[nlpatumd] Advice for future MS thesis students
These are just a a few notes for new CS graduate students who are working with me on their MS thesis research, or would like to do so. Your most important first step will be to take CS 5761, Introduction to Natural Language Processing, in the Fall semester of your first year. This class is typically offered each Fall, and it is important that you take it in your first semster. This will help you get oriented to NLP, and will in the end save you a lot of time as you get up to speed preparing to do your thesis research. This class will count towards your CS electives in your MS degree. Any CS graduate student working with me as their advisor will be expected to complete a Plan A Thesis. While there is a Plan B project option, I have only allowed that in a few (two!) very special cases where a student joins me only during their second and final year in the CS program. We will work together to identify a suitable research topic, but in general it will be in the area of Natural Language Processing and/or Computational Linguistics. You can get a very good idea of the kind of research we do by looking at previous MS student's work : http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse/masters.html You should also look at the various software tools we have created over the years, and even give them a try. Some of them have web interfaces, others of them must be installed on a Linux system and run from the command line. You can find those by browsing around my web pages ( http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse ) If we have done our job well, you should be able to install and use these packages simply by consulting the documentation. Let us know how well we have met that goal, and suggestions for improvement are always welcome. Most of the software packages have mailing lists associated with them, and you are encouraged to join any and all that you find interesting. In addition, there is a NLP @ UMD mailing list that I ask all students who work with me to join, and anyone else who is interested in what we do here is surely welcome. This is a place where we make announcements and point out issues in the news that might be of interest. Please sign up here : https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/duluthnlp In addition to your required classes, it is possible to take free electives while you are a graduate student - this is included in your TA or RA funding in fact! These are typically 5000 level classes (or below) that do not count towards your degree (but you can still take them for credit and grades). This could include areas of personal interest (such as Theater or Physical Education), or other academic areas (such as Mathematics, Economics, Linguistics, Psychology, or Engineering Management). As long as you are doing well in your required classes and your thesis research, I will very likely approve. It will take you four semesters of hard work to complete your thesis. We will start working in the first weeks of your first year, and we'll continue through to the end of your second year. Your course load at UMD is relatively light (only 6 courses over 4 semesters) - that is to allow you to spend significant time on your thesis work each semester. You should plan on finishing your thesis by May of your second year. This will require you to work steadily on your thesis through your four semesters at UMD. If you do this, you will certainly be able to finish your thesis by May of your second year. This will enable you to move on to whatever comes next most conveniently and without distractions or interruption. Students who delay finishing their thesis until the summer of their second year or later often have unexpected difficulties in making the transition to whatever is coming next. We will create a plan during your first semester that will give you a realistic schedule that allows you to finish by May of your second year. It is really your responsibility to make sure you both understand and follow that plan. Also note that in some summers I may not be available to supervise or review your thesis work, so if you do not finish by May I may not be available to you until the following September. Your thesis work will inevitably include programming (typically in Perl or Python). Any code that is used to produce results that are either published or that appear in your thesis *must* be released as open-source. The motivations behind this policy are described in a short piece that appeared in Computational Linguistics in 2008 : http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse/Pubs/pedersen-last-word-2008.pdf This philosophy is central to much of what we do, so please make sure you go over the above very carefully. We will write your thesis as we go, and will initially focus on outlining the background of your selected thesis topic - what is the problem, how are you intending to solve that problem, how have others tried to solve it, and what resources do you need in order to carry out your work. As we go on we will add details about our methods and
[nlpatumd] Advice for Future MS Thesis Students
These are just a a few notes for new CS graduate students who are working with me on their MS thesis research, or would like to do so. Your most important first step will be to take CS 5761, Introduction to Natural Language Processing, in the Fall semester of your first year. This class is typically offered each Fall, and it is important that you take it in your first semster. This will help you get oriented to NLP, and will in the end save you a lot of time as you get up to speed preparing to do your thesis research. This class will count towards your CS electives in your major, and does NOT duplicate CS 8761, Natural Language Processing, which is a graduate level class you will take (in the Fall of your second year). Any CS graduate student working with me as their advisor will be required to complete a Plan A Thesis. While there is a Plan B project option, I have only allowed that in a few (two!) very special cases where a student joins me only during their second and final year in the CS program. We will work together to identify a suitable research topic, but in general it will be in the area of Natural Language Processing and/or Computational Linguistics. You can get a very good idea of the kind of research we do by looking at previous MS student's work : http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse/masters.html You should also look at the various software tools we have created over the years, and even give them a try. Some of them have web interfaces, others of them must be installed on a Linux system and run from the command line. You can find those by browsing around my web pages ( http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse ) If we have done our job well, you should be able to install and use these packages simply by consulting the documentation. Let us know how well we have met that goal, and suggestions for improvement are always welcome. Most of the software packages have mailing lists associated with them, and you are encouraged to join any and all that you find interesting. In addition, there is a NLP @ UMD mailing list that I ask all students who work with me to join, and anyone else who is interested in what we do here is surely welcome. This is a place where we make announcements and point out issues in the news that might be of interest. Please sign up here : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nlpatumd/ In addition to completing an original piece of research (ie your thesis), you will be required to take four 8000 level CS classes, plus two additional classes that may be either out of department or within the CS department. One of your additional classes should be CS 5761, Introduction to Natural Language Processing, and the other may be of your own choosing. It is possible to take free electives while you are a graduate student - this is included in your TA or RA funding in fact! These are typically 5000 level classes (or below) that do not count towards your degree (but you can still take them for credit and grades). This could include areas of personal interest (such as Theater or Physical Education), or other academic areas (such as Mathematics, Economics, Linguistics, Psychology, or Engineering Management). As long as you are doing well in your required classes and your thesis research, I will very likely approve. It will take you four semesters of hard work to complete your thesis. We will start working in the first weeks of your first year, and we'll continue through to the end of your second year. Your course load at UMD is relatively light (only 6 courses over 4 semesters) - that is to allow you to spend significant time on your thesis work each semester. You should plan on finishing your thesis by May of your second year. This will require you to work steadily on your thesis through your four semesters at UMD. If you do this, you will certainly be able to finish your thesis by May of your second year. This will enable you to move on to whatever comes next most conveniently and without distractions or interruption. Students who delay finishing their thesis until the summer of their second year or later often have unexpected difficulties in making the transition to whatever is coming next. We will create a plan during your first year (in your thesis proposal) that will give you a realistic schedule that allows you to finish by May of your second year. It is really your responsibility to make sure you both understand and follow that plan. Also note that in some summers I may not be available to supervise or review your thesis work, so if you do not finish by May I may not be available to you until the following September. Your thesis work will inevitably include programming (typically in Perl or Python). Any code that is used to produce results that are either published or that appear in your thesis *must* be released as open-source. The motivations behind this policy are described in a short piece that appeared in Computational Linguistics in 2008 :
