GAD: Graduate Student Advice Day

1. GAD: Graduate Student Advice Day Welcome! GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

2. Schedule 9:00--9:15 Prof. J Moore, Welcome 9:15--10:00 Prof. Adam Klivans, Communication Skills A Practicum: The Elevator Talk 10:15--10:15 Break 10:15-11:15 Panel: What Will I Do When I Graduate? Dr. Praveen Yalagandula from HP Dr. Dave Moriarty, Apple Prof. Seth Pettie, University of Michigan 11:15--11:45 Prof. Keshav Pingali, Managing Your Advisor 11:45--1:00 Lunch GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

3. Schedule 1:00--2:00 Panel: Tools and Advice for AI, Systems, & Theory Research: Ned Dimitrov, 5th year PhD student, Mike Bond, 4th year PhD student, Shimon Whiteson, final year PhD student 2:00--2:30 Prof. Steve Keckler, Advice on Applying and Interviewing for Jobs 2:30--2:45 Break 2:45--3:15 Prof. Peter Stone, Networking 3:15--4:15 Panel: Work Life Balance: Adam Brown, PhD student, Prof. Emmett Witchel & Prof. Kathryn McKinley 4:30--5:30 TGIF Taylor GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

4. About J Moore GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

5. Possible Careers GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

6. Who Pays? GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

7. The Most Important Decision GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

8. Focus of Today’s Event GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

9. Rarely Mentioned Equation GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

10. Do the Math GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

11. A Faculty Position Requires GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

12. What We’re Doing to Help You GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

13. What We’re Doing to Help You GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

14. What We’re Doing to Help You GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

15. Conclusions GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

16. GAD: Graduate student Advice Day Communications Skills Adam Klivans GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

17. GAD: Graduate student Advice Day Communication Skills

18. About Adam Klivans • PhD, MIT, 2002 in Mathematics. • NSF Postdoc at Harvard. • Visited Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago. • Frequently confused with Adam Kalai.

19. What Makes a Talk Great? GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

20. A Talk is Exciting if • The Content is exciting. • The Content is explained clearly. GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

21. Quality of Your Talk Quality of Your Content Ergo, think carefully about your content. GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

22. Write an Outline • An outline helps you highlight your content. • Clarifies your thinking. • (Maybe you can avoid the Outline slide) GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

23. Get to the Point • Since your content is the most important thing, get there as soon as possible. • You aren’t giving a tutorial. GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

24. Clarity, Clarity, Clarity • Read Strunk and White’s Elements of Style (a writing guide-- but applicable here). • Everything you choose to put on a slide should have a purpose: to help explain content. GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

25. Think About How to Explain Your Content Visually GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

26. A Critical Moment:The First Few Slides. • Write down exactly what you plan to say for the first 2-3 minutes. • Memorize it. GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

27. And now, some things you shouldn’t do: GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

28. How to Give a Bad Talk Mike Dahlin, John Ousterhout, Tom Anderson, Dave Patterson, ... (Channeled by Adam Klivans) GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

29. I. Thou Shalt Not Illustrate • Table: • Precision • Allow Audience to Draw on Conclusions • Pictures: • Confucious: “Picture = 10K Words” • Dijkstra: “Pictures are a crutch for weak minds” • Who are you going to believe? GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

30. II. Thou Shalt Not Covet Brevity • Do not omit technical material from your paper • You did the work; it is important; make sure the audience understands all nuances of approach and also how smart you are • Many in audience will never read the paper – they *must* leave the room fully understanding your approach, motivation, and contributions! • Include lots of material in each slide • Avoid sentence fragments because they may make you look illiterate. • Also, if the slides have full sentences, then you can read the slides verbatim and audience will be able to follow along. • All points you make orally should also be on the slide, and vice versa. • Some may say that no item on a slide should span more than one line. Ignore this! Take as much room as you need to make your point. • Take advantage of technology – small fonts allow you to provide information-rich slides. • Fonts smaller than 24 point are fine • And the important people sit in front anyhow! • Make several points on each slide. • Include lots of slides in each talk • 1 Lampson = 1 slide per second • Impress audience with intensity and difficulty of material • They should leave knowing that you did a lot of work and that it was hard, even if they don’t understand all of the details. • Avoid moving content to “backup slides” • You probably won’t get a chance to show many of them GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

31. II. Thou shatl Not be Neat • Slide layout << ideas! • “I’m a doctor, Jim, not a graphic designer.” • spelling checker = waste of time • don’t worry about consistent capitalization • Or structure/bullet/etc consistency • Use color and fonts to emphasize key ideas • Who cares what 50 people think? GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

32. Surprise them with your train of thought Keep audience on your point IV. Thou Shalt Cover Thy Naked Slides • Advanced techniques • If they know the point before you make it • They may think • That they could have figured it out • For themselves • Will they realize • How clever you are? • Advanced techniques GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

