how to be good at research - Vivek
substack.com · 1,566 words · saved by 1 readers
nobody really teaches you research.
nobody really teaches you research. you get a desk, a problem someone else picked, and a vague instruction to produce something novel. so most people reverse-engineer the job from what they can see, which is papers, threads, and announcements, and what they end up learning is how to look like a researcher rather than how to be one. the actual skill is a stack of smaller skills, and almost every one of them can be deliberately trained. richard hamming had a habit at bell labs that made him unpopular at lunch. he’d ask whoever sat near him what the important problems in their field were, then…
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