CSCI 6000 Course Materials for Fall 2012:
General information and administrivia
here
Class Materials:
- 29 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)
- 5 September: Overview of the CU CS Ph.D. program
Stuff for today's class:
Homework for next time:
- Attend the department welcome/ice cream social at 3:30pm tomorrow
(thursday, 6 September) in ECCR 265.
- Attend the showing of "Codebreaker" in Math 100 at 6pm on friday
night (7 September).
- 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.
- 12 September: Journals, conferences, and the research
community.
Stuff for & from today's class:
Homework for next time:
- Email me (lizb@cs.colorado.edu) and tell me what's the best email
address to use in order to contact you.
- Read through the presentation hints that I
handed out in class today and keep them in mind during the next few
colloquia.
- Scan this paper before
tomorrow's colloquium. There's no need to plow through all the
math (unless you'd like to!), but please make sure you get the gist of
the ideas. A good way to do that is to read the abstract, then the
introduction, then the conclusion, then go back to the first
paragraphs in each section.
- Attend Professor
Grzegorz Rozenberg's talk at the
CS Department Colloquium talk tomorrow (and as much of Andrzej's 80th
Birthday Symposium on friday as you have time for!)
- Email me your alternative title for Grzegorz's colloquium talk
by the end of the day on tuesday 18 September
- 19 September: Professors Eric Keller and Nikolaus Correll
will talk about their work.
Homework for next time:
- Read the "Giving Talks" and "Do You See Yourself In This
Picture?" Chapters of A Ph.D. Is Not Enough
- Attend the panel at the
CS Department Colloquium tomorrow. (There's no need to send me a
title for this one.)
- 26 September: technical papers, part I: how to review them,
how to write them.
Stuff for & from today's class:
Homework for next time:
- Read these IJCAI review materials
- Read the "Writing Papers..." Chapter of A Ph.D. Is Not Enough.
- 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.
- Attend Professor
Sriram Sankaranarayanan's talk at the
CS Department Colloquium talk tomorrow.
- Email me your alternative title for Sriram's colloquium talk
by the end of the day on tuesday 2 October
- 3 October: research funding, part I (fellowships, incl NSF
GRFP specifics). During the second half of class, Professor Jim
Martin will talk about his work.
Stuff for & from today's class:
Homework for next time:
- 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 set of tips for
successful fellowship applications.
- 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.
- Read the "Getting Funded" Chapter of A Ph.D. Is Not
Enough.
- Attend Professor
Nikolaus Correll's talk at the
CS Department Colloquium talk tomorrow.
- Email me your alternative title for Nikolaus's colloquium talk
by the end of the day on tuesday 9 October
- 10 October: research funding, part II (an overview of the
big picture of research funding, as well as a deeper discussion of
regular grants); choosing research problems and advisors, part I.
Stuff for & from today's class:
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 at my gmail address
(liz.bradley88@gmail.com) 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 from the NSF on how to write these essays.
- Read the "Important Choices..." Chapter of A Ph.D. Is Not
Enough.
- Note! There is no colloquium tomorrow because of the football
game that day. On friday, Daniel Russell (the "Uber Tech Lead for
Search Quality and User Happiness" at Google) is speaking at noon in
Muenzinger D 428. His title is "What does it mean to be literate in
the age of Google?" You are not required to attend this talk - nor to
send me a title for it - but many of you may find it interesting.
- 17 October: Professor Mike Mozer will talk about his work.
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 my gmail address in pdf or plaintext by the end of
the day on tuesday 23 October. Do not include your name or any
other identifying information in your review (unless you don't mind
your classmate knowing who you are).
- Attend Professor
Doug Sicker's talk at the
CS Department Colloquium talk tomorrow.
- Email me your alternative title for Doug's colloquium talk
by the end of the day on tuesday 23 October
- 24 October: Professor Aaron Clauset will talk about his
work.
Homework for next time:
- Read this short essay by Martin Schwartz entitled "The
Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research".
