Independent Work

1. Independent Work Spring 2008 David Walker

2. What Is Independent Work? • Research • Advanced development • Some combination of the two • Literature survey leading to research

3. Goal: Fun, Profit, Enrichment • Opportunity to learn something in detail • More than you could do in a standard course • Differentiator • Grad schools • Jobs • Life • Fun • You get to do exactly what you want to!

4. Key Points of this Talk Everything you need to know is on the web: • www.cs.princeton.edu/~dpw/courses/iw/08-09/ • www.cs.princeton.edu/~dpw/courses/iw/08-09/dates.htm • just in case I’ve miscopied a date in this presentation, the definitive set of deadlines is up on the web But if you have questions, ask: • Donna O’Leary, doleary@cs.princeton.edu, CS 410 • David Walker, dpw@cs.princeton.edu, CS 412 And aside from logistics, the most important thing to do is find an advisor who you can work well with and a project you are excited to work on.

5. General Outline (1 semester) • Find an advisor • Start working • 6-10 hours/week is an appropriate amount of time per week • work steadily • Give a 12 minute project proposal talk (+ 3 minutes for questions/changeover) • Oct 6-10 • Write up a 1-page checkpoint report • Nov 7 • 20-25 page Final Report • Jan 5 • Poster Session • Jan 7, 2-4pm

6. General Outline (thesis) • Find an advisor • Start working • 6-10 hours/week is an appropriate amount of time per week • work steadily • Give a 12 minute project proposal talk • Oct 6-10 • Checkpoint I • Nov 7 • 5-7 page February Paper • Feb 6 • Checkpoint II (Thesis Outline) • March 27 • Final Report (40-50 pages) • April 17 • Final Presentation • April 20-24 • Poster Session • May 7, 2-4pm

7. How To Have a Good 12 Weeks • Start as soon as possible • Take some time right now to shop around • Read project ideas • Read web pages • Talk to grad students you’ve had as TAs • Talk to faculty – Finding an advisor you want to work with is the key step • Come up with your own idea • Be clever, but not too clever • Do a decent sales pitch • But listen to your advisor’s advice • Don’t be afraid of change • Better to change course than dead end • Don’t change course too often

8. How To Have a Bad 12 Weeks • Delay project selection until last minute • Ignore your advisor • you should try to meet once/week, even if it’s a brief meeting • Allow yourself to get stuck • talk to your advisor; don’t avoid them when you are stuck • Bluff your way through checkpoints • think hard about your plans • work hard & start early • Give incoherent presentations • prepare & practice • get feedback from your advisor & friends • give slides to your advisor in advance & ask for feedback • communication skills are the key to technical success

9. On to the specifics....

10. How To Find a Project • Meet professors for lunch on Monday • 12-1:30pm • Browse the web: • wiki.cs.princeton.edu/index.php/UgradResearchTopics

11. Proposal Presentations [Sign up Sept 22-26; Present Oct 6-10] • Logistics: • 12 minute talk; 3 minutes for questions/changeover • Attend full 1-hour session and give feedback to other students • Content Goals: • Describe the problem • explain why it is important, challenging and interesting • make me excited to hear more later • Explain how the research will be evaluated • Present a realistic plan for the semester • point out possible stumbling points – what is your contingency plan if research does not go as you hoped?

12. Proposal Presentations • Presentation Goals: • Clearly communicate the key points • Be sure your talk is well-structured • Pretend you are talking to a goup of CS seniors who have not taken a course in the area of research you are pursuing • Don’t use uncommon jargon or terms without defining them • Use screen real estate effectively • Pictures, charts and graphs are your friends • Be conscious of your presentation style • Speak clearly • Make eye contact • Show energy and enthusiasm in your voice • Assess your audience’s level of comprehension • Practice in advance and in front of friends and your advisor • Heed feedback

13. Proposal Presentations • Audience Goals: • Listen to the content and note both good and bad presentation elements • both for your benefit and the speaker’s benefit • Give feedback notes to your fellow students: • summarize the most important points of the talk • what could improve • what is already good • For proposals, each student will attend the talks give in the same hour as their talk • Grades: • Formal grades won’t be given to the presentation itself • However, presentation quality & amount of progress will be a component when assigning an overall grade at the end of the semester. • eg: when deciding between an A- and B+, we’ll think about presentation quality

14. Checkpoints [Nov 7/March 27] • approximately a 1 page document • describe the accomplishments made so far • note tasks partially or completely completed • note papers read, experiments conducted, code completed • illustrate your understanding of the topic • give a plan for the rest of the semester • note deadlines for completing other tasks • meet with your advisor, have them read your checkpoint document and sign the checkpoint form • You must return the form to Donna O’Leary (CS 410) by the checkpoint deadline

16. Poster Session [Jan 7] • Create a display for a 4-by-4 bulletin board • poster, collection of slides, etc. • plus optional software demo • Content • background – explain the problem & motivation • what have you learned? • what experiments have you performed? • what have you proven? • what algorithms have you defined?

17. Final Report [Jan 5/April 17] • Final report is 20-25 pages • do not go “much” over 25 pages • you may have an appendix that contains auxiliary materials such as code that spills over 25 pages • Thesis Reports: approximately twice as long (40-50 pages) • Content and writing are both important • Visuals such as graphs, diagrams, pictures, etc can be effective communication mechanisms • See website for turn-in instructions & specifics about fonts and such (which aren’t that important, but be reasonable...) • A printed copy needs to be submitted to Donna by the deadline • 2 unbound copies for a thesis • Give your advisor a copy (either e-mail or hard copy as they prefer)

18. Grading • Grades will depend upon: • the creativity and originality of student ideas • the content, amount of work accomplished to date, clarity and polish of presentations • the content, eloquence, organization and clarity of writing • the majority of the grade will depend upon the final report • however, poor presentations and missing checkpoints will also have an impact

19. Summary: Most important things • Find an adviser and project as soon as possible • lunch on monday 12-1:30 may help • feel free to email them • check out the independent work projects page • Go to the course web site and read the course web pages – make a note of all deadlines • If something is unclear, ask me, your advisor or Donna O’Leary (doleary@cs.princeton.edu) • Meet with your advisor often and talk to them as soon as you get stuck – do not procrastinate

20. Conclusions A good project is a lot of work ... but it could be more fun than any other course you’ll take.

21. Questions?