1. Project Choice David R. Selviah
Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering
University College London
Phone:
Fax:

2. Outline Introduction, Motivation The 3rd Year Project
Choosing a Project
Daily Activities
Choosing a Subject
Think of your own idea, Course Choices
Choose your supervisor
Define Project with Supervisor
Academics Research Areas Resource
Curriculum Vitae
Checklist, Daily Activities Table

3. Introduction The purpose of this talk is
to provide you with a common tutorial experience about how to choose a project
to challenge how you might otherwise have chosen a project and your decision making process
to give you unified guidelines on how to write a curriculum vitae (CV)

4. Into the Project
In embarking on a project you will be stepping away from the educational world you know where
All equations can be solved analytically
A function is always simple like a cosine or a Gaussian.
You are told what is important.
You are provided with comprehensive lecture notes which contain all the facts to solve the problem.
You are told which books contain all the answers.
Your tutor knows the way to solve the problem.
You will be stepping into the real world where none of this is true.

5. Into the Project
The project guidelines are at Direct queries to the project co-ordinator :Dr Fernandez
In the project
You are in charge giving you freedom but responsibility
You need to decide what is important
You need to search for it or develop it.
The supervisors job is not to tell you what to do next so don’t expect him to do that.
It is your job to work out what to do next, knowing the goal to be achieved.

6. Motivation
You will be spending a fair amount of your time on the project.
The project mark is substantial being worth 1/4 of the third year marks equivalent to 2 courses.
However, it should also be considered that employers pay special attention to project work so effectively the project has a higher weight as far as employers are concerned.
So it is worth thinking carefully about your choice of project.

7. Motivation
The only way to carry out a difficult project is to be really highly motivated to do well and to work hard.
This type of motivation can only come if the project is something you really enjoy so that you want to think about it all the time.
So make sure you choose a project that motivates you if you want a good mark.
Do not expect your supervisor to motivate you by scolding you if you don’t work hard enough!

8. Motivation
Most students choose an interesting project and enjoy the experience and look back on it as being one of the most enjoyable learning experience in the whole of their time at university.
Most universities allocate projects to students but we let you choose.
It helps you to learn how to make serious decisions and teaches you to have the responsibility to live with the consequences.

9. Employment Motivation
When you go for a job interview the first thing the interviewer is likely to talk about is your project.
The project is the most similar activity to the company's working environment.
They don’t pay you to memorise and take exams!
They don’t even pay you because you work hard.
They pay you to produce results and achieve goals by specified deadlines.
They expect you to learn whatever is necessary in order to overcome any obstacle you encounter.

10. Employment Motivation
The project is a learning experience that tries to approximate the real work situation.
However, the marking is not just for the results.
Marks are also given for the whole process of finding the results as well.

11. Employment Motivation
The interviewer will be very happy if you have done a project in the same subject area as that of the company as this shows a continuing interest in this subject.
However, it is more important that you have carried out a project well whether it is in the same area or not.
So you should be thinking about in which subject area you wish to work.
A short project is a good way to try out a subject area to see if it is what you want to do for the rest of your life.
If you don’t like it you can change to another area when you apply for a job or when you choose your next project.

12. The 3rd Year Project A misleading name
It is more like a month project spread out over a year.
Mainly for you to learn how to carry out a project.
Generally of little or no benefit to your supervisor.
You will learn how to interact with a supervisor
to get the most help
to get constructive criticism and to accept it positively
to impress him and so get good marks

13. The 3rd Year Project You will practice “The Scientific Method”.
The importance of logical deduction
Debugging a program or circuit or hardware
Maintaining a positive attitude even when everything is breaking down or crashing.
Managing a complex set of tasks in a limited time.

14. The 3rd Year Project
Two of the most useful skills you will practice and enhance are:
How to break down a problem or obstacle into a series of simpler tasks which can then be scheduled and completed to solve the problem.
How to search for the required information and knowledge and to learn it and then use it to solve a problem.

15. Questions
What do you think you should consider in coming to a decision about which project to do?
Which lectures have you enjoyed the most?
Was it because of the subject or the lecturer?
What did you enjoy before you came here?
What hobbies did you have before you came here?
What job do you want to do?

