Advice for students of Networking/Internet field

The Internet and all that it enables is a vast new frontier, full of amazing challenges. There is room for
great innovation. Don’t be constrained by today’s technology. Reach out and imagine what could be and
then make it happen.
By: Prof. Leonard Kleinrock
His creation of packet-switching principles in 1961 became the technology behind the Internet.
Go as deep as you possibly can on understanding how technology is created, and then complement with
learning how business works.
By: Marc Andreessen
He is the co-creator of Mosaic, the Web browser, Netscape, Secure Sockets Laye(SSL).

School teaches us lots of ways to find answers. In every interesting problem I’ve worked on, the challenge
has been finding the right question.
“The reason I can’t figure out why it fails is because I don’t understand how it ever worked to begin with.”
Networking is fundamentally about connecting stuff, and studying it helps you make intellectual
connections
By: Van Jacobson
He was co-founder and Chief Scientist of Packet Design, developing congestion control
mechanisms.

Think outside the limitations of existing systems—imagine what might be possible; but then do the hard
work of figuring out how to get there from the current state of affairs. Dare to dream.
By: Dr. Vinton G. Cerf
He is widely known as the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet.

First, build a strong foundation in your academic work, balanced with any and every real world work
experience you can get. As you look for a working environment, seek opportunities in problem areas you
really care about and with smart teams that you can learn from.
By: Prof. Deborah Estrin
Director of the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS), co-founder of openmhealth.org.

Given that networks are becoming such an important part of everyday life, students wanting to make a
difference in the field should think of the new resource constraints in networks: human time and effort,
rather than just bandwidth or storage.
By: Prof. Henning Schulzrinne
He is the co-author of RTP, RTSP, SIP, GIST protocols for audio and video communications over
the Internet.

Learning the mechanisms is the easy part. Learning how to “think paranoid” is harder. You have to
remember that probability distributions don’t apply—the attackers can and will find improbable
conditions. And the details matter—a lot.
By: Steven M. Bellovin
His focus is on networks, security, and why the two are incompatible.

Networking is an inherently interdisciplinary field. Applying techniques from other disciplines to

networking problems is a great way to move the field forward.
By: Prof. Jennifer Rexford
Her goal is to make computer networks easier to design and manage, with emphasis on routing
protocols.