Welcome! (Or, welcome back!) This page provides links to the various handouts, documents, and slides associated with the fall 1996 version of the talk "How to Survive as a Graduate Student." In case it wasn't obvious, everything you find here is the opinion of the person who wrote it. None of it is universally true, and much of it is conflicting. That said, it's a hefty dose of advice and perspective, and others have found bits of it useful enough to repeat. As the Grateful Dead were fond of saying, Believe it if you need it, if you don't just pass it on.
The slides for my version of the survival talk in postscript or pdf.
The slide containing the attrition statistics in postscript. (CMU access only)
The David Dill Document, which started this whole tradition of having an actual talk about survival, is here in postscript. It has been very minimally edited by past presenters of the talk.
David Redish has written an additional commentary on Dill, as well as compiled some other advice. It is available in either postscript or pdf.
The current list of advisor-advisee matchings by faculty.
Here is an annotated Black Friday statement.
Last, but certainly not least, there is some collected advice from a small number of graduate students.
Good Luck!