Advice for Lehigh students

On this page I collect links to information and advice relevant to Lehigh computer science and computer engineering students. Actually, they may be useful to non-Lehigh students as well.

• In 2002 panels on Getting a Job in Academe, I gave a presentation entitled What to Keep in Mind if You Want an Academic Position. The slides are available as Powerpoint and PDF (6 slides per page). It discusses what you should be thinking about at each stage in your graduate student career.
• Whether you are looking for a job or applying for scholarships or to graduate school, you'll need recommendation letters. Here's how to get some good ones.
• I've prepared some advice for technical writing. Updated May 2008!
• For those of you writing programs for me for class or research, make sure you understand what constitutes good programming.
• Thinking about making a presentation? I've found a few sources that help you give a good talk: one on organizing a talk and another on how to give a technical talk.
• Here is a link to an excellent discussion of how to be a good paper reviewer by A.J. Smith, and another by I. Parberry on reviewing in theoretical computer science.
• I've also collected some links to scholarships relevant to Lehigh students.
• Here's a wonderful graduate student resources web page and other advice for graduate students.
• Here's a very short, but effective handout on how to read technical papers.
• And some great advice on managing your time.
• For those of you who might appreciate some tongue-in-cheek advice, you might want to look at the abundance of advice at the Journal of Machine Learning Gossip. Added August 2008!
• Finally, students (especially those in long graduate programs) need to maintain their sense of humor. You might want to take a look at xkcd and/or PhD Comics. Added October 2008!