33. V. Thou Shalt Remain Humble and Demure • No eye contact • Bonus: Help avoid questions • Do not distract with motion • Keep arms at side • Stay at podium • Avoid rhetorical flourishes • Keep voice level • Avoid raising voice on key point • Avoid pause • Do not ask rhetorical questions • Do not use humor • Key tool of the trade • Laser pointer GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

34. VI. Thou Shalt Not Emphasize Key Points • Do not introduce talk/talklet/slide • Cover more technical material • Do not structure slide • All points are important • Graphs should speak for themselves • Do not summarize talk/talklet/slide • Audience should pay attention GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

35. VII. Thou Shalt Not Skip Slides in a Long Talk • You did the work • The research • And prepared the slides • Audience will be interested in seeing them • Even if briefly • Audience can stay longer • Your work much more interesting • Than the next speakers • Than the break • Than lunch • If necessary, skip conclusions • Just repeating points you’ve already made GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

36. VIII. Thou Shalt Not Plan for Q&A • Keep answers spontaneous • No such thing as dumb question • Just dumb questioner • Whose fault is it they don’t understand? • Universal answer: • Dismiss question as irrelevant/naïve • Everyone remembers a good argument • Good publicity for paper • Approach • Don’t repeat question • Start talking quickly • Don’t cut discussion short • When in doubt, bluff GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

37. VIII. Thou Shalt Not Prepare Slides Early GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

38. IX. Thou Shalt Not Walk In Others’ Shoes • You are the expert • You’ve been working on project for years • Anyone could present dumbed down version • Audience’s chance to hear the expert view • Don’t worry if part of talk “drags” • Present all technical details GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

39. X. Thou Shalt Not Practice • Benefits • Practice wastes Hours • Out of several years of research • Ensures spontaneity • If you do practice • Argue suggestions • Make talk longer than allotted time • Audience: • Experts only (e.g., advisor and group) • 1 Week is plenty • Converge on content by last practice (Night before presentation) • Most Important Commandment! GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

40. GAD: Graduate student Advice Day What Will I do When I Graduate? Panel GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

41. Dave Moriarty Background • Ph.D. from UT in December 1996 • AI, Neural Networks, Machine Learning • Advisor: Risto Miikkulainen • Career path 1/97 to 10/97 Daimler-Benz Research and Technology Center 10/97 to 3/00 USC Information Sciences Institute 3/00 to 11/01 Intelligent Technologies Corporation 11/01 - Apple Inc. GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

42. Current Role • Director of Data Mining at Apple • Leading team of data mining scientists/analysts • Applying data mining methods to real problems with real data • Integrating analytics within business processes • Directly affecting strategic decisions • Delivering analytical solutions to real problems • Some of our projects • Fraud detection • Warranty abuse detection • Inventory management • Manufacturing quality control • Customer call classification • iTunes credit optimization GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

43. Pros/Cons of a Scientist in Industry • Pros • Solve real problems • Easy to measure success (typically in $) • Fast pace • Can affect major company decisions/strategies • Many untapped problems • Can become one of the most valuable people to the company • Financially rewarding • Cons • Time to deliver often more important than optimality of solution • Production form of the solution is always an issue • Easy to fail • Broad knowledge more valuable than deep knowledge • Work often prioritized by others • Few publishing opportunities • Everything in business is motivated by $ GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

44. Looking back • What my Ph.D. experience taught me • Deep understanding of machine learning and data mining • Problem-oriented research • Good science • Challenge conventional thinking • What I would have done differently • Different applications of my research • Internship with a company GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

45. On academicjobs Seth Pettie The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor Eighty percent of success is showing upWoody Allen GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

46. Short CV • 1998 - 2003 PhD Student at UT • 2003 - 2006 Postdoc at Max Planck Institut • 2006 - present Assistant Prof., U. Michigan–Ann Arbor GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

47. On the tenure track • Everyone knows what professors do: • Teaching (not too much time) • Preparing to teach (more time) • Advising students • Committee work • Getting grants • Independent Research those who can’t do, teach and those who can’t teach, teach gym Woody Allen GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

48. On the tenure track • Everyone knows what professors do: • Teaching (not too much time) • Preparing to teach (more time) • Advising students • Committee work • Getting grants • Independent Research If you don’t enjoy these, it’s not for you those who can’t do, teach and those who can’t teach, teach gym Woody Allen GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

49. On the tenure-track • Everyone knows what professors do: • Teaching (not too much time) • Preparing to teach (more time) • Advising students • Committee work • Getting grants • Independent Research If you don’t enjoy these, it’s not for you They get a lot of bad press… those who can’t do, teach and those who can’t teach, teach gym Woody Allen GAD: Graduate student Advising Day

50. What I like about the job • Degrees of freedom • Research agenda is all yours • Work when & where you want • Have plenty of time to do it • Teaching — it’s actually fun! • Teaching as performance art • Teaching as proselytizing for computer science • Very few things not to like • Bureaucratic stuff kept to a minimum • Serving on committees not bad (and sometimes very useful) GAD: Graduate student Advising Day