CS Honors Undergraduate Research Program

1. CS Honors Undergraduate Research Program Faculty Coordinator: Prof. Amit Sahai Fall 2007 – Spring 2008 U.C.L.A.

2. What is the Honors Research Program? • First of its kind at any University of California campus CS department • Your own creative research: Independent Original Work • Under the supervision of excellent faculty and graduate student researchers

3. Honors Program • Chance for you to shine in a creative way • Cannot stress enough the importance of doing advanced independent work. • The best way to distinguish yourself. • Very impressive to top employers – Google, startups; even more so for grad schools. • An excellent way to challenge yourself.

4. Outline • What is research? • The program • Schedule • Summary

5. What is Research? • Formally: advance state of art • Informally: tell people something new

6. What is Research and What is Not? • Non-research • My advisor gave me this mpeg decoding algorithm • I learned about mpeg decoding • I implemented it • And it worked • A lot of 199’s are qualitatively like this…

7. What is Research and What is Not? • Research • I took two existing mpeg decoders • I took some sample movies • I studied the decoders qualitatively • I measured them quantitatively • I concluded why one is better • Why research: • analysis + comparison = something new

8. What is Research and What is Not? • Research • My advisor gave me this mpeg decoding algorithm • I implemented it • I measured it • I analyzed it and found a bottleneck • I instrumented the code to prove the hypothesis • I recommend and conclude…

9. What is Research and What is Not? • Research • I was given an mpeg decoding implementation • I identified its bottleneck as above • I proposed an improvement • I implemented the improvement • I measured it again to prove/disprove I’m right • I generalize and conclude…

10. What is Research and What is Not? • My advisor asked me to work on a big project that he’s been working on with lots of graduate students…. • WARNING: This is OK, but be sure to: • Have your own creative part of the project, for which you are primarily responsible • Reasonably plan to spend no more than ½ of a quarter on “initial” part, where you build tools/codebase. Try to use tools and code that the team has already built. • The most common way that a project can get off track is that you never get to the point where you analyze, experiment, suggest alternatives, etc.

11. What is Research and what is not ? • Lots of possibilities: For example, Building a web site • How do you distinguish yourself from a high school kid writing a bunch of code ? • A must: make it novel. Something new or better than previous such websites • How? Make it: • general: can be created and configured from parameters and scripts • automatically testable and demo-able • a comparison between competing implementation technologies (different languages, databases, OS environments) • a software engineering exercise in portability, robustness, performance, interface design, … • Use the stuff you learn in your CS classes !

12. What is Research and What is Not? • Research • Many possibilities • So, what is research ? • Formally: advance state of art • Informally: tell people something new • Not necessarily that much more work • Just need to “go the extra mile”: • explore, analyze, generalize… • OK to get a negative result: “My idea didn’twork, and here’s why…”

13. Other traits of a Good Project • Interesting/important problem • Non-trivial challenge(s) • Exploration of new technology • Can be finished in allotted time (3 quarters) • Effective communication (talks, reports)

14. The Program • Enroll in a special class “CS 194” • Basic Elements of the Program: • Find an Advisor and a project • Do the research! • Checkpoints to keep you on track

15. Details…

16. Checkpoints and Talks • You will give 4 talks (3 for 2qtr) about your work, at different stages of the work. • Purpose is not to give you “busy work” • Main purpose: To provide opportunities to re-evaluate and re-formulate your project and plan(Trust me, you will need to.) • Secondary purpose: To get practice presenting your work.

17. Schedule • Sept 28: First meeting • Oct 12: E-mail (to TA&me) commitment from advisor, short description • 1-2 paragraphs about project, 2qtr or 3qtr? • Oct 15-19 - Project proposal presentations (to be scheduled through Google Calendar, TA Vipul Goyal will send out details) • 5 min presentation of project idea (3-4 slides) • 2 min presentation about project checkpoints

18. Schedule • Guidelines about project plan: • For 2 qtr projects: • By end of first quarter, MUST have something to measure for projects involving software/hardware (most projects); • For “pure theory projects” (very few), MUST have proved/disproved at least one conjecture you made • For 3 qtr projects: • same as above, but by begin of 2nd quarter (i.e. Jan)