16. Choosing a Project
To complete successfully an enjoyable project you must:
Choose your supervisor well
Choose the daily activities that you want to do
Choose your subject area appropriately
Homework:
Decide what order of importance you would put these in and discuss your decision with your tutor.
Choose and research your subject area
Define your project with your supervisor

17. Daily activities
Most students start choosing a project by considering the subject area.
The ultimate goal may sound exciting and you may want to be part of the team trying to achieve that goal.
Although the subject area may be appealing the actual work you will be carrying out day to day may not be.
You will be spending most of your time on the daily activities such as electronic design, calculation, writing and debugging computer programs, constructing electrical or optical experiments or fabrication of devices.
So you need to consider how much of each of these you want to do in your project.

18. Daily activities
Homework: What proportion of each of the following activities do you want to do in the project? Discuss with your tutor.
Its hard to do maths without a computer to plot graphs of results.

19. Daily activities Computing Project
Can do it any time in the day when you are free.
Can do it at home if you purchase the software licence and if it does not require a hardware key - dongle.
Hardware Project
Can only do at certain times
May need to share expensive equipment which may break down
May need to purchase components and wait for delivery.
Fun and a sense of achievement when experiment works.

20. Choosing a Project Subject
Look at a list of projects on a web page
Approach supervisor for ideas
Think of your own idea
Choose third year courses and similar project.

21. Look on web project list
Look at
Only a few academics will usually post some projects on the web page early. Another few will post some projects at random times later
So you may not book a project in the hope that a better project may be posted later.
If a new project is posted and you don’t see it straight away someone else may book it.
There is a temptation to book a project from one posted early in case all of the others are worse.

22. Look on web project list
Posted projects on the web page encourage students to visit that academic but not necessarily to do those projects.
Usually students agree with supervisors on a project after a discussion.

23. Approach Supervisor
To identify which supervisor might supervise which topic
Look at the web page where their interests are listed
Once you have found an academic arrange a meeting with them by or phone, if possible. They may not be there if you knock on their door
ASK the academic if they have or can think of any projects to suit your interests and abilities.

24. Approach Supervisor
Don’t ask him which project would be easiest or the least work!
ASK present third year students about their projects and supervisors.
ATTEND the third year students project presentations near the end of term (usually all day on a Wednesday around 19th March)
This will give you ideas of what projects are available, who supervises them, how difficult it is to give a good talk and what the question session is like.
Very interesting projects are also offered by staff of other departments: Medical Physics, CS

25. Think of your own idea
An alternative approach would be for you to SUGGEST a project that you would like to do and ask whether the academic would agree to supervise it.
It could be something based on your hobbies such as an electric guitar chorus pedal, or building a robot, or building a bat detector.
You will not find these amongst the academics research interests although they may have supervised such projects before and may be willing to do so again.

26. Think of your own idea
Obviously if you suggest an idea it will need to be at the required academic level to be considered as a 3rd year project.
If not your supervisor will reject it or he he may suggest how it can be modified to meet the required standard.
Do not assume that you will be able to find anyone who is willing to supervise a project suggested by you.

27. Course Choices
If you choose the project first then you should ask your new supervisor for help in choosing courses which will help your project and which balance effort between the two terms.
If you choose the courses first try to balance the number you attend each term. Then think of a project which overlaps as much of the course material as possible.
By doing this you will make a lot less work for yourself as the courses help the project and vice versa.

28. Choose your Supervisor
An important factor in successful completion of an enjoyable project is your relationship with your supervisor.
You have one character and your supervisor another character.
You need to choose someone with whom you can work.
Someone you like or at least respect.
Certainly someone you can ask for criticism of your work and from whom you can accept it as a useful way for you to improve.
It’s the only way to learn and improve.

29. Choose your Supervisor
Academics are all different characters.
Do you want a young, energetic, enthusiastic supervisor who is always pushing you forwards to produce results, and wants to see you at least once a week to report progress?
May be good for students who need motivating.

