August 2021 - New-gradstudents

CS Council First Meeting!
by Myles Frantz 31 Aug '21

31 Aug '21

All, I would like to welcome you all to the first CS Grad Council Meeting this Thursday (08/02) in Torgerson 3160A from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm! We will be running this meeting hybrid, including a Zoom location. I recommend joining via Zoom if you cannot make it in person and if we run out of room. Since this will be a hybrid meeting I ask all of you to be patient as we will do our best to manage the Zoom room and chat. In case you do not feel like your question was answered, feel free to send an email to the Grad Council Officers Email gradcouncil(a)cs.vt.edu. Please note this email listserve *only *includes the current eboard officers. Find the calendar link with the event here <https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0?cid=dnQuZWR1X240bnQ0aGdlNTBrdjdqaj…> . I hope to see everyone there! Cheers, *------------------------------------------* Miles Frantz (*PhD.CS*) Ph.D. Student President of VT CS Grad Student Council <https://csgrad.cs.vt.edu/> Timezone: EDT/EST (UTC - 4/AoE +8) Website <https://people.cs.vt.edu/~frantzme/> *|* Public Key <https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?search=0xC1081F9E88F1F00B> *|* Lab <https://yaogroup.cs.vt.edu/> *|* Email <frantzme(a)vt.edu> *CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE:* The contents of this email message and any attachments are intended solely for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential and/or privileged information and may be legally protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient of this message or their agent, or if this message has been addressed to you in error, please immediately alert the sender by reply email and then delete this message and any attachments. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, copying, or storage of this message or its attachments is strictly prohibited.

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Decommissioning new-gradstudents@cs.vt.edu
by Cliff Shaffer 28 Aug '21

28 Aug '21

This listserv (new-gradstudents(a)cs.vt.edu) was created as a temporary contact mechanism for students that we understood to be incoming for Fall 2021 to the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. At this point, I have added all students now enrolled to the standard gradstudents(a)cs.vt.edu listserv. This new-gradstudents listserv is now being decommissioned. If you are on gradstudents(a)cs.vt.edu, then you should have just received an email from me entitled "Updated gradstudents(a)cs.vt.edu listserv". If you did NOT get that email, then you are not on that listserv. If you are indeed expecting to attend Virginia Tech this Fall semester, but are not on gradstudents(a)cs.vt.edu, then you should contact me about getting on the regular gradstudent listserv. A few of you on this list have deferred your admission to Spring or Fall 2022. In which case, I will NOT have put you onto the regular listserv yet. Don't worry. In due course, you will be re-added to the new-gradstudents listserv, and eventually to the regular listserv when shortly after the start of your entry term. -- Dr. Cliff Shaffer Professor and Associate Department Head for Graduate Studies Department of Computer Science Phone: (540) 231-4354 Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 WWW: www.cs.vt.edu/~shaffer

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CS Council: Picnic Reminder (Today)!
by Myles Frantz 27 Aug '21

27 Aug '21

To all, I would like to remind everyone about the picnic that we are hosting later today! It will be located at the Blacksburg Municipal Park - Shelter 1 from 5:00 to 7:00 pm and it will have free food and drinks. If you would like to attend please fill out the form located here <https://forms.gle/UjjZcDniV2kg12Nh8> (and at the bottom in plaintext). I hope to see everyone there! https://forms.gle/UjjZcDniV2kg12Nh8 Cheers, *------------------------------------------* Miles Frantz (*PhD.CS*) Ph.D. Student President of VT CS Grad Student Council <https://csgrad.cs.vt.edu/> Timezone: EDT/EST (UTC - 4/AoE +8) Website <https://people.cs.vt.edu/~frantzme/> *|* Public Key <https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?search=0xC1081F9E88F1F00B> *|* Lab <https://yaogroup.cs.vt.edu/> *|* Email <frantzme(a)vt.edu> *CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE:* The contents of this email message and any attachments are intended solely for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential and/or privileged information and may be legally protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient of this message or their agent, or if this message has been addressed to you in error, please immediately alert the sender by reply email and then delete this message and any attachments. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, copying, or storage of this message or its attachments is strictly prohibited.

