Goals and Scope - The goal of this weekly seminar is to orient new graduate students in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences to graduate study in the department. The focus will be on the transition from student to researcher, and on providing an overview of research currently being conducted by faculty and their students in the department. Topics include how to choose a research area, selecting advisors, identifying a thesis topic, setting research goals, the difference between an MS and PhD, networking skills, academic careers, industrial and government careers. Format will include presentations, shared experiences, group activities, and panel discussions.
At the end of the semester, a student completing the seminar should have:
Date |
Topic |
Readings |
Research
|
Research Area |
9/1 | Introduction, Overview | John Case | Computational learning | |
9/8 | What is grad school all about? | Chapters 1,2,10,11 | Sandra Carberry | Discourse understanding/generation |
9/15 | Strategies for the PhD Prelims | CIS Prelims Docs Chapter 14 |
Kathy McCoy | Natural Language Processing |
9/22 | All About Research | Chapters 5,9,13,15, | Keith Decker | Multi-agent Systems |
9/29 | Managing yourself | Chapter 12 | Li Liao | Bioinformatics |
10/6 | Choosing a PhD Topic
UD Library Presentation (Speaker: William Simpson) |
Chapter 16,17 | Errol Lloyd | Algorithm design and analysis |
10/13 | Presenting your research: Publishing |
Reviewing Article Writing Advice | Jelena Mirkovic | Network Security |
10/20 | Presenting your research: Posters, orals | Chapter 20 Poster advice | Chien-chung Shen |
Mobile ad hoc and sensor networks |
10/27 | Teaching tips and strategies | Vijay Shanker | NLP, Text Mining | |
11/3 | Academic career paths | David Saunders | Integer Linear Algebra | |
11/10 | Training beyond research in grad school | Christopher Rasmussen |
Computer Vision/Robotics | |
11/17 | Nonacademic career paths
life balance |
Martin Swany | High-performance distributed computing |
|
11/24 | Peer, cohort, and emotional support | Survival Tips | Chandra Khambhamettu | Computer Vision/Graphics |
12/1 | Networking skills | Paul Amer | Network Protocols | |
12/8 | Research presentations only |
Dan Chester/
Lori Pollock |
Knowledge Representation/ Software Testing, Integrity, Optimization |
Links to Useful Resources
Maintained by Lori Pollock. |