30. Choose your Supervisor
Do you want a supervisor with a vast experience, international reputation, large research group who is often invited to give talks in other countries and so may not be easy to meet but when you do see him it is tremendously useful?
He is likely to have a large research group with Postdocs and Research Students who can help you on a daily basis.
Likely to have a lot of very expensive brand new equipment for experiments.
Likely to have a lot of money to purchase more equipment or software.

31. Choose your Supervisor
You may only have seen your supervisor in lectures.
Many academics are quite different when you meet them in their offices on a one-to-one basis.
Students find that some academics who frighten them in lectures are actually very helpful and friendly on a one-to-one basis.
So don’t judge them just on their appearance in lectures.
Visit them in their offices first to find out what they are like.
Ask their project students what they are like.
See the project presentations on ~19th March.

32. Choose your Supervisor
Booking projects is on a first come first served basis.
Some supervisors are very, very popular because of their project topics.
Supervisors are limited to a maximum of 5 project students
So they soon become booked up.
Students might rush and book up projects without giving enough consideration.
They may then not enjoy their project and may try to change to another supervisor and another project but it may then be too late to find a good choice available.

33. Define Project with Supervisor
Discuss the project goals with prospective supervisor.
Supervisor can make project harder/easier to match the required academic standard and shorter/longer to match what is possible in the time.
Project needs to interest you a lot - it should absolutely fascinate you and be so interesting that you want to do it during your free time because it is fun.
You may want it to be in areas you are good at or new areas you want to learn about.
Project should match your table of desirable proportions of daily activities.

34. Define Project with Supervisor
Supervisor needs to be able to supervise project.
It can be in his area of expertise.
Or can be in a new area which interests him
Academics are experts at carrying out projects no matter what the area as the principles are the same.
Only £100 is allocated to the supervisor for project costs.

35. Academic Supervisor
Every time you see the academics they are teaching you.
However, this is only part of what they are expected to do.
The rest of their time is spent on research.
(Part of their teaching and research time is spent on administration and management too.)

36. Academic Supervisor
Some academics have a research group consisting of:
Postdoctoral Research Assistants (RAs or Postdocs) whom they employ to carry out research,
Research Students who are working towards higher degrees such as MPhil, MRes, EngD, PhD.
Academic Visitors from other countries
It is beneficial to a BEng, MEng, MSc student to carry out his/her project in the research group in the same subject area and aiming towards the same goal.

37. Academic Supervisor
The members of the research group can often help the student with solving day to day problems in the project.
They are usually closer to the students age and a student may find it easier to talk to them.
Sometimes a project is closely related to the work of a member of the group and he will give you day-to-day supervision.
Of course the academic supervisor remains in overall charge and will oversee and direct the course of your project.

38. Academic Supervisor
Supervisors usually are members of staff of the EE department but it is possible to have supervisors from Computer Science or Medical Physics department.
In these cases the second assessor will be appointed from within the EE department.

39. Academic Supervisor
Each academic carries out research in a certain area of knowledge which is his/her specialist topic area.
You need to find out these so that you know who to approach to supervise a project in an area that you like.
List of all academics research activities and here.
Look at the academics personal web pages e.g.
Look at the research groups web page e.g.
Ask one academic who knows what everyone does.

40. Research Areas Digital Networks Telecoms RF and Radar Materials Optics
Computing
Maths
Telecoms
Optics

41. Research Layers
Devices
Systems
Materials

42. Chris Todd Mobile software agent application to communications
Aspects of active networks
Fixed-Mobile convergence service issues
Broadband Services
Open Service Access
Service Management - PBNM

43. Hermann de Meer Networking and Distributed Systems Research Group
IP Networking and Performance Modelling
Peer-to-Networks
Ad-hoc Networks
Overlay Networks
Quality of Service in IP
Security
Ambience and Home Networking
IPv6
Business models of infrastructureless networks

44. Lionel Sacks
Service Engineering - Distributed Systems, Integrity (robust, high availability), system design, service traffic/QoS, mobile services, multimedia services
Network and Service Management - Traffic engineering/QoS, policy management, topologies-fixed and ad-hoc
Complex Systems - self organising systems/criticality, decentralised/emergent algorithms, users-systems interactions/dynamics
Business Models - policies, micro-economics
Knowledge Management
Classical Telecoms Networks