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Last days to add or drop classes
by Cliff Shaffer 27 Aug '21

27 Aug '21

I am getting some questions about deadlines for changing your classes. Today is the last day of web access to add classes for this semester. You may drop a class without any sort of penalty or note on your transcript up to October 5. This is what people typically refer to as "drop day". -- Dr. Cliff Shaffer Professor and Associate Department Head for Graduate Studies Department of Computer Science Phone: (540) 231-4354 Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 WWW: www.cs.vt.edu/~shaffer

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For MEng CS Students
by Samantha Pipkin 26 Aug '21

26 Aug '21

Good morning MEng CS Students, As Program Coordinator for MEng CS for Blacksburg and the Northern Virginia Campus, I wanted to send a warm welcome to a new academic year! I truly enjoy the energy and excitement of the start of the year and look forward to meeting all of you. I will have the following virtual and in-person office hours for the academic year. Please feel free to stop by if you have any questions or just to chat. These hours will begin on Tuesday, September 7, 2021. Best, Samantha Tuesdays, 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. Join Zoom Meeting https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/86541574451 Meeting ID: 865 4157 4451 Fridays, 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Join Zoom Meeting https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/86541574451 Meeting ID: 865 4157 4451 MEng CS In-person Office Hours Wednesdays, 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. Room 478, NVC - Falls Church Campus Samantha Pipkin, Program Coordinator Blacksburg and Northern Virginia Campus Virginia Tech | Master of Engineering 7054 Haycock Road, Room 478 Falls Church, Virginia 22043 <mailto:samanthap@vt.edu> samanthap(a)vt.edu | (703) 538-3766

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Fwd: [Gradstudents] Research opportunity in the Math department
by Cliff Shaffer 24 Aug '21

24 Aug '21

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Adrian Sandu via Gradstudents <gradstudents(a)cs.vt.edu> Date: Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 7:05 PM Subject: [Gradstudents] Research opportunity in the Math department To: <gradstudents(a)cs.vt.edu> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 09:52:57 -0400 From: Russell Hewett <rhewett(a)vt.edu> To: Adrian Sandu <sandu(a)cs.vt.edu> Cc: Adrian Sandu <asandu7(a)vt.edu> Subject: Re: GRA search I have an immediate opening for a PhD student in the Computational ML and Inverse Problems group, in the mathematics department, at the intersection of high-performance computing and deep learning. An ideal candidate has interest or background in any of the following areas: physical simulation, HPC, or mathematics of ML/DL. Experience with GPU programming and PyTorch or TensorFlow is ideal. This work is sponsored by the US Department of Energy. Please contact me at rhewett(a)vt.edu, and share a CV, if you are potentially interested. More information on group activities is available at www.rjh.io/research. Thanks, Russell _______________________________________________ Gradstudents mailing list Gradstudents(a)cs.vt.edu https://mailman.cs.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/gradstudents -- Dr. Cliff Shaffer Professor and Associate Department Head for Graduate Studies Department of Computer Science Phone: (540) 231-4354 Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 WWW: www.cs.vt.edu/~shaffer

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Invitation for NCR CS graduate students
by Roxanne Paul 24 Aug '21

24 Aug '21

Dear NCR CS graduate students, Please see below and attached an invitation from Dr. Robin Jones, the Ass’t Vice President for Student Affairs in the NCR. *Robin D. Jones, Ed.D. (she/her/hers)* AVP for Student Services Virginia Tech Innovation Campus 3000 Potomac Ave. Suite 101 Alexandria, VA 22305 571-329-9374 robin.jones(a)vt.edu https://virginiatech.zoom.us/my/*rdjones1* <https://virginiatech.zoom.us/my/rdjones1> [image: Capture]

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CS Council: Welcome!
by Myles Frantz 24 Aug '21

