CMU教授Manuel Blum在”Advice to a Beginning Graduate Student”一文中写到的内容, 谈及科研起步者如何” Reading, Rithmetic, Research, and Writing”, 他叫做研究生的4R’s .  尽管Blum教授是理论计算机学大师, 他的忠告对其它领域的研究生也是很有帮助的。 我更感兴趣的是作为学生应该期待从导师那里得到什么？ Manuel是这样说的：

 Don't expect your thesis advisor to give you a problem that he or she can answer. Of course, she might.
* She might give you a problem to which she already knows an answer.
* She might give you a problem that she thinks is answerable,
but that she hasn't actually answered.
* She might give you a problem that is deadly hard.
* If the problem she gives you is hard enough,
I suggest you look for a NONSTANDARD answer.
More on this later after I get done cooking the thesis advisor.

Your thesis advisor may encourage you to work in an area
that she feels completely comfortable in... in which case you can rely on her for sage advice and sound guidance.
Or she may encourage you to work on something she knows little or nothing about, in which case it will be up to you to inform and teach her.
In the latter case, you will have to learn all you can for yourself...
You will have to learn from other faculty, from courses, from books, from journals. from peers.
Both kinds of advisors can work out for you.
I don't know that one is necessarily better than the other.
But you should know which you got.

Whatever you do, you got to like doing it....
You got to like it so much that you're willing to think about it, work on it, long after everyone else has moved on.

(更多的内容参见: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mblum/research/pdf/grad.html#YOU)

   这些更适合高能实验物理专业的研究生，目前的高能对撞物理实验无论从实验规模还是实验本身所涵盖的领域都已经超出任何一个导师个人的研究领域， 它包括粒子物理、核电子学、探测器技术、慢控制技术、数据库、海量计算和网格计算技术、数据处理技术等等。而作为研究生导师，也许不得不承认我只懂其一，对其它的也只是了解或知之甚少。但我的学生，根据实验的阶段性需要，有些学生要做探测器模拟，有些要做数据处理甚至相关软件的开发等。 多数情况下，自己学生所做的并非是我的研究领域或是我感兴趣的，这些学生不得不参加其他/她教授的研究小组，而导师也可以从学生的研究过程中学到新的东西。大概对导师来讲更重要的是让学生知道“Whatever you do, you got to like doing it....
You got to like it so much that you're willing to think about it, work on it, long after everyone else has moved on”。 其实是如何引导学生的兴趣，这是我这些年来想的最多的。

   记得自己去西欧核子中心作博士后研究时，没有人告诉你做什么？ 只是告诉你CERN有多少实验以及这些实验的发言人名单和办公室号码。 给我一个月的时间去找相关实验的发言人谈话，我根据自己的特长和兴趣决定开始那方面的实验研究，一旦作出选择就决定了我在今后几年或十几年内的研究领域。 而这些都与我在研究生期间的起步训练密切相关的，它直接影响我以后的科研方向。

  多数导师可能让学生选择自己熟知的方向，让所有的学生围着自己转。 其实这样并不好，只能形成学术“死圈”，尤其是对高能实验领域的学生。 我鼓励学生利用实验室良好的合作条件参与我自己不熟习的研究方向，对学生对自己都是挑战。

  所以我经常给自己的学生讲，我期待你们能够真正的喜欢高能物理实验，喜欢自己所做的事情，这样你才能充分发挥自己的主观能动性，去思考，去实践。 这也是研究生对导师的期望。

作为导师我更期待每个学生应该“unique” ， 你也许不是最聪明的，但你一定要发现自己是“unique”的，自己是有所不同的。 要想做到这些，你一定要有灵感，只有灵感才能激发你做事情的兴趣，而每一个科研成果将激发你更多的灵感。 谈了这么多也许已经跑题了。 最后让我们以Manuel诗结束本文：

FUNDAMENTALS
mb 05-JUN-96

Bird must soar. Skunk must stink.
Cat must prowl. Man must think.

What sets man apart from beast is his engine of
thought. His mind. His
BRAIN
makes him unique
and gives him his greatest pleasure.

But fundamental as is thought for human beings,
there is stuff more basic still that underlies and
DRIVES
not only man
but all great beasts,

And that is nature's call to each of us... to be special.
To be distinguished in some way. To be
UNIQUE.
To BE something, to DO something, BETTER than everyone else.

Like the leather nosed chimpanzee,
dragging noisy cans and branches,
frightening peers into submission,

One does not have to be brilliant, a genius, to be special.
To do something better than anyone/everyone else. To be
UNMATCHED,
One has only to choose an END
any END
that MATTERS
that INSPIRES
YOU
And then DO IT.

相关专题：导师与学生
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