CS 591 PhD Seminar, Fall 2022

 

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:

Course Credit

1 credit

Time and location

Mondays, 11:00 - 11:50am, 1320 DCL

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 22

Introduction: Earning a PhD

Robin Kravets (DGS) /

Darko Marinov (ADGS) / Viveka Kudaligama/

Jen Comstock (Grad Advisor)/

Nancy Amato (Dept. Head)

Complete survey by Aug 24, 11:59 PM CT

Aug 29

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 5

LABOR DAY - No Class Meeting

No Class Meeting

 

Sept 12

Area Talks:

Artificial Intelligence

 

 

Sept 19

Area Talks:

Architecture, Compilers, and Parallel Computing

Bioinformatics and Computational Biology

 

Program of Study Area due (by end of day)

Sep 26

Area Talks:

Computers and Education

Data and Information Systems

 

 

Oct 3

Area Talks:

Interactive Computing

Programming Languages, Formal Methods, and Software Engineering

 

 

Oct 10

Area Talks:
Scientific Computing
Security and Privacy

 

 

Oct 17

Area Talks:
Systems and Networking
Theory and Algorithms

 

 

Oct 24

Responsible conduct in research

Responsible conduct when working with people and their data

  Attend RCR Ethics Training (info coming)

Oct 31

Learning to speak your ideas


Robin Kravets (DGS)

 

Nov 7

Getting from an idea to a dissertation

Robin Kravets (DGS)

 

Nov 14

Taking care of yourself

 

 

Nov 21

Fall Break - NO CLASS

None

None

Nov 28

Fellowships in the CS Department

Fellowships in the College

 

 

Dec 5

Career paths and wrap-up

Robin Kravets (DGS)

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