24 Aug '21

To all, I am resending this email to the list-serve since you have not been added to the new list-serve. I would like to welcome everyone to Virginia Tech and to the Semester! I have a few announcements about the council separated by section for your convenience. TLDR: Sign up for the following: <https://doodle.com/poll/sgpazhg5d3z2btgx> 1. Schedule our meetings (TBD) <https://doodle.com/poll/sgpazhg5d3z2btgx> 2. Welcome Back Picnic Sign Up form <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSee3H08VRBUagnLOkGf-_q2d1dmXzPbDG7…> 3. Become a Lab Representative <https://forms.gle/mU2CvWcqxYNrgNAR7> 4. Become a Mentor or a Mentee <https://forms.gle/1AmKbBn8C7fToaoh8> 5. Mailing List <https://groups.google.com/a/vt.edu/forum/#!forum/csgc-g> 6. View the conference travel funding that has been raised <https://csgrad.cs.vt.edu/travel_funding/#Policy> 7. Follow the Website for our future events <https://csgrad.cs.vt.edu> Intro: The council represents the Computer Science Graduate Students and runs various events. The events we will run include running Jobs Panels (talk with professionals from various companies), picnics (soon!), hikes, and more. We are in the process of gathering mentors for our Mentor and Mentee program, which allows graduate students to communicate with other students for help. You can sign up to be a Mentor or a Mentee at this form here <https://forms.gle/1AmKbBn8C7fToaoh8>. We will be processing the sign-ups shortly and have to balance the number of mentors and their preferred number of mentees accordingly. You can also sign up to potentially be a Lab Representative for your lab here <https://forms.gle/mU2CvWcqxYNrgNAR7>. The time commitment for this is extremely low and only involves: receiving occasional emails from the grad council and representing your lab’s concerns and requests to the grad council. Welcome Back Picnic: We are hosting a Welcome Back picnic this Friday (08/27) from 5:00 to 7:00 pm at the Blacksburg Municipal Park Shelter 1. This will be an event that will help start off the semester on a good note and provide the opportunity to meet other CS students! Please sign up here <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSee3H08VRBUagnLOkGf-_q2d1dmXzPbDG7…> to help us anticipate how many people will show up. We will provide free food, drinks, and games, but feel free to bring your own food and games! Travel Funding: Many of you know the travel funding was lowered per conference. Thankfully this has raised back to its pre-Covid amounts. These amounts can be found on our webpage here <https://csgrad.cs.vt.edu/travel_funding/#Policy>. Meetings: Our meetings are open to any CS Graduate student and if you would like to participate please fill out the Doodle link here <https://doodle.com/poll/sgpazhg5d3z2btgx> to help schedule time. The next meeting will be determined later and we will send an email update. You can see the update by joining the Google Group listed here <https://groups.google.com/a/vt.edu/forum/#!forum/csgc-g>. You can also find our website here: https://csgrad.cs.vt.edu. Cheers, *------------------------------------------* Miles Frantz (*PhD.CS*) Ph.D. Student President of VT CS Grad Student Council <https://csgrad.cs.vt.edu/> Timezone: EDT/EST (UTC - 4/AoE +8) Website <https://people.cs.vt.edu/~frantzme/> *|* Public Key <https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?search=0xC1081F9E88F1F00B> *|* Lab <https://yaogroup.cs.vt.edu/> *|* Email <frantzme(a)vt.edu> *CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE:* The contents of this email message and any attachments are intended solely for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential and/or privileged information and may be legally protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient of this message or their agent, or if this message has been addressed to you in error, please immediately alert the sender by reply email and then delete this message and any attachments. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, copying, or storage of this message or its attachments is strictly prohibited.

