A recent CompSci graduate’s memoirs are starting to make the rounds.  It’s quite well written, and really emphasizes the importance of both networking and the “10% inspiration, 90% perspiration” definition of success.  If you’re short on time Philip Guo has conveniently distilled down the lessons he learned into some quick Cliffs notes in the epilogue [1].

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[1] Something I found interesting was his observation on page 43, that it was easier for workers outside of the original lab to follow up on groundbreaking research.  He attributes this to a lack of desire from the original PI to publish incremental “follow-up” research, but I wonder.  Other researchers are going to come from different backgrounds and will no doubt view the remaining problems and challenges entirely differently.