1. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Graduate School but were afraid to ask!!! The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

2. 2/14/07VLSI D&T Seminar2 Format for Seminar  Presentations  Overview of prepared questions  Discussion of presentations  Addressing prepared questions  Open Mic Session Feel free to ask questions at any time

3. 2/14/07VLSI D&T Seminar3 Overview of Questions  11 excellent questions  As of Tuesday evening  Types of questions:  Professor Expectations & Work = 4 Qs  Research & Paper Reading = 4 Qs  Paper writing = 2 Qs  Classes = 1 Q

4. 2/14/07VLSI D&T Seminar4 Questions on expectations  Q#1: How many working hours do you expect of our students being paid?  A) 1/2 time (20hrs/wk)  B) 1/3 time (13.3 hrs/wk)  C) 1/4 time (10 hrs/wk)  D) 1/6 time (6.66 hrs/wk)  Q#4: What does a professor really expect from the grad student working for him/her?  Q#5: What kind of characteristics do you expect for a good graduate student? e.g. self-motivation? thinking outside the box? etc….?  Q#6: As an advisor, what kind of relationship do you expect between you and your students?  A) Employer and employee I pay the students, so they should work hard. I pay the students, so they should work hard.  B) Teacher and student I can understand the problems/circumstances students facing. I can understand the problems/circumstances students facing.  C) Father and child I’m always willing to help students. I’m always willing to help students.  D) Others?

5. 2/14/07VLSI D&T Seminar5 Questions on research  Q#7: When an idea comes up and there are few references on the topic, how can we explore deeper to know that the idea is useful?  Q#11: There is very little material available on the internet on some subjects. How and where do I search for more papers or literature on that subject?  Q#10: How can I find a problem to solve for research?  Q#8: When reading a paper, if there are many papers on the same topic, how can we get a quick idea of whether this paper deserves the spent time to read the whole paper or not?  Should we only read IEEE Trans or Journal papers in this area because journal papers always represent the best papers?  Is there a better, quicker way to qualify whether a paper deserves to read?

6. 2/14/07VLSI D&T Seminar6 Questions on paper writing  Q#2: When we are trying to publish a paper, what should we be aware of to avoid plagiarism?  For example, sometimes two similar papers (same authors) are published at different conferences.  I heard a student is judged for plagiarism because of improper citations. Are there any rules I can follow so that I don't get into trouble? Are there any rules I can follow so that I don't get into trouble?  Q#9: It takes me a long time to write a paper. Are there any tips I can use to help my writing besides taking an English writing class?

7. 2/14/07VLSI D&T Seminar7 Question #3 (classes)  A course requires a pre-requisite that I have not studied, what should I do?  Whom do I approach for help? TA? E.g. CAD tools are used in most of VLSI courses & I don’t know CAD tools! E.g. CAD tools are used in most of VLSI courses & I don’t know CAD tools!