CSCI 7900: PhD Student Orientation
Fall 2005

This page describes the high level goals and format of the course.  Click here for a lecture by lecture syllabus


Administrivia

Instructor: Amer Diwan (diwan at cs dot colorado dot edu)
Office: ECOT 743
Office hours:   Wednesday from 2:00 to 3:00, Friday from 4:00 to 5:00, and by appointment. 
Class times and location:  Tuesday 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. in ECCR 118; also you will need to attend colloquium on some Thursdays at 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Class web page:  www.cs.colorado.edu/~diwan/7900-05
 


Goals

This course is a one-semester introduction to research in computer science at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  It will cover topics such as picking an advisor or thesis topic, writing papers, and giving talks.  A theme that will run throughout the course is evaluation: how do we evaluate talks, thesis topics, papers, our own research, etc.


The Conversational Classroom

Sitting in a room listening to somebody talk is not the best way to learn (and much research backs this up). This course will de-emphasize listening to me talk and emphasize your learning ideas from resources out of class, and discussing problems and questions in class. We’ll try to make our classroom a place of active conversation, rather than passive listening.  You can find out more about the conversational classroom by reading this article.


Course requirements

We will have weekly assignments throughout the semester.  Your grade will be based on your assignments and class participation. 


Mailing list

Please sign up for the mailing list/forum by going here.  Use 'research' as the enrollment key.