45. Izzat Darwazeh Optical and wireless communications systems
Design, modelling and experimentation
High speed optical communications
Radio over fibre systems
Fibre over access systems
Mobile and wireless communication systems
Communication systems modelling
High speed circuits and MMICs
Multimedia transmission over fibre

46. John Mitchell Optical and wireless communications systems
Design, modelling and experimentation
High speed optical communications
Radio over fibre systems
Fibre over access systems
Mobile and wireless communication systems
Communication systems modelling
High speed circuits and MMICs

47. Alwyn Seeds
Optical communications, opto-electronic devices, lasers, microwave photonics
Tuneable and mode-locked semiconductor lasers
Ultra-fast optical communications
Optical Access networks
Quantum well modulators and saturable absorbers
Dense wavelength division multiplex
Optical control of microwave devices
Fibre-Radio

48. Polina Bayvel
Optical Communications: networks, transmission and devices
Optical Network Architectures: optical burst switching, optical packet networks, wavelength routed optical networks
Static and Dynamic wavelength routing and allocation algorithms and scheduling
Ultra-high speed WDM transmission:
Optical non-linearities and fundamental limitation to fibre transmission
Ultra-short pulse propagation in dispersive media:
New optical devices for short pulse generation, multiwavelength clock recovery and regeneration, routers/crossconnects, tuneable lasers

49. Robert Killey Optical Communications
Ultra-high speed WDM transmission systems
Optical fibre non-linearities: fundamental limitations to optical fibre capacity
Optical communication system theory and simulation
Wavelength routed optical networks
Network planning and performance monitoring

50. Chris Pitt Optical and electronic materials Optical devices
Semiconductor devices

51. Ian Boyd Thin films for nanotechnology Nanotechnology
Laser Applications
Ultraviolet sources and applications
High and low k dielectrics
Advanced optical and microelectronic devices
Si, SiGe, SiGeC Devices
Silicon Oxidation

52. Richard Jackman Diamond Electronics
The growth of diamond and other wide band gap semiconductors
Fabrication of micro and optoelectronic devices from diamond
Control of defects and carrier transport within diamond.
Laser processing of electronic materials.

53. Tony Kenyon Optoelectronic and Nanostructured Materials
Rare-earth doped optical materials
Light emission from silicon
Technological plasmas and plasma processing
Nanostructured optical materials

54. Paul Warburton Nanoelectronic Materials and Devices Superconductivity
Carbon Nanotubes
Carbon Buckyballs
Quantum Electronic Devices
Josephson Junctions
Nanolithography
Focussed Ion-Beam Nanofabrication Techniques

55. David Garner
Semiconductor devices, silicon fabrication and processing technology, field-emission and MEMs
Silicon RF MOSFETs
Silicon power devices
Silicon Power ICs
Field Emission
Magnetic Sensors
Silicon micromachining and MEMS
Electron beam lithography

56. Sally Day Liquid crystal devices Liquid crystal displays
Optical properties of liquid crystals
Numerical modelling of displays and other liquid crystal devices
Non-display applications of liquid crystals including as optical filters for telecoms and sensors
Use of liquid crystals for microwave devices
Microlenses and their applications

57. Anibal Fernandez Computer modelling of - liquid crystal devices
- optical devices
- microwave/antennas
Applications of liquid crystals in microwave and optical devices
Computer modelling in Electromagnetics
Numerical methods

58. David R. Selviah Optical Systems and Devices and Pattern Recognition
10 Gbit/s WDM ring LAN as a polymer optical waveguide backplane interconnect
Gratings on slab waveguides with microlenses for WDM
3D TV using variable focal length microlenses
Wavelength tuneable filters for WDM
Nano-optical devices, Coherence modulation
Pattern Recognition: Neural networks, simulated annealing, correlators
Computer generated holograms, Holographic Memories

59. Hugh Griffiths Radar and Sonar Smart Antennas Signal Processing
Bistatic Radar
Synthetic aperture radar/sonar
Electromagnetics

