Research I: Finding an Advisor
and Topic
Marie desJardins (mariedj@cs.umbc.edu)
CMSC 601
February 6, 2012
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Sources
 Robert L. Peters, Getting What You Came For: The
Smart Student’s Guide to Earning a Master’s or Ph.D.
(Revised Edition). NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
1997.
 Richard Hamming, “You and your research.”
Transcription of the Bell Communications Research
Colloquium Seminar, March 7, 1986.
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Outline
 Advisors
 Research Topics
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Advisors
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Advisors
 Temporary advisors
 Research advisors
 Approaching a potential advisor
 Secondary/informal “advisors”
 Changing advisors
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Questions to Ask Faculty
 Are you taking on new (M.S./Ph.D.) students?
 Do you have RA funding? For how long into the future?
 What research areas are you working in?
 Do you have specific open problems you are looking for
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students to work on?
Do you generally suggest research topics to your students, or
do you expect them to find their own topics?
Are you willing to advise a thesis/dissertation in an area not
directly related to your current research projects?
Are you willing to advise an interdisciplinary thesis/dissertation,
or to co-advise?
Have you (recently) graduated any (M.S./Ph.D.) students?
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Questions to Ask Students
 Is Prof. X accessible?
 How much time does Prof. X spend with you?
 In what contexts (individual meetings, lab meetings, etc.)?
 Do Prof. X’s students finish quickly?
 Do Prof. X’s students publish in top conferences and
journals?
 Does Prof. X give credit to students for their work?
 Is Prof. X consistent in expectations and directions?
 Is Prof. X reasonable in the amount of work
expected?
 Do students respect Prof. X intellectually?
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(From Peters, p. 46-47)
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Expectations
 You can reasonably expect your advisor to:
 Be available on a somewhat regular schedule
 Suggest courses and schedules
 Help you to select and solve research topics
 Suggest committee members
 Provide feedback on written work and work in progress
 Suggest possible solutions to research problems
 Encourage you to publish
 Write letters of reference
 Your advisor may also:
 Provide financial support (stipends and travel money)
 Provide career advice
 Help you find a job
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Expectations
 Your advisor can reasonably expect you to:
Develop ideas independently
 Do what you say you will do, in a reasonable timeframe
 Make (reasonably) continuous progress
 Go beyond the minimum amount of work
 Be pro-active in pursuing ideas and looking for resources
 Ask for help when you need it
 Meet relevant deadlines, even if heroic short-term effort is required
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 Your advisor may also expect you to:
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Provide written progress reports
Review papers (theirs and others’)
Work with other students in the lab
Publish
Contribute to grant proposals
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Not-so-Great Expectations
 Your advisor should not expect you to:
 Perform excessive administrative tasks or paperwork
 Contribute to research without authorship
 Consistently work unreasonably long hours
 Have no life outside of the lab
 You should not expect your advisor to:
 Constantly remind you what you need to be doing
 Solve every problem you encounter
 Be familiar with every aspect of your research problem
 Provide unlimited resources (time, money, equipment...)
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In the Unlikely Event...
 What if your advisor is seriously abusing or
neglecting you?
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Talk to the GPD
Talk to another faculty member you trust
Change advisors
Talk to the department chair
Talk to the Associate Dean
File a formal complaint
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Research Topics
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What Is Research??
 Asking “why” and “how”
 Creating innovative solutions to novel problems
 Also:
 Understanding previous work
 Testing hypotheses
 Analyzing data
 Publishing results
 Not:
 Applying existing techniques to a new problem
 Developing a one-shot solution to a problem
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A Good Topic
 ...is unsolved
 ...is important
 ...is interesting to you
 ...is interesting to your advisor
 ...is interesting to the research community
 ...has useful applications
 ...applies to more than one problem
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Scope
 Too broad is bad
 Too narrow is bad
 Too constrained is bad
 Too unconstrained is bad
 “Telescoping” is best
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Getting Jumpstarted
 Read!
 Write
 Annotated bibliographies
 Literature surveys (including open challenges)
 Replicate previous work
 Re-implement
 Re-derive
 Re-experiment
 Start varying parameters, assumptions, environments
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Read, Read, Read!
 You have to read a lot of research papers to become
an expert
 You have to become an expert before you can
produce high-quality results
 You have to produce high-quality results before you
can complete your Ph.D. (or M.S.)
  you have to read a lot of research papers (and
other people’s theses/dissertations)
  you might as well get started now!
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Just Do It
 “People have an amazing ability to become
interested in almost anything once they are working
on it.” (Peters, p. 181)
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Write Early!
 Write an annotated bibliography
 Write a proposal outline
 Write a literature survey
 Write an outline of a conference paper
 Write an outline of the dissertation
 Show your writing to your advisor, other graduate
students, colleagues, ...
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