19. Schedule • Nov 13-16 – Arrange special meeting with advisor to discuss progress: • Ask the question -- am I on track? Do I need to scale down the project goals? • Nov 16 -- Send an email with progress summary & revisions to goals if any • Dec 7 -- Checkpoint slides due (3-4 slides), should send to advisor, and upload (see TA for details) • Jan 14-18 - Checkpoint talks - 5 min presentation • SERIOUS review of goals, revision of goals

20. Schedule • Feb 19-22 - 2qtr students: Meet w/advisor to seriously review progress, last-minute changes to plan (including extend to 3qtr). Send email with progress summary & revisions to goals if any. • Mar 10-14 - Final talks (10 mins) for 2qtr students; thesis due • Mar 14 - Checkpoint2 slides (3-4) due for 3qtr students • Apr 7-11 - Checkpont2 talks (5 mins) • May 5-9 - (Same as Feb19-22) • June 2-6 - Final talks (10 mins); thesis due

21. Find an Advisor and a Project • In the first 2 weeks of the Fall quarter (start early) • Get info about profs’ research • Honors program page, home pages, research papers, word of mouth, … • Schedule meetings with several professors • email, office hours, appointments • If having trouble, try to catch prof just after their class • Warning: some profs are not around. Have backups! • Choose a professor • Should be from CS dept • Can work with someone outside CS, If you’d like to do this, consult with me • Can be jointly advised by multiple profs

22. Find an Advisor and a Project • Decide on a project • Profs suggest choices • Students come up with their own • A combination • Mutual agreement, interest, enthusiasm • Write brief description of project and get Advisor’s email commitment to advise you

23. Find an Advisor and a Project • Topics/areas that may not be obvious research areas of profs: • Games and game playing • Education aids • Language recognition/translation • Wireless • Cross-discipline (econ, history, math, psych, politics, sociology, etc.) • See: http://honors-program.wikispaces.com/

24. Project Proposal Talk • Problem description • What am I going to do? • Why is it important? • Why is it hard? • Approach • Previous approaches • My approach • Why is mine better?

25. Project Proposal Talk • Methodology, milestones, “deliverables” • Plan of attack • Specific steps • What steps/deliverables will be done by checkpoint (end of Winter quarter) • What other steps/deliverables will be done by end of projecct (end of Spring quarter) • What might be hard and what’s the fall-back plan • Summary

26. Project Proposal Talk • Don’t have to talk about everything • But include everything (in “notes” section or other places) in the slides • Be specific, give details of plan • Tell me what’s the new/clever/cool nugget • Proposal talk is not your starting point: some preliminary work should have gone into the project by then (i.e. in the next 2 weeks!)

27. Project Proposal Talk and Beyond • Scope of Project • Not too little • Not too much (carve out a piece, limit functionality, reduce measurements) • If you’re ambitious, have a longer term plan but the short term plan should still be doable • Don’t be afraid of getting negative results • Have intermediate results

28. Project Proposal Talk and Beyond • Be conscientious • Start early • Define small milestones for yourself • Work continuously to meet milestones • Meet with your advisor regularly • Don’t hesitate to get help

29. Project Checkpoints and Talks • 3-4 slides • What you proposed to have done by checkpoint • What you have actually accomplished by checkpoint • Steps • Deliverables • Difficulties/surprises/deviations ? • What more do you expect to do • Steps • Deliverables

30. Final Project Results Talk • Review the problem description and proposed approach – give “the theme” • Give details (e.g., of implementation) to support “the theme” • Give key results to support “the theme” • Summarize “the theme”

31. Final Project Thesis • No minimum length. • Introduction • Background • Problem description: include goal • Approach • Previous approach(es) • My approach • Why is mine better • Detailed description of methodology or implementation

32. Thesis (cont.) • Experimental results • Analyze/interpret data, don’t just give numbers • What does this have to do with your theme? • Conclusion • Acknowledgements and bibliography

33. Credits • Thanks to the folks in charge of the Princeton CS Independent Research Program (especially Moses Charikar and Randy Wang) for most of the (interesting) material in this talk.