Hi Ted (and everyone), I hope this might be what you were looking for. I am afraid that I was a little long-winded.
The PhD class work requires 6 courses from three breadth areas: theory, systems and application. Transfer students are required to take three classes at the U and then can use three classes from their Master's program to fill the requirement. Since UMD students are not exactly transfer students, we do not have to take the additional courses as long as we can fill the requirement with our previous classes. NOTE: they do not tell you this coming in! For the PhD program you are required to to take at least 43 course credits, of which 13 must be Computer Science program courses. All of my credits transfered without a problem so I might have to take one breadth course to fill the system's requirement and then after that I took the ones that I wanted to. The breadth courses are located here: http://www.cs.umn.edu/current/grad/breadth.php The choice of classes is much broader here - imagine that! I am certain that this is the same for Sid, Saif and Bano as well :) I have taken: Advanced Data Structures and Algorithms, AI 1 (Logic, Search & Planning), AI 2 (Machine Learning), Legged Robots. All which were very interesting and alot of fun (well except Data Structures - see NOTE).This semester I am taking: Cognitive Science and Intro to Linguistics. There are NLP courses offered. One is being offered this semester - they are using the Manning and Schutze book. There are also Linguistic, Machine Learning courses ... that are offered. I guess I should note (and maybe a small pitch), there is not an established long running NLP group here but there is a growing collaboration between some of the AI/NLP Professors, the Linguistic Professors and the computational linguists from the Mayo Clinic. Slowly one is forming :) You can see the website here: http://www.cs.umn.edu/medlang/ Moving on ... There are three benchmarks for the PhD program: 1. Written Preliminary Exam (WPE) 2. Preliminary Oral Exam (Orals) 3. Thesis The WPE consists of two in-class exams and a take home. The in-class class exams are like really really hard finals under which you have four hours to complete both exams. The take home exam is different, you are able to choose a topic (they give you a list) and they give you a paper from that field and a series of questions for you to answer about the paper - they give you about four days. For this you will be okay. They would like you to limit yourself to < 2000 words and after writing your thesis, 2000 words will be cake ;) The exam is offered twice a year [Fall and Spring]. Most people take it in the Fall so that they have the entire summer to study. Most of the in-class exams coincide with a course that is offered. The exams I took were Logic - which cooresponded to AI 1 and Learning which cooresponded to AI 2. I am glad that I took the courses in preparation for the exam rather than trying to do it on my own. The Professors give you additional WPE questions for homework ect ... This really helped in preparation. I still had to study outside of class though because not everything on the exam is covered as extensively as needed. We had study groups and most people took the [most|some] of the summer off (or worked a reduce load) in order to prepare. The WPE is a big deal and you should study for it but it is basically a test between you and the clock because the questions they give, you are prepared for; they just give alot of questions. (I am now shaking my fist at said clock) It probably is only a hurdle to jump through but right now the WPE is this huge thing to me, so it is rather hard for me to comment about it objectively. I just turned it in today so I rather feel rather ... overwhelmed might be a good word. Hit by a truck might be a bit more accurate :-) Maybe Bano, Sid or Saif can give a more objective view. The only thing I can really say is - when the time comes you will get through it, I am still breathing and upright :-) Some questions ... When do you take it? Transfer students typically take it after their first year, others after their second. What it means to pass? Well, most importantly you get to stay in the PhD program! It isn't as bad as that :) They give you two chances and most people do not fail both times. Also, if you fail one of the sections, you only have to redo that section. Not take the entire thing over again! Not so importantly but really really nice is that you get alloted more disk space - UMLS just doesn't fit in my current space :-) When do you find out if you passed ? In 4-6 weeks!! (again ... fist shaking at said clock) I think I covered all of Ted's questions. I hope maybe this has helped with any questions and all of you have now decided to apply to the cities! Please note, there is a good chance that things were/are different for Bano, Sid, Saif and Amruta. Especially Saif being all the way over in Canada ;-) Have a nice first week of class, Bridget ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give at-risk students the materials they need to succeed at DonorsChoose.org! http://us.click.yahoo.com/Z1lQfA/LpQLAA/HwKMAA/x3XolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nlpatumd/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
