CPS 300
Introduction to Graduate Study

CPS 300, Fall 2002: Overview and Policies

The purpose of this course is to introduce you to research in computer science, and to your new roles as a graduate student and as a scientist/technologist. This course is required for all entering graduate students in computer science.

Although we will have some presentations and guest speakers, this offering of CPS 300 will be discussion-based. We will read some material on issues of general interest to computer scientists, and discuss them. We will typically meet only once each week, on Tuesday. Some meetings may be scheduled on Thursday, and some weeks we will meet on both days.

Grades are based on class participation. The workload will be light, and there will be no exams. However, you will be asked to:

• Take positions on various topics, and argue them in class.
• Write short statements on some topics, as an assignment or as an in-class "quiz".
• Use ResearchIndex/CiteSeer and latex/bibtex to create an annotated bibliography of the ten most important papers on a research topic of interest to you, and show it to a professor who works in that area.
• Conduct an inquiry into the goals, focus, methods, and culture of some subcommunity in computer science (e.g., an ACM SIG), and report on it to the class.
• Formulate and argue a vision of the most important future challenges in computer science.
• Create a personal website.