CSCI 6000 Course Materials for Fall 2010:
General information and administrivia
here
Class Materials:
- 24 August: Logistics, introductions, course philosophy &
goals
Homework for next time:
- Iff you are a US citizen or permanent resident, look over
and fill out the
paperwork to establish Colorado residency. You can find more
information about this, and the related policies,
here. (International students cannot, unfortunately, file for
in-state tuition rates.)
- Look through all of the CS
faculty websites, think about who you'd like to have come visit
the class, and bring your list to class next week
- Fill out the CU CS PhD Plan of Study form, which you can find in
.doc format on the "PhD Degree Program"
section of the department website (or in pdf by clicking here)
- 31 August: Overview of the CU CS Ph.D. program
Here are links to the 2011-2012 prelim
announcement and the rules
regarding thesis credits and various milestones.
Homework for next time:
- Attend the department welcome/ice cream social at 3:30pm tomorrow
in ECCR 265.
- Ask your advisor and/or a senior grad student in your group about
good/bad publication venues in your area (or theirs, if you don't have
an area yet) and bring your results to class next week
- Read the essay entitled "The MBL" in The Lives of a Cell
- Look through the websites for Boulder research labs like NREL,
NCAR, NIST, and NOAA - as well as CU labs like LASP and any local
companies that look interesting, such as Google and Xilinx - and think
about whether you'd like me to arrange visits to (or from) them.
- 7 September: Journals, conferences, and the research
community.
List of publication venues: here
Potential visits: here
Homework for next time:
- Read through the presentation hints that I
handed out in class today and keep them in mind during the next few colloquia.
- Attend Elizabeth Churchill's CS
Department Colloquium talk tomorrow
- Email me your alternative title for her talk by the end of
the day on tuesday 13 September
- Read the "Giving Talks" Chapter of A Ph.D. Is Not Enough
- 14 September: Professor Tammy Sumner will speak
about her research work. Click here
and here for some suggested reading
about what she's up to.
Titles for last week's talk: here
Homework for next time:
- Attend Scott McCrickard's CS
Department Colloquium talk tomorrow
- Email me your alternative title for his talk by the end of
the day on tuesday 20 September
- Read the "Do you see yourself in this picture?" Chapter of A Ph.D. Is Not Enough
- 21 September: Technical papers: how to review them, how to
write them.
Titles for last week's talk: here
Another take on:
Homework for next time:
- 28 September: Professors Aaron Clauset and Mike Mozer will
speak about their research work.
Click here
for some suggested reading about what Aaron is up to.
Titles for last week's talk: here
Homework for next time:
- Attend Emmanuel Schanzer's CS
Department Colloquium talk tomorrow
- Email me your alternative title for his talk by the end of
the day on tuesday 4 October
- Read Chapter I of The Elements of Style.
- Choose a old paper (of yours), reverse-engineer its outline, and
turn in a hard copy at the beginning of class next week.
- 5 October: research funding, part I (fellowships, incl NSF
GRFP specifics); technical papers, part II (incl. abstracts)
Another take on: the
meaning of author order
Titles for last week's talk: here
Homework for next time:
- Look through the NSF GRFP website listed below and find the
requirements and guidelines for the essays that comprise the
application. (NB: digging through NSF solicitations for information
is not trivial; don't be surprised if this takes half an hour or more.)
Not all of you are eligible to apply, but writing these kinds of
essays is an extremely useful exercise, which we'll go through over
the next month or so.
- Review the last two weeks' worth of reading assignments and read chapter II of
The Elements of Style
- With that information in mind, rewrite the introduction of your
paper accordingly. Turn in hard copies of the 'before' and 'after'
versions at the beginning of class next week.
- Read this short essay by Martin Schwartz entitled "The
Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research".
- NB: there is no colloquium on 6 October.
- 12 October: research funding, part II (an overview of the
big picture of research funding, as well as a deeper discussion of
regular grants like this NSF
one); choosing research problems and advisors, part I
Homework for next time:
- Read Chapter V of The Elements of Style
- Choose any one of the three essays described in the NSF GRFP
solicitation listed below, write up a first draft (keeping Feibelman,
Strunk & White, and our class discussions in mind as you do so), and
email me a pdf version before class next week. Please don't
include any identifying information in your essay! We are going to
trade these around and do anonymous reviews. Here are some helpful
hints on how to write these essays.