60. Chris Baker Radar Sonar RF
Electronic Warfare technology and techniques

61. Paul Brennan Microwaves/RF Electronics Phase locked loops Synthesisers
Antennas
Radar
Chaos
RF Tags

62. Karl Woodbridge Radar and Air Traffic Control Systems Radar
Avionics
Satellite Communications
Global Positioning Systems

63. David Haigh Analogue integrated circuits Microwave integrated circuits
High linearity amplifiers
High frequency filters
Gallium Arsenide devices and circuits
Switched capacitor filters
Active filters

64. Andreas Demosthenous
Design of Analogue and mixed-signal integrated circuits
Applications
Communications
Video Coding
Error-Control Coding
Medical Electronics

65. Mick Flanagan
Bioelectronics and biomedical sensing: design, fabrication and modelling
Biosensors
Biochips
Control systems in bio/medicine
Modelling of biosystems (C++ and JAVA)

66. Nina Thornhill
Monitoring and control in oil, chemicals and pharmaceutical processes
Process control
Process data analysis
Signal Processing
Process Measurement
Plant-wide performance assessment
NOT robotics, electro-mechanical system, hardware

67. Tom Crummey Computer Networks Control Systems Parallel Processing
Can only take 2 project students

68. John Pollard
Bluetooth - applications such as mobile medical monitoring, intelligent sensors using Kalman filters, routing in ad hoc networks, mobile agents, TCP/IP
Simulation of communication systems (in C)
Imaging software, including compression
WAP phone programming (in Java)
Software systems (e.g. interrogating databases via PDA/WAP, controlling WebCams)
Web-based programming (distributed computation, remote measurements, distance learning)

69. Paul Radmore Analytical Mathematics Applied to Approximation Methods
Quantum Optics

70. Curriculum Vitae You must prepare a Curriculum Vitae (CV)
This will be useful for applying for summer jobs and for your permanent job.
Look at web site for instructions
Visit UCL and UoL Careers Centre.
Prepare a CV.
Take your CV to your tutor and discuss its layout and content and then make an improved version.
Take CV to Careers Service for extra comments
You may need to go around this loop again.

71. Curriculum Vitae Please go to UCL Careers Service 49-51 Gordon Square
and ask for the double sided flyer and the somewhat larger booklet on how to write a CV.
You can “drop in” there once you have written your CV and they are happy to comment on it to help you to improve it.
They also provide details of companies requesting students for holiday placements: Hobson’s guide, Prospects, University of London website.

72. Curriculum Vitae
Layout is important as it gives your employer their first impression of you.
The interviewer only looks at it for 3 (!) seconds before discarding it so if they have not obtained the key data by then you will have failed.
Your CV needs to be presented in a relevant way.
You need to emphasise the skills that are important for your potential employer.
Give proof of your ability, don’t just say that you are hard working.
After reading your CV the interviewer should be left with a lasting favourable impression.

73. Curriculum Vitae Personal details name (put family name in CAPITALS)
address (with dates if more than one)
telephone number (and )
date of birth
nationality
sex

74. Curriculum Vitae Education Dates: details of your university education
First year courses studied with course marks
GCSEs & A-levels (or equivalent) with grades
Prizes awarded, titles of project performed
Work experience
Dates: Companies
Text saying what useful skills you learnt

75. Curriculum Vitae Skills foreign languages
computing languages or packages
keyboard skills
driving

76. Curriculum Vitae Leisure interests sports
music, drama and other cultural activities
membership of clubs and societies
positions of responsibility in clubs and societies
Referees
Your first year and second year tutors
all of their contact details, especially
addresses.

77. Checklist
Decide what order of importance you would put these in and discuss your decision with your tutor: Daily activities, Supervisor, Subject?
What proportion of each of the daily activities do you want to do in the project? Fill in the table on the next page. Discuss with your tutor.
Decide on a subject area and look into it in the library.
Prepare your CV taking care to put all your first and second year courses.
Make your first appointment with a potential supervisor
Define your project with your supervisor

78. Daily Activities Table