“My biggest mistake when starting my doctoral research was taking a top-down approach. I focused my efforts on a handful of research papers on the frontier of my chosen field, even writing code to solve problems in these papers from day one. However, I soon realized I lacked many foundational prerequisites, making the first year exceptionally tough. What I should have done was spend 3-6 months dissecting the hell out of all the key research papers and books written on the subject, starting from the very basics (from my knowledge frontier) and working my way up (the bottom-up approach).”
I'll quote a snippet below:
“My biggest mistake when starting my doctoral research was taking a top-down approach. I focused my efforts on a handful of research papers on the frontier of my chosen field, even writing code to solve problems in these papers from day one. However, I soon realized I lacked many foundational prerequisites, making the first year exceptionally tough. What I should have done was spend 3-6 months dissecting the hell out of all the key research papers and books written on the subject, starting from the very basics (from my knowledge frontier) and working my way up (the bottom-up approach).”