My advice to a prospective graduate student is that if you can do literally anything else with your life, do that instead. The cost of going through graduate school is only worthwhile if you really need to be there to be happy in your life. Too many people wind up there for not great reasons, and it hurts them both emotionally and financially compared to having done something else.

>Consider writing what you read as you read it.

i would add a clarification for today's students: by hand.

typing doesn't appear to have the same power, at least for myself and my students that ive talked to about it.

Related. Others?

Advice to a Beginning Graduate Student - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7997158 - July 2014 (15 comments)

Manuel Blum: Advice to a beginning graduate student - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2037676 - Dec 2010 (16 comments)

Advice to a Beginning Graduate Student - Manuel Blum (CMU) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=832729 - Sept 2009 (32 comments)

I remember reading this as an undergraduate student already enrolled in LSE. My God how the times have changed.

The key is to make the most of the opportunity and don't take poor treatment as the norm. It is always unacceptable. Plus at some point you will potentially be the world's most knowledgeable person on your very niche area, appreciate that and run with it.