CS 591 PhD Seminar, Fall 2021

 

Registration for this seminar is required for all Ph.D. students newly admitted into the Computer Science Department. M.S. students who are considering to apply to our Ph.D. program may also register for the seminar. Ph.D. students must earn a Satisfactory ("S") grade for the seminar or will need to re-take the seminar the following year. Receiving a Satisfactory grade is required before students are allowed to schedule the qualifying exam. All assignments must be satisfactorily completed to receive an "S" grade.

Learning Goals

The goals of the seminar include teaching incoming PhD students about:

Readings

All required readings will be available online. The following textbook has been recommended by CS faculty: Surviving your Dissertation by K. Rudestam and R. Newton, Fourth Edition, Sage Publications, 2015. The book was placed on reserve at the Grainger Engineering Library.

Course Credit

1 credit

Time and location

Mondays, 11:00 - 11:50am, 100 Materials Science & Eng Bld

Organizers

Robin Kravets (rhk@illinois.edu)
Viveka Kudaligama (kudaliga@illinois.edu)

Resources

Class announcements and discussions will be held via slack. You will be invited to the class slack space. Once you join, please make sure your name is set up correctly. Feel free to use nicknames if that is how you want to be addressed.

Attendance

Attendance is required and recorded electronically. Arriving more than 5 minutes late to the seminar will be counted as an unexcused absence. Students who receive two or more unexcused absences will receive an Unsatisfactory ("U") grade and will need to re-take the seminar. Excused absences include University-related travel (e.g. to attend an academic conference) and personal illness. Job interviews do not qualify as an excused absence so please schedule them around class time. To seek an excused absence, please email rhk@illinois.edu (and copy kudaliga@illinois.edu) before the start of class or as soon as possible.

Participation

You must participate in class discussion. We want discussions to be casual and enjoyable so that each of you feel comfortable offering comments and speaking candidly. We will do our best to moderate the discussion and keep it moving forward. We expect you to be attentive during lecture.

Attention

You are not allowed to use extra computing devices during class for any purpose. Please focus on our seminar. If there is any doubt, please read: Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers

A first violation of this policy will result in a warning. A second violation of this policy will result in an Unsatisfactory ('U") grade for the seminar.

Disability Accommodations

To obtain disability-related academic adjustments or auxillary aids, students with disabilities must contact the course instructor and the Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES) as soon as possible. To contact DRES you may visit 1207 S. Oak St., Champaign, call 333-1970, or send an e-mail message to disability@illinois.edu. They are glad to assist and so are we.

Online Resources

My.cs.illinois.edu portal: course rosters, assistantships, progress evaluations

Graduate College: fellowships, assistantships, professional development, diversity

Graduate College Handbook: rights and responsibilities as a graduate student

Grainger College Graduate Handbook

University Student Code

 

Schedule

 

Date

Session

Speaker

Assignment

Aug 23

Introduction: Earning a PhD

Robin Kravets (DGS) /

Darko Marinov (ADGS) / Viveka Kudaligama/

Nancy Amato (Dept. Head)

Complete survey by Aug 22, 11:59 PM CT

Aug 30

PhD requirements, milestones, and strategies (includes Program of Program of Study forms and strategies for engaging with your faculty committee)

Robin Kravets (DGS) / Viveka Kudaligama

Complete Slack introduction by Aug 29, 11:59 PM CT

Sept 6

LABOR DAY - No Class Meeting

No Class Meeting

 

Sept 13

Area Talks:

Artificial Intelligence

Lana Lazebnik

 

Sept 20

Area Talks:

Architecture, Compilers, and Parallel Computing

Bioinformatics and Computational Biology

Saugata Ghose
Saurabh Sinha

 

Sep 27

Area Talks:

Computers and Education

Data and Information Systems

Geoffrey Herman
Chengxiang Zhai

 

Oct 4

Area Talks:

Interactive Computing

Programming Languages, Formal Methods, and Software Engineering

Ranjitha Kumar
Reyhan Jabbarvand

Darko Marinov

Eshwar Chandrasekharan

Camille Cobb

 

Oct 11

Area Talks:
Scientific Computing
Security and Privacy

Luke Olson
Ling Ren  and Gang Wang

 

Oct 18

Area Talks:

Systems and Networking
Theory and Algorithms

Brighten Godfrey
Chandra Chekuri

Program of Study Area due (by end of day)

Oct 25

Preparing to talk to Faculty

  Attend RCR Ethics Training (info coming)

Nov 1

Learning to speak your ideas


 

 

Nov 8

Getting from an idea to a dissertation


 

 

Nov 15

Responsible conduct in research

Responsible conduct when working with people and their data


Fellowships in the College

Robin Kravets (DGS)

 

 

Ken Vickery
Graduate College, Director of Fellowships

Read Chapter 2: Surviving Your Dissertation by Rudestam and Newton  

Nov 22

Fall Break - NO CLASS

None

None

Nov 29

Fellowships in the CS Department

Hannah Gorrie
Robin Kravets (DGS)

 

Dec 6

Career paths and wrap-up

Robin Kravets (DGS)

Complete a one question survey about career paths by December 7 @ 11:59 PM.