Grad School 101
Graduate Council,
Dept. of Computer Science
http://csgrad.cs.vt.edu

What is this all about?
• Getting started in grad school
• Classes, research, independent studies
• Conferences
• Jobs: academic, industry
• Service
• Social life

Getting Started

Undergrad Grad
≠

Classes
• Classes are an opportunity to learn about
new areas, gain some depth in your area
• GPA is not as important as research
• Make sure you cover all breadth areas in
time

Independent studies
• Explore working with a particular faculty
advisor
• It's OK to double up class projects, or
follow them up as independent studies.

Choosing an advisor
• Matching research interests
• Personality match
• Ask around: talk to current students
• Some advisors graduate students rapidly;
• Others are seldom around, so their
students take longer to graduate

Choosing an advisor
• Kinds of relationship
• frequent interactions?
• collaborative work?
• independence?
• Senior versus junior faculty

Managing Research

Managing research
• Choice of software: consider LaTeX
• No more corrupt documents moments
before a big deadline
• Managing bibliographies
• One library to cite them all
• Use from Day One
• Pain to switch later

Conferences

Attending ...
• Attend even if you’re not presenting
• Meet people from your field: these are your
future interviewers and colleagues
• OK to pay your own way if needed
• More action in the hallways than in session
rooms

Future Topics

More to come ...
• Submitting to conferences
• Presenting at conferences
• Job search: academia and industry
• Service
• On the social side

Remember ...
• Take care of yourself first
• Maintain your health
• You’re here because you love it, so enjoy
your years here

Join us!
Right afterwards