- Read the "Establishing a Research Program" chapter of A PhD Is
Not Enough
- Read the essay entitled "The Planning of Science" in The Lives
of a Cell
- Attend Ryan Baker's talk at the
CS Department Colloquium talk tomorrow.
- Email me your alternative title for the colloquium talk
by the end of the day on tuesday 30 October
- Start thinking about the topic for your final presentation.
- 31 October: choosing advisors and research problems, part
II; technical papers, part II (incl. abstracts); a bit about how to
effectively read research papers (if we have time).
Stuff for & from today's class:
Homework for next time:
- Read through this paper before
tomorrow's colloquium. It's very readable and has lots of cool
pictures that tell a lot of the story (which is a highly effective
strategy for technical papers!).
- Attend Kent Stevens's talk at the
CS Department Colloquium talk tomorrow.
- Email me your alternative title for the colloquium talk
by the end of the day on tuesday 6 November
- Narrow down your choices for the topic for your final presentation.
- Read Chapter III of The Elements of Style
- Visit this
doodle poll and enter your schedule constraints for final
presentations.
- 7 November: giving presentations, part I. During the
second half of class, Ph.D. alum
Kenny Gruchalla from NREL
will talk about research at that lab.
Stuff for & from today's class:
Homework for next time:
- Attend Bruce Haddon's talk at the
CS Department Colloquium talk tomorrow.
- Email me your alternative title for the colloquium talk
by the end of the day on tuesday 13 November
- 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 on 28 November. These
need not be anonymized.
- Read Chapter IV of The Elements of Style.
- Choose the topic for your final presentation.
- 14 November: Professor Mike Eisenberg will talk about his
work and Ph.D. alum Mike Procopio will talk about what it's like to
work at
Google .
Homework for next time:
- Re-read the presentation
hints that I handed out in class earlier in the semester, along
with Richard Reis's version (in the
Chronicle of Higher Education) and Uri Alon's version
(look on his "materials for nurturing scientists"page)
- With that information in mind, put together a draft of your
slides and turn in a hard copy of them at the beginning of the next
class. Here is a link to the tutorial for Beamer, a LaTeX
slide-making facility.
- Read the essay entitled "Natural Science" in The Lives
of a Cell.
- Attend the colloquium tomorrow, but don't worry about sending me
a title. Have a nice fall break.
- Read these Teaching
Tips from the University of Hawaii
- 28 November: giving presentations (part II); teaching; a
bit about the philosophy of science.
Stuff for & from today's class:
Homework for next time:
- Put together a draft of a CV and turn in a hard copy at the
beginning of the next class . (All of the CS faculty have theirs
on line; please dig around if you need an example.)
- 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 "From Here To Tenure," "Job Interviews," and
"Afterthoughts" chapters of A PhD Is Not Enough.
- Start finalizing your slides and practicing your talk.
- Attend Jon Froelich's talk at the
CS Department Colloquium talk tomorrow. There is no need to send
me a title.
- 5 December: careers and CVs.
Stuff for today's class:
Homework for next time:
- Attend Janet Burge's talk at the
CS Department Colloquium talk tomorrow. There is no need to send
me a title.
- Finish preparing your talk (remember...eight minutes!)
- Email a pdf or ppt/x version of your slides to me at
liz.bradley88@gmail.com by noon on the day of your talk (or bring the
files to class on a USB drive at least ten minutes before the
scheduling starting time).
- 10 and 12 December: presentations! Click here for the schedule and
location information.
Last pieces of homework:
- Read one (your choice) of the following essays in The Lives of
a Cell: "The Music of THIS Sphere," "Ceti," "Computers," or
"Information."
- Set up and populate your colorado.edu website. It should include
your name, your research interests, your publications, etc.
- And you really should continue going to the department colloquia for the rest of
your time at CU.
Funding & Employment Links:
Other Interesting, Amusing, and/or Useful Links:
