We had a guest speaker today in my Learning Research Skills class from Professor Kumar, who apparently is a big name right now in wireless networks and information theory.

For the most part, it was stuff that I already knew, but he made some interesting (and surprising) points:
* You should always read the seminal papers in your area because they show you the thought process of the people who invented the field. Those papers have many more ideas in them than the compactified presentations that you find in textbooks
* Read papers to find out what is known, go to conferences to find out what is unknown. You can't have a conversation with a paper.
* You should only consider an academic job if research doesn't stress you out. Once you get a job on your own, you'll be producing a thesis every 1-2 years.
* Don't go into academia unless you are willing to make your life your job.
* Find people who have problems and work with them
* Get a theoretical background no matter what.
* Don't get so picky about reading papers that you miss exciting new opportunities.