Words of wisdom from past seniors

Suggestions for students who will be taking this course in the future

These are words of wisdom from those who took Senior Seminar and successfully passed, as the vast majority of Senior Seminar students do. Adapted from the end-of-semester questionnaire.

Before the course (from your first year at UMM):

• Go to a senior seminar talk.
• Find an area that interests you.
• Have at least a general idea for a topic you may be interested in. Start looking at articles on that topic early and often, to be certain that you understand the material and that you are genuinely interested.
• Read through a full ACM paper: http://dl.acm.org.ezproxy.morris.umn.edu/ (make sure to be logged in to the university system since UMN gets free access)
• Learn LaTeX (Elena’s comment: while this is not necessary, at least knowing what LaTeX is would be useful).
• Have an idea for your paper early.
• Take a writing-based course and at least one 4xxxx Csci theory course.
• Be prepared for lots of work and writing. Lower your credit load for the semester when you are taking Senior Seminar.
• Stay in the Computer Science loop. Knowing what kind of cool things are going on helps you decide on a topic.
• Assume that it is a 3-credit course to get an accurate perspective of the workload (Elena’s comment: this estimate varies, depending on the writing skills of the person, the topic difficulty, and the choice of sources).
• Do not take more than 12 credits that semester to be able to put enough time and effort into other courses as well (Elena’s comment: again, this is not necessary, but the workload is definitely a consideration).

During the course:

• Set aside time 4 hours at least each week to try and work on the assignment due for next week so that you are prepared.
• Trust in the cookie system. Go through the process one step at a time, and it’s never bad to be thinking ahead. It definitely seems overwhelming at times, but that’s why you have an advisor to help keep you on track and provide insight. Also pick a topic you find interesting, but don’t pick one too difficult, or else you won’t be able to explain it and that’s what senior sem ultimately comes down to.
• You can totally do this 🙂
• Don’t get stressed out. The professors are there to help you.
• Expect to put a lot of time into it.
• Do not procrastinate.
• Pick sources wisely. Make sure they have enough information and are solid.
• Set up some kind of repository for all your work on GitHub or Google Drive or the like and share it with your advisor.
• Read through your resources early and frequently.
• Try to work every day on your paper as this makes it a lot easier when deadlines come up.
• Keep up the pace and ask for help when needed. The faculty are wonderful in their feedback, listen to them.
• Practice! You’ll be spending long hours in the Dungeon, but you won’t be alone. Rehearse periodically with your colleagues and everyone will benefit!