Some advice only makes sense after you have lived through it. Here are personal accounts, working methods, and things that did not work out. Before taking a lesson away, look at the situation the person was in.
Experiences shared here
My Freshman-Year Review: The World Suddenly Opens Wide
From learning to code and trying CV demos to the first deadline, internships, and rejection. The full timeline includes how I thought about learning, comparison, and life at the time.
A letter to new university students
Retelling that year's uncertainty for people just arriving: what you want, how you see yourself, and ordinary life outside research.
Specific answers about starting research are in the research Q&A. Return to the experience when a question reminds you of it.
Building your research workflow — irene
From organizing papers and notes with Zotero and Obsidian to research briefs, reading depth, and questions from AI. Includes selecting papers, examining evidence, and following your own questions, with the original PDF, prompts, and tools.
Other people's paths
Jiaxuan Zou: Cognitive Compound Interest—Reflections on Two Undergraduate Years
Notice how public writing, conversation, and collaboration affected his choices. When an opportunity appears, look at the earlier work and help behind it.
Wenhao Chai: FAQ for Juniors
Begin with questions about background, labs, and research choices. Compare answers from different experiences with our own Q&A.
Karpathy: A Survival Guide to a PhD
A 2016 account of doctoral life. Start with everyday research, changing direction, and independent work, comparing them with your current stage.
Ask what a practical recipe solves
Writing AI Conference Papers helps with paper structure and expression. Karpathy's training recipe helps diagnose experiments. They are also linked from the workflow pages.
Beware of Other-Optimizing asks why advice that helps one person may fail another. Read the circumstances together with the method to identify what you can use.
Failure can be its own story
The freshman-year review includes my first rejection. Notice the consequences of scheduling, experiments, writing, and judgment.
You can tell a complete story before it has a happy outcome. You do not need later success to earn permission to write about it.
More experience and judgment
Author blogs include Zou's undergraduate reflection, Chai's FAQ, and Su's long-running writing. Research Q&A and AMAs preserve questions from different circumstances. Pair them with the first three LessWrong selections when thinking about your own situation.