Three Year Update

It has been a while. Let’s do an update post.

What have you been doing?

I had to look back a bit to my last post to see what I did then, and oh man it has been almost two years. Since then, I have published two conference papers (at ICML 2023 and ICLR 2024), and attended both of those conferences in person at nice venues. It’s not a lot of papers but it’s something. Aside from that, I have been going deeper into science-inspired ML and have been teaching a bit more. I realised that teaching has been quite fun, and might even say, one of my favourite bits of my PhD. If I never enter academia, it might be the part of it that I’ll miss the most.

To mention things that I haven’t been doing – I have not had a new video on my new channel for almost two years now, which is a shame because I have a lot of new video ideas for a bit now but haven’t had the time or energy to do them. This is probably the biggest shame of it all, since now I feel I am more qualified than ever to make a video about something (maybe machine learning series to come at some point in the future if I ever get time). I also haven’t been exploring as much other research areas as I would have liked (to the dismay of my advisor), but I’ll discuss this point again later.

Thoughts on your research progress?

As said above, I feel I have done okay but I have also been a bit slow. I think seeing other people around me having more extensive publication lists than I have can be demoralising, but at the same time, I do find it a good target for me to aim for. I don’t think I ever came to grad school thinking that I’ll become the most prolific researcher here, so under my own expectations I think I’m still going quite okay. At the same time, I would like to more up the ladder a bit, so in that aspect I am not fully happy with my progress.

Anything you’d do differently about your past few years?

One of the things that I have been a bit too worried about is my end product of research. I have been a bit too worried about not messing things up and being scared that I would have worked on topics and the progress going to waste for whatever reason. I think at this stage I have a few works in my profile already which should make me easier to try risking more in the future without worrying about a lack of output by the end of my PhD. But in hindsight, it might have been nicer to explore more things and broaden my horizons more, especially since it is something that the CS world seems to want to much out of their researchers. But I suspect realising this at this stage is also a part of the whole learning process, so I’m still not too fussed yet since I still have time to rectify this.

How’s it been in general?

[Serious few paragraphs warning]

It’s okay actually. I think apart from the pace of research work, I have not had too many big issues so far. I don’t feel like I am burning out from my work yet since I have been trying to give myself enough time to go do other stuff other than work. Even then, it can still be exhausting to motivate yourself to do research every weekday or so. There are days that I can remain in the zone for the whole day reading papers or setting up experiments, but there are days that I absolutely dreaded (like writing out my paper submission or arguing with reviewers during the rebuttals phase). I always have doubt of whether I can accomplish the research goals I want to, or even if it is all going to be worth it, and I personally find it is a dangerous mindset that can (and probably have) harm some of my progress. But being bored of the research process seems to be a thing that everyone goes through anyway. After all, the joke about people quitting their PhDs wouldn’t have come out of nowhere.

For one though, I do am starting to feel the effects of isolation in my life. In terms of work I am fortunate enough to have good collaborators who am I am close to and have close labmates who can hang out with, and that has made my researchwork a lot easier to navigate through. But I also do sometimes think it has been a difficult path I have been taking. One of the things that I have realised when I do go back home over the breaks (I am writing this bit at home in Thailand) is that I am leaving a lot of people from my lives behind to venture elsewhere. I feel the effect of being away from my family or my small (but very tightly-knit) group of friends hasn’t quite start to dawn on me so much until the past year or so. When your research work gets tough you can always turn to a colleague or your advisor to ask for help. When your life gets tough, it’s a bit harder to find someone you trust to discuss and work it out.

Entering adulthood also presents itself with quite some mental challenges. Towards the tail end of my PhD there are a lot more things that I am starting to worry about with life in general. Where am I going to work? How many works can I push out before it is enough to get a good job? What do I want my life to look like in five or ten years’ time? Not to mention that I am already in my mid-20s and still in school instead of climbing the corporate ladder or progressing with life like the others in my life. I know if I’m back at home I would have ones I trust to discuss it with. Being away from home makes you realise that not having people you wanted the company of can be harder to deal with. But at the same time, I do suspect that is life, and even if I was still back at home, time would have drifted us all apart anyway. Growing up means that you start to become more concerned about more aspects about your future, and that you are likely to have less moral support to help you deal with it (since everyone also has their own issues to deal with). It’s not a good thing for anyone (everyone deserves to have good support), but it’s something that everyone has to go through anyway, and it is comforting to think that if everyone can manage through it eventually, then so can you.

Whew, that bit was a bit too serious. Let’s more on.

Any other things you have been up to?

Since the pandemic has passed it has been a bit more lively around here. For one, there has been more concerts and other activities to attend. I have had a good list of shows I have been to in the past two years, and a few more that are upcoming. It is one of the nice things about Singapore, that it is able to build itself as a hub for international events, which attracts different artists and event organisers to host events here, and quite good organisation that makes it less of a hassle for event-goers to attend an event (I’m looking at you, Rajamankla stadium).

Nobody asked, but I do want to mention though – The Star Vista is an incredible venue for larger events, and The Esplanade is an incredible one for medium-sized ones. I have been to two Phoebe Bridgers concerts at The Esplanade and the Kodaline concert at The Star Vista, and those have been three of my favourite concerts that have ever been to. Maybe it is just the artists (have been a big Kodaline fan since high school, and Phoebe Bridgers was so amazing that I consider myself a different person after that concert), but the venue also plays a big part.

Aside from the one-off events, Singapore is not the most interesting of countries in terms of finding stuff to do. I have to resort to random activities to do. I have been getting back into playing music with people again (something that I haven’t been doing seriously since about high school), and playing random sports when someone asks me to go for one. I have become a better bassist and also a better bowling player since high school – I can somewhat slap the bass (not well, mind you) and am able to give my bowling ball a decent spin with the two-hand grip now.

Any plans for the future?

I (hopefully) have somewhere between one and two years in my PhD journey, and I do think I should start to more seriously think about my future. I have been debating a lot more with myself about what kind of jobs I would like to do in the future after I graduate. It’s something I am still working on, since I am still a bit unsure with what kind of jobs I would enjoy doing in the future (especially if I have to do it for the next few years or so). It’s a hard challenge for me to think about, and one that I may look back in hindsight and see that my efforts have gone to waste or think that I have made the wrong decision for.

In the more short term I do want to widen my research slightly, and try to up my paper count a bit before I graduate. I think I am on an okay pace, but might be one my future employer may not be happy for. I suspect the next year or so of my PhD will be harder than what I have experienced so far (see the paragraphs I mentioned up top), but it will be an interesting one to work thorugh regardless.