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How to become a _good_ theoretical physicist
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This is a must read:
    Gerard 't Hooft, 
    How to become a _good_ theoretical physicist
    http://www.phys.uu.nl/~thooft/theorist.html

This is another very useful link, with many more branching off:
    http://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/
Though directed towards research in mathematics, much of it applies to 
physics as well.

Another sort of advice (for getting a language degree, but still 
applicable in part to other studies) is here;
    http://chronicle.com/article/What-I-Tell-My-Graduate/126615/