Looking for professional tutor to help me train for CS PhD comps.

Jonathan Campbell

2007-10-21 15:26:02 UTC

Post by e***@comcast.net
All,
I am a displaced software engineer currently caring for my daughter
until
she is ready to reach kindergarten, which will be next fall in 2008.
I am at present applying to start a computer science Ph.D. program at
the time my daughter starts school. This means I have nearly a year
of evenings and occasional weekends in which to do some studying on
my own.
I would like to know if there is a candidate, post-doc, or junior
faculty
member out there who would be interested in assessing my current
level and providing a modest amount of direction (i.e, suggested
reading
and homework), to bring that level up to what are needed for comps.
I might even need that person even after I am formally enrolled.
I will provide my email address to any who show interest by responding
with a post.

Comps. = Computer Science?

What most supervisors pray for in a PhD candidate is someone clever,
imaginative, inventive, hard working ... who will take their current
favourite problem and work on it for three or four years (or five to
seven if part time) and produce a few conference papers and one or more
journal papers and then a thesis --- all that with a minimum of effort
for the supervisor.

What they will look for in a potential student.

1. Evidence of doing innovative work in an industrial setting, or maybe
open source or work done on their won as an interest, or in a previous
Bachelors or Masters degree (dissertation). Evidence to include the
dissertation(s), ability to discuss same, references (testimonials) from
someone they will trust. Many profs. in good institutions will
completely disregard references from someone they don't know personally,
or by reputation. For a non-tenured prof. a PhD student is potential
assistance to tenure; a weak PhD student is a hindrance to getting
tenure (i.e. waste of their time).

2. Must be able to write well in English (assuming in an English
speaking country.) (Re)writing theses is a supervisor's worst nightmare.

3. Have (current) Bachelors degree level of knowledge and background in
student's or supervisor's chosen area of study. Will they know what are
the current state of the art textbooks; also journals.

4. Ability to ready and synthesis graduate level textbooks and journal
articles in the chosen area.

5. Meet graduate entry requirements of the school.

6. (Maybe) Ability to pay significant annual school registration fees.

What they may supply.

1. A research topic.

2. An external examiner.

Some will supply just 1. and 2.

3. Help with a research plan; evaluation of a proposed research topic.

4. Cursory reading of interim reports and the thesis.

5. A decent library.

6. A supportive environment --- i.e. loads of other PhD students and
postdocs.

None will want to spend a lot of time with a PhD student, at least
unless the student really starts laying golden eggs.

This is maybe not the best newsgroup to ask --- mostly spam; maybe try
comp.theory, comp.programming; and there are other specialist and
applications ones.

What is your preferred area of computer science? What schools and
geographical area are you targetting? Why do you want a PhD?

If you think I can help further (unlikely), the email address above works.

Best regards,

Jon C.