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A Student’s Perspective

Charalampos (Babis) E. Tsourakakis 3 rd Year Graduate Student. A Student’s Perspective. Open House February 26 th , 2010. Congratulations!. Carnegie Mellon University is a historical university with living history.

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A Student’s Perspective

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  1. Charalampos (Babis) E. Tsourakakis 3rdYear Graduate Student A Student’s Perspective Open House February 26th , 2010

  2. Congratulations! • Carnegie Mellon University is a historical university with living history. Stephen Fienberg Larry Wasserman Alan Frieze Herbert Simon Avrim Blum Manuel Blum Tom Mitchell, Head of MLD Carlos Guestrin John Lafferty Admission highly competitive! Alen Newell

  3. Few Words about the Speaker • International Student (Hellene, ECE NTUA) • 2007-2009 worked with Christos Faloutsos on Data Mining (Tensors, Graphs and Large Scale Data Mining using Hadoop) • Switched at the end of the second year. • Now, Algorithm Design (TCS) Manifold Learning (ML) Breast Cancer Evolution (App) Gary Miller Russell Schwartz e.g., Miller Primality Test e.g., decoding human genome

  4. Typical Timeline at CMU Data analysis project, speaking skills ( get MS) Finish! Propose Change/add advisor (if you want) Immigration course: faculty gives talks, you choose advisor Start doing research! (publish 1st paper) Summer internships time 5 …  2 1 4 0 3 Conduct research • Coursework: 5 core courses: • Intermediate statistics, ML • Stat ML, Algorithms, Data mining • +3 electives (1 from statistics) TA for 2 classes Enjoy dept. tea gathering and TGs

  5. Choosing your Advisor(s) • Very critical choice for your career. • Great faculty to choose from. • Make a good choice by: • choosing a project that excites you • making sure that you and your advisor have the same research “mentality” (Ask yourself, do you like more applications, theory, a mixture of them and what proportion from each) • reading papers of your potential advisors

  6. Coursework (very flexible) • Year 1: • Intermediate statistics • Intro machine learning • Stat. machine learning • Algorithms • Year 2: • Data mining • Advanced Discrete Math: Additive Number Theory • Advanced Discrete Math:Mixing times and Markov Chains • Computational Methods for Biological Modeling and Simulation • Many ML classes • Graduate ML • Statistical ML • Graphical models • Convex optimization • Graduate AI • Learning theory • Bayesian methods • Comp bio + learning • Computational Complexity • Randomized algorithms • Approximation algorithms • Lots of area-specific machine learning (text, bio, brain, …) (Some of my electives)

  7. On the way to a PhD • Requirements • Speaking skills • Data analysis project • You have an advisor(s) • who is (are) “responsible” for you • Black Friday meetings • You fill out a form • All the faculty discuss every student • You (and your advisor(s)) get feedback

  8. Big community • MLD Seminars: • MLD/Google seminar • Intelligence seminar • Machine learning lunch • organized by students • Many other seminars: • Theory, LTI, Robotics,… • MLD weekly tea gathering • TGs (Thank Goodness It’s Friday)

  9. Pittsburgh • A city which has two main advantages which are typically inversely proportional: • Many things to do around, good restaurants, nice coffee shops, bars, pubs, dancing places etc. • Inexpensive. • Easy to travel to other beautiful cities which are near, e.g., Philadelphia, New York City, Toronto.

  10. Weather in Pittsburgh You can feel all four seasons while in Pittsburgh

  11. Health Insurance • Different Health Plans • Basic (<~1K for a year) • Enhanced • +Dental • +Vision • CMU Health Services • UPMC • My personal experience so far has been more than good.

  12. Housing • Most of the students live in Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Oakland. • Other neighborhoods: Bloomfield, Point Breeze, Regent Square. • If you do not own a car, make sure that you pick a place with many buses coming by from there (e.g., Squirrel Hill, Shadyside) • Great places to live for really good prices.

  13. Gates Hillman Center • An excellent environment for conducting research, having pleasant breaks (great coffee on the 3rd floor), interesting research discussions on a whiteboard, Tea Parties.

  14. CMU Offers you a lot! Biking Canoeing Caving Swimming Climbing Hiking Ski (Seven Springs Resort) with student prices ~15$ Kayaking Tennis Scuba Diving Skydiving

  15. CMU Offers you a lot! Chess Club Gym Volleyball, Basketball Badminton Dancing

  16. Conferences! • Publications Travelling. • I have visited Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Stanford, New York. • Meeting Scientists from all over the world • Attend highly interesting talks (some of them). • Communicate your ideas, get people to learn about your research. • See and explore new places.

  17. Ithaca (C. Cavafy) When you set out on your journey to Ithaca, pray that the road is long, full of adventure, full of knowledge…. …Always keep Ithaca in your mind. To arrive there is your ultimate goal. But do not hurry the voyage at all… Welcome to CMU and Congratulations again!

  18. Acknowledgements • Joseph Bradley for sharing previous year’s slides. • Jernej Barbic http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~jbarbic/cmu-start.html

  19. Acknowledgements Diane Stidle “Mother” of MLD

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