- Read the "Important Choices..." Chapter of A Ph.D. Is Not
Enough - and, if you have not already done so, this short essay by
Martin Schwartz entitled "The
Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research".
- Because this is a substantial HW list, we're going to skip
the alternative title exercise this week, but you should still attend the
colloquium tomorrow.
- 19 October: choosing advisors and research problems, part II;
a bit about how to effectively read research papers
Another take on: research,
advisors, committees, etc.
Homework for next time:
- Review Chapter V of The Elements of Style and the "Writing
Papers..." chapter of A Ph.D. Is Not Enough.
- Keeping that information in mind, and perhaps revisiting the IJCAI review materials that we discussed
last month, read over the essay that I will email to you in the next
few days and write up a set of thoughtful, constructive
suggestions about how its author could improve it. Email those
suggestions to me in pdf or plaintext by the end of the day on
tuesday 25 October
- Skim these teaching
tips (some of which are aimed a bit lower than college, but
they're useful all the same)
- Attend Leysia Palen's CS
Department Colloquium talk tomorrow
- Email me your alternative title for her talk by the end of
the day on tuesday 25 October
- 26 October: giving presentations, part I; teaching
Titles for last week's talk: here
Another take on: presentation techniques
Here are links to: Bloom's
taxonomy, the wikipedia
article on learning styles, and the graduate teacher program at
CU
Homework for next time:
- Read Chapters III and IV of The Elements of Style
- Read your classmate's review of your NSF GRFP essay, then rewrite
your essay to address that review. Email me a pdf copy of both
versions (before and after) before class next week. These need
not be anonymized.
- Attend Yoshi Kono's CS
Department Colloquium talk tomorrow
- Email me your alternative title for his talk by the end of
the day on tuesday 1 November
- Start thinking about topics for your final presentation
- 2 November: Tour of CU's Laboratory for Atmospheric &
Space Physics (LASP). Please meet in the lobby of the LSTB
building at 2:15pm. Here are directions
to that building and links to the Stampede
and Buff
Bus route maps.
Titles for last week's talk: here
Homework for next time:
- Read the essay entitled "The Planning of Science" in The Lives
of a Cell
- Read the "Getting Funded" chapter of A PhD Is Not Enough
- Attend Jevin West's CS
Department Colloquium talk tomorrow
- Email me your alternative title for his talk by the end of
the day on tuesday 8 November
- Choose the topic for your final presentation
- Confirm carpool logistics for the NCAR tour for next week!!
- 9 November: field trip to the NCAR mesa lab.
Please meet in the main lobby (up there) at 2:15pm.
Titles for last week's talk: here
Homework for next time:
- Put together a draft of your slides and turn in a hard copy of
them at the beginning of the next class
- Read the "Establishing a Research Program" chapter of A PhD Is
Not Enough
- Attend Eric Frew's CS
Department Colloquium talk tomorrow
- Email me your alternative title for his talk by the end of
the day on tuesday 15 November
- 16 November: giving presentations, part II; a bit about the philosophy of science; visit from
Google
Titles for last week's talk: here
Homework for next time:
- Finish preparing your talk. Here is a link to the tutorial for Beamer, a LaTeX
slide-making facility.
- Read one (your choice) of the following essays in The Lives of
a Cell: "The Music of THIS Sphere," "Ceti," "Computers," or
"Information."
- No more alternative titles (and no colloquium
tomorrow, anyway)
- 30 November: no class! Student presentations tomorrow
evening instead (5-8pm in ECCR 1B06). Click here for more details, including
presentation order.
Homework for next time:
- Read pp1-6 of Chapter 1 in
Preparing Future Faculty in the Sciences and Mathematics. (It's
worth digging around the rest of their website as well - see the link
in the "interesting links" section below.)
- Read the essay entitled "Natural Science" in The Lives of a Cell
- Read the "From Here To Tenure," "Job Interviews," and
"Afterthoughts" chapters of A PhD Is Not Enough
- 7 December: careers and CVs
Another take on: (both are written for academia but applicable
elsewhere as well)
Funding & Employment Links:
Other Interesting and/or Useful Links:
