Mike Oren.com

This is a follow-up to a post from the beginning of March where I gave a few tips to be a successful student/academic. In thinking about this topic some more, I realized there are a few practical tips I should add beyond those higher level tips:

1. Take a public speaking class, join a speech team, or a debating team. My previous post talked about the importance of becoming proficient and comfortable writing, but it is equally important to become so comfortable speaking about a topic that if you are asked to give a presentation for a conference, class, or work (if you ened up in industry) that you can quickly form an outline and, essentially, pull the talk out of your rear end (yay for self-censorship). A lot of this has to just do with the idea of becoming comfortable talking. I, personally, was terrified of public speaking when I was younger (my speech impediment didn't help that fact), so I ended up taking public speaking, acting, and being on the speech team (primarily doing improptu speaking) and all of that ended up helping tremendously so that I am now at the point where I barely blink when I have to give a talk.
2. Diversify your education (or at least your social network). Our educational system really encourages, although it does not completely force, individuals to specialize as soon as possible and as much as possible. Through this increasing specialization, we often lose view of the wider spectrum and get "stuck within the box", making it difficult to connect within interdisciplinary teams and find new, "outside the box" solutions. If you diversify then you may find a new way of solving a problem and "change the world".
3. Network. Always, always network. No matter where you end up, always try to help people along the way and don't be afraid to ask for a favor on occasion (but be prepared to return the favor in the future). Almost everything is decided behind closed doors and you need a network and a sense of politics.

That puts the list at 9, maybe I'll add a 10th item at some point in the future if I think of something. Hopefully somebody out there finds these tips somewhat helpful.

Microsoft Research has a guide to writing and presenting on research that might be worth check out, if you're looking for more of a guide as opposed to general tips.