads.

> Should I just bite the bullet and stick in the group?

NO. If you're meh about the project only 8 months in, and negative about the work environment, don't stick around for another 4-5 years. You will be miserable.

> ow I'm the only student who my advisor has, and if I switch lab group now or even after my master's, there's no one who'll be able to train new grad students

Not your problem. Remember, your main goal is to get training on how to be a good scientist. This should remain the first priority.

> I'm scared if she's going to get hysterical about her last student leaving and the lab getting empty.

Yep, she probably will, and it will be a difficult conversation. But, it is absolutely one that's worth having. It would be foolish to "tough it out" for years simply because you're afraid of your advisor having an emotional response.

> How should I approach on this subject to my advisor?

• Send her email requesting a meeting. "Hi ___, I'd really like to discuss my overall progress in the lab. Additionally, with all the recent changes, I have some concerns about being about to maintain an efficient pace on my project. When would be a good time to meet?"
  
  
• Think about what you need in a lab environment, and why that is. Sounds like you work best when there are experienced folks around to provide advice and support. Explain this to your advisor, and point out why you feel that you are not a good fit for her particular lab right now.
  
  
• Listen to and acknowledge her reaction / emotions to what you're staying. You can absolutely be respectful without agreeing to stay in the lab.
  
  
• I highly recommend the book "Difficult Conversations: how to discuss what matters most". It's useful not just in this instance, but for whatever uncomfortable discussions you'll need to have in the future.

Nuclear engineering: Introduction to Nuclear Engineering by Lamarsh

Goes from "what is an atom?" to advanced neutron shielding calculations and more. Don't know of another field with such a wide-ranging book.

Buy Used. 31 bucks.

I think the most accessible book is by Paul Glimcher. Note that this is an intro text book, not pop science.

http://www.amazon.com/Neuroeconomics-Second-Edition-Decision-Making/dp/0124160085

I started buying the large At-A-Glance calendars before graduate school, when I worked at a non-profit, and now I can't live without them: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07LBPNFTV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If your schedule only has a few long things per day, this is probably not necessary, but if you are bouncing between things a bunch, having everything divided into 15 minute intervals is SO helpful. I have yet to find another planner with so much space and detail.

It's not as cute as some other options, but it is functional AS FUCK.

Intuition by Allegra Goodman fits the bill. I haven't read it, personally. The author's invited talk about it was really annoying and turned me off the book.

The Poisoner's Handbook is a decent account of Charles Norris' life as a scientist in the public eye, admittedly near 100 years ago. There are some glaring chemistry errors in it for a book purportedly about chemistry though.