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[MS/PhD] Finding an Advisor 101
by Cliff Shaffer 23 Aug '21

23 Aug '21

Welcome to all our new graduate students! And to our students in the accelerated UG/G program. This email is aimed at students who need to find a research advisor. It is the responsibility of each MS and PhD student to contact faculty and find a suitable match. I am happy to discuss the process with you individually. But I hope that this email will help you to get started. At least, it should point you to some resources that might be able to help you in your search. Picking the right research advisor for you is one of the most important decisions that you make as a graduate student, especially for PhD students. This is the person who you will work with for a substantial amount of time as you conduct your research and eventually complete your thesis or dissertation. Perhaps one third of new students come in with a pretty good idea of who they will be working with. About two thirds of new students are starting more-or-less from scratch. There are many different dimensions to consider when selecting an advisor. The two that strike students as most obvious are someone working in a research area that you are interested in, and someone who can fund you. But other important considerations include how well you can get along with the person, how well their management style works for you, how much time they have for you, and resources aside from direct funding that they can provide (lab space, lab mates, intellectual environment, equipment). The first step to finding an advisor for most people is to decide what research areas are of most interest to you. From there, you can hope to identify faculty who seem to be doing work that looks interesting. A resource that can help is the Research Areas pages (see https://cs.vt.edu/research.html). These list faculty associated with a given research area. But even the most interesting faculty member cannot help you if they are already so busy that they won't take you on. So another useful document is the spreadsheet of faculty status that shows how actively any given faculty member is looking for students (you can reach this from gpc.cs.vt.edu). For many students, finding an advisor involves sending emails or visiting faculty during their office hours. (For information on office hours, see the faculty office hours spreadsheet available at gpc.cs.vt.edu.) Keep in mind that the typical faculty member is contacted by many students (both students already in the department and ones who are considering whether to apply). The most important piece of advice regarding sending email to faculty is that it should clearly indicate that you are contacting that specific faculty member because you are interested in their specific research (and your email should prove that you know something about what they do). Sending an email that looks like it could have been sent to any professor, especially if it comes across as looking for funding instead of looking for an advisor, is likely to be ignored. So don't send form letters -- every contact email should be personalized or it's not worth sending at all. How soon do you need to find an advisor? In part, that depends on which program you are in. Finding an advisor sooner rather than later and getting started on a research project is always a good thing. But most people are fine if they can start working with someone by the end of their first semester. A PhD student who doesn't start working on research until their second year might do fine. But only if nothing goes wrong. Far better is to get started in the first year with someone, doing something, even if you are not sure that it will be a great fit. Then, if you switch in the second year, you will have some research experience and still be able to maintain a reasonable timeline. MS students should expect that completing a thesis will take about 12 months. Which means that a student starting this Fall semester cannot expect to return to school in August of their second year to start their thesis work and graduate the following May. An MS student who starts in Fall should expect to spend quality time working on their thesis project either in their first Spring or during the summer in order to reach the typical 12 months needed. BS/MS accelerated students need to keep firmly in mind the need to spend 12 months to complete a thesis. An accelerated student who hopes to graduate after one year in the graduate program will need to follow that same advice: Either they should be working on a project in their final undergraduate semester, or they should be working during the summer. Starting the thesis in August when they officially begin the graduate program will not likely lead to graduating the following May. -- Dr. Cliff Shaffer Professor and Associate Department Head for Graduate Studies Department of Computer Science Phone: (540) 231-4354 Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 WWW: www.cs.vt.edu/~shaffer

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Correction about drop date with full tuition
by Roxanne Paul 23 Aug '21

23 Aug '21

Dear CS grad students: My bad! I’ve had quite a few questions and it appears the policy has changed this semester. Please take a look at this website and Refunds for Resignations and Reduced Course Load; Refund and Direct Deposit Information | Bursar's Office | Virginia Tech (vt.edu) <https://www.bursar.vt.edu/refunds1/refunds.html> It appears that if you drop *all * classes, today is the deadline for 100% tuition refund. If you reduce your course load below 9 credits, but still stay registered for at least one class, the deadline is Friday. Roxanne Nersesian Paul Administrative & Program Specialist Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering Northern Virginia Center 7054 Haycock Road, Room 312A Falls Church, VA 22043 703-538-8370 roxpaul(a)vt.edu

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