How to be a graduate student.

Applicable to more than just AI and more than just MIT.

How To Do Research In the MIT AI Lab:

" This document presumptuously purports to explain how to do research. We give heuristics that may be useful in picking up the specific skills needed for research (reading, writing, programming) and for understanding and enjoying the process itself (methodology, topic and advisor selection, and emotional factors)."

From the "Handbook of Software Architechture"

I've just run across this article / book. Looks real good. Two quotes from the first page:

Despite its transparency, as Bjarne Stroustrup has observed, "our civilization runs on software." It is therefore a tremendous privilege as well as a deep responsibility to be a software developer. It is a privilege because what we do collectively as an industry has changed and will continue to change the world.

and

Paul Levy, one of the founders of IBM Rational, once remarked "Ultimately, building software is the world's most important industry. Software today allows a brother in San Jose to call a sister in St. Petersburg. Software today speeds the process of drug discovery, potentially curing Alzheimer's. Software today drives the imaging systems that allow the early detection of breast cancer and other maladies. Software controls the passive restraint systems and antilock breaking systems that save children's lives in automobiles every day. Software powers our communication and transporation technologies. Software allows us to peer deep withing ourselves and study the human genome. Software allows us to explore and understand our universe. And, make no mistake about it, we are just getting started."

That's what I'm talking about.

Random quotes

I just got the random quotes to appear under the main title for the page. They are quite political, so maybe I'll go hunting for some comp sci related stuff to better fit the theme of this journal. They are what I'm reading right now, anyways. All the quotes come from the Libertarian Quotes Page.

Grad School Throughts

I'm not going to school to learn how to program, that's silly. If that's all I wanted to do, I'd just take some classes at the local community college.
I'm going so that I can be exposed to challenges that I would never face just browsing around the internet.
I'm going to be exposed to problems, a wide range of problems, that would not come up in the course of normal programming or software development.
I'm going to explore areas of computers that I would never know existed.
I'm going to see if even more or even deeper education would be something I would enjoy, love or be passionate about.
I'm not going because 50, 60 or 70 hours of work each week and school for the next 4 years is going to be fun.
I'm not going because "computer jobs are hot right now."
I'm not going so that I can have a lot of money, although increased financial comfort is a perk.
I'm going so that I will be in an environment that will allow experimentation, exploration, and failure without severe punishment.
I want to learn about creating software from the ground up.
I want to learn about creating software that builds on the work of others.
I want to start by broadening my horizons.
I want to finish by finding my focus.
I don't want to narrow my vision at the cost of missing out on interesting problems and jobs.
I don't want to widen my focus at the cost of not being able to do anything well.
I want to expand horizons to find interest in areas I haven't yet considered.
I want to narrow focus so that I can remove from my list areas that I definitely don't want to get into.
I want to find areas where my interests collide and pursue those with the most attention.
I want to listen to the people who want to build me up.
I don't want to listen to anyone who only wants to drag me down.
I want to pursue, even briefly, every opportunity available to advance my skills and my career.

Interests include: artificial intelligence, graphics, natural language processing, interfaces (HCI), information management (Keeping Things Found), web applications, clustered applications, starting a software company,

First Post.

This is the first post. I'm here for myself and if anyone else happens to find anything interesting, rock on. I start school again this coming fall. I've already got a bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts / Theology, but it's was time to follow another path. I will start my pursuit of a Master's degree in Computer Science with a year of prerequisites, after which I will be on to all the software engineering and artificial intelligence I can handle.

I'm hoping for this collection of web-based information (I refuse to use the word 'blog' in reference to this site) to be a place for me to chart the progress of my degree through regular entries. I'm not looking to chart the actual work and grades, but more the thoughts, desires, inspirations, events and projects that contribute to my personal and professional development as a "software engineer."

From here I'm starting pretty fresh. A few very minor programming projects under my belt and a decent handle on only one real programming language , Python, mean I've got a ways to go. I've chosen the formal education route rather than the certification route for a few good reasons:

1. At the end I'll have a degree. This is concrete evidence that I can set a goal, pursue it, and complete it, along the way setting and maintaining high standards for myself.
2. Exposure to interesting problems that I would otherwise miss.
3. Contact and networking with high level contacts in the field of Software Development. Not only contact, but the ability to work with them in an environment more open than a workplace might be.
4. The ability and opportunity to choose what I want to study and the requirement that I am thorough. Also, that this requirement is set outside of my person and outside of my control.
5. I've chosen to go for a Master's degree rather than another Bachelor's because I am very ready to focus on a subject without another 60 hours of humanities. I've chosen to go for a Master's degree rather than a PhD because I am not ready to say I want to do focus on research. I also don't have any background in research and I haven't taken the GRE, so it would be quite difficult to get into a program that required those two.

As I write this I am employed by Sprint as Technical Service Representative in a Sprint PCS Store in the Baltimore area. It's good work, I'm really not going to talk about it too much, though. I am passively seeking new employment that will follow more closely my upcoming education. Or new employment that will at least pay a few more dollars an hour. Sprint is a great company and has really come through with the benefits. Medical insurance rocks, having a baby isn't cheap.

Beyond school and comp sci and work, I live with my wife and son in Baltimore, MD. We homeschool exclusively and certainly intend to keep it up. I have grown to love the free version of launchcast internet radio at work, especially the indie-rock, coffeehouse, and cool as folk stations. Even with their pretty lame self-advertisements they talk less than any traditional media radio station. We currently attend Central Presbyterian Church which has been a lot of fun so far. Great music at the 11:30 service and a lively and active young adult ministry, highly recommended for anyone searching for a friendly, living church. At home we use Firefox and the adblock and rip plugins. I HAVE NOT SEEN AN AD OR POP-UP IN THE LAST SIX MONTHS. AT ANY POINT. ON ANY WEBSITE. I felt the need to announce that last one, too many people complacently accept the pervasiveness of mind-assaulting advertisement in this american culture. We run Ubuntu linux and Windows XP on our two main computers (we have four running, three actively). Additional info will have to wait, it's back to